itt liverpool not winning things; sandbox i love football

I suspect Spain might royally fuck this tournament up. Beat Croatia and you're through imo.

Group A:
Poland - Don't know anything about them in 2011, guessing they aren't worth caring about,
Greece - Ninis is the Freddy Adu of Greek football, right?,
Russia - Excited to see Dzagoev but otherwise snore, GROUP WINNER PICK
Czech Republic - Have they produced a talented outfield player in the past ten years?.

Group B:
Netherlands - are they still comedy heels?,
Denmark - will get destroyed,
Germany - Germany v. Holland always a great rivals match; pick to win it all GROUP WINNER PICK,
Portugal - ronaldoseesotherdudespackagecontemplateslife.gif .

Group C:
Spain - snore GROUP WINNER PICK,
Italy - a land of cassano, supermario and berlisconi i want them to have everything,
Republic of Ireland - Trapp could do Italy and Croatia tbh in boring 1-0 wins,
Croatia - Pros: Modders, Cons: Everyone else.

Group D:
Ukraine - lol remember shevchenko? well he's still the best player in their team,
Sweden - I <3 Zlatan but come on,
France - The 3rd most talented team, on a player by player scale but also LOL France,
England - We'll do really well, no-one will really notice and then Wayne'll return GROUP WINNER PICK.

Don't stop at the group stage, get those hostages to fortune out there.

Ismael says: Germany to win, France 2nd, Holland and fucking Greece make the semis.

Germany Spain final in the best international game in 20 years. You know, the sort of game pundits hate because it ends up 1-0. Germany winners.

Portugal and France semi-finalists.

Balotelli gets arrested.

England look good enough to win it, until the old guard come back in and Wayne decides to get sent off 10 minutes in the 2nd round, we lose 3-1 to Ireland in a bout of LOLs.

I can't think of a less appealing opening fixture ever than Poland v Greece.

+/- on number of pol/greek players referred to by name prior to game on uk tv coverage

More likely to get mention of Boumsong now playing for Panathanikos tbh

ireland vs anyone

it will be all "he once had a spell at west brom" and "villa are interested in him" etc etc etc

group c + d paired together for the quarter-finals yeah?

I hope so - if it's B&C paired together the other side of the draw could deliver a pub team to the final.

It is C & D

Krakow-to-Donetsk is almost as far as Krakow-to-London

Fantasy update: I still can't bring myself to get rid of Rooney. I feel sure that he'll get a hat-trick as soon as I sell him. I've got rid of Suarez instead.

Pleased to hear it.

since we have no rolling amazing gol thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8hPOQ_4MVGM

er

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hPOQ_4MVGM

Need a "rolling quite good goal" thread for that tbh.

Amazing they've managed to squeeze two groups of life from 16 teams for the Euros. Next one will have an extra eight teams o_O

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K68Noif-8ao&

at least it means we'll finally see bale and ramsey and hazard and lukaku and also lots of games not worth watching

xpost

so leverkusen-hoffenheim was a bit of a non event last night. Leverkusen won 2-0 but looked unimpressive doing it and hoffenheim gave there usual anemic performance away from home, although Babel missed a sitter from 3 yards that would have made it 1-1 in the first half.

dan m, boxall, and any other followers of the US national team might like to know that Daniel Williams did v well as the sitting midfielder in a pretty negative 4-1-4-1 formation - good anticipation, tackling, blocks etc although his use of the ball wasn't that great. Fabian Johnson started as well but didn't have much positive impact.

dortmund-gladbach this weekend should be good.

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/altreport/2011/12/alt-soccer-coach-jose-mourinho-cover-rolling-stone.html

he's coached real madrid to "championship upon championship" has he?

ha, didn't read past that line. d'oh to me.

consider the source, dude

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/footballs-hidden-killer-6271406.html

about enke and suicide in football

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2011/1128/1224308220678.html

Collymore actually wrote about his own experience of depression in the week before Gary Speed died. It was one of the most accurate insights into the reality I've ever read, tbh.

anyone else gonna watch this? i have a sneaky suspicion it could turn out a classic*

just jinxed this obv

i'm in. trying to decide which team is better off losing from a parochial LFC pov.

present

arsenal,newc,chelsea,lfc straight fite for 4th.

maybe Man U

torres bench warming again
yellow!!!!!!!

FFS

side show bob lucky there

bottled it

I think yellow was probably right, but there were microns in it

HOW THE SHIT IS THJAT ONLY A YELLOW WHAAAAAAAT MUTHAFUCKA

that is about as blatent as there is, fuck a "you dont want to see a sending off this early in the game"

Ba didn't have the ball yet & might not've got there, is how I'd call it. Very very lucky though.

Luiz though. What is he like?

luiz/torres in the january window what a bit of business that was.

i like romeu, looking frwd to seeing him in a 'big' game.

Don't Chelsea have a much more reliable Brazilian defender with some attacking prowess?

luiz to be thanked for taking years off terry's career/life though

not sure ? oh yes on replay

he was waiting minutes to be fouled there

KRULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL