UEFA Nations League

Can't get interested in this tournament, know nothing about the format because I can't be bothered to look into it ... nonetheless, Gibraltar win their first ever competitive match! And away from home! Armenia 0 Gibraltar 1! And! Netherlands 3 Germany 0!!

gibraltar's existence as an international football team or even a place at all is a horrible joke but at least we get to spare a chuckle for armenia

The kids were half-decent yesterday, even though 3-0 was too flattering. It does seem with Koeman we have a manager who, for the first time in six years, at least knows what he's doing half of the time. Restructuring Holland still a mammoth task, but the talent is there.

Gott hilfe Germany tho.

It was worth watching that game just to see that the Italians have a player named Lasagna.

Also one of the great continental European Kevins.

continental european footballers called kevin

Ireland - Denmark 0-0 but without Christian Eriksen.

there are more layers to the Lasagna story than I knew

"Kevin" or "Kevinismus" in German has become a short-hand for short-lived fads in given names based in pop culture

Gutted it's not Barry, obviously.

LBI - great to see frenkie and bergwijn play finally!

both looked p decent

It feels like the most despondent time to be an Ireland supporter since the Staunton era.

xp Even as the most ardent Ajax hater I have to admit Frenkie is really special. He can only end up at City, PSG or Barca imo. And to think he's only 21 years old; the way he reads the play and prances around the pitch is something to behold. His technique is incredible.

Bergwijn* had a great match as well. Really looking forward to PSV vs Spurs because I really think we can show our best (don't count out up and coming Pablo Rosario either).

* but also Denzel Dumfries! Saw a comment on the beeb abt the match from a Scotsman saying: "Holland playing someone named Dumfries (PSV) is the biggest achievement of Scottish football in at least 25 years" which made me chuckle)

England two nil up in Spain atm.

Three!

Must be the Winks effect.

ah, there's a thread for this thing. Thiago aside, this Spain team is absolute muck

Lol at Ramos. Shambles. The only thing that can save him now is a red card.

what on earth, who are these Spanish impostors?

It feels like the most despondent time to be an Ireland supporter since the Staunton era.

― . (Michael B), Monday, 15 October 2018 09:29 (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wtf at this

OTT perhaps but I haven't felt this despondent about the team in a long while

agreed

there was a bleak comedy to Stan at least

trap lads trap

Current reign of O'Neill has a whiff of Final Days of Trap about it with added PsychoKeane in there also

Christie should have punished that mistake other than that all that’s to report is mcclean trying to kill as many fellas as he can

it's not actually that good of a free kick lads

Top corner me hole

Griezmann 2 - Germany 1. Is this Löw's last match as Germany manager?

theyll be looking for a new löw after this new low, the löw affair is well and truly öwer

Are you stuck in the Pyrenees somewhere? Your ö is shöwing!

(also as if this were whatsapp: i tried to get tix for PSV-Spurs for us but failed; Wanyama's more popular o'er here than I thought!)

Only seen a 5 min recap but Lloris was playing in beast mode tonight.

xp ah cheers but the days are filled as it is until i get höme

Gibraltar wins again what the f is happening

Oh ffs Ireland give us a little help here :( Now we have to at least draw against Wales in Wales.

look if ye cant beat us......

"Is this Löw's last match as Germany manager?"

such a nation of enfeebled methodists, they are even too polite to sack crap managers :p

someone has to nail a theses to the door of the FA iirc

look if ye cant beat us......

― Dmac TT (darraghmac), 16. oktober 2018 23:10 (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Only half the time, apparently :(

wtf Scotland running riot here.

Best dressed men in Albania

better than the world cup this tourney

some very enjoyable games, the game between belgium and switzerland last night was a cracker

i still dont know what they are playing for though - placing in the euros?

For the sheer love of football

*wipes away tear*

Denmark won promotion, so next year it's six big losses. Yay.

winner of each of the 4 finals gets a place i think

I still don't understand it. Why are all the good teams playing each other, and why is there a sort of numpty section set aside for Scotland etc?

That's how it is with leagues. The best English teams are in Premier League as well :)

So there's actually two leagues operating here and that explains the relegation... uh.

Yeah, there's four tiers. The Better Than Denmark, The Just as Good as Denmark, The Worse Than Denmark, and the A Lot Worse Than Denmark. Or at least that's how I understand it.

The concept works well at the lower levels, I think. Kosovo have battered all the teams in their division and get moved up to play better ones next time, for example.

I can’t think of many pure friendlies wrt England more memorable than the Spain and Croatia games recently.

woof

Joachim LÖL

I'd post a hearty "O'Neill Out" although I dont think it would get much better even if we did

mccarthy in

Jamesy Forrest on, er, fire.

raking tackle wouldve prevented

Great idea of McLeish's to put Forrest on the bench for the first game against Israel. I'm giving McLeish absolutely no credit for any of this because the team that he's played for the last two games was forced on him through injuries and withdrawals, it picked itself. Left to his own devices he'd have undoubtedly picked a team of numpties and hod carriers, making sure he could make do with as few Celtic players as possible.

Wee Jamesy is a player

He's scored some great goals in the last two games!

It looks like O'Neill is getting the road

I know he has a reputation for negative, conservative football but do ye have anyone who could score a goal under any manager these days? It looks too early for Obafemi and idk who else there is.

its hard to say. i mean its been a long time since we tried

I'd have O'Neill as Scotland manager any day of the week btw.

gwan so

We're more likely to get Michael than Martin tbh. Either would be better than Big Eck.

Draw!

Netherlands vs England
Portugal vs Switzerland

I'd be pretty #stokedforthemadness if I could figure out what this tournament is about.

it's about the thrill of qualifying for the Euros twice

Is there going to be a thread for the Euro 2020 qualification? I look forward to Denmark playing against Ireland two more times. Four times in a year wasn't really enough.

Scotland got Belgium and Russia, er, nae bother at a', er... England get their usual red carpet easy group.

journalists once more giving it the "this is totally a real competition that is more exciting than meaningless friendlies", PR budget for this must've been massive

imagining someone watching having been tricked into thinking this is an actively competitive match and going spare about how inept England are

I'm mostly surprised about the amounts of Dutch and esp English fans that went to Portugal for this

de Ligt is cancelled

Yup, ages too late.

opposition never knowingly underclownshoed of course

this England midfield is chronic

Took a while but it's a proper pace now

oh dear, ya boy stones

not that it matters as it's just a friendly but Stones with one of the absolute worst performances you'll ever see for England

LOL

4 goals, 4 horrible mistakes. I wonder what the level will be in the D finals (if those will ever take place)

beautiful stadium though :-)

i mean that is the booziest pair of anthems i have ever heard

going it like nfl

they wanted the physical limited Irish theyll get em

Decent start tho increasingly ragged since

gutsy

so there's a 3rd place play-off? lol this fucking tournament

turkey are killing these showpony fools

Norway 2-1 up with a superb Haaland goal after...six minutes.

His opposite number just signed for...us

Maguire should probably have been off for a straight red after five minutes. Two bizarre, completely unnecessary tackles.

Eran Zahavi scored a twenty-minute hat trick for Israel. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does for PSV, he has been one of the most ludicrously prolific strikers in the world for years.

Nations League, wonderful tournament.

I think Harry Maguire might be even less likeable than John Terry. Easy to write him off as just a dumb slab head cunt but I sense a sort of spiteful vindictiveness in there. In another life the lads from Mindhunter would be visiting him in prison talking about all the animals he used to drown.

I almost felt a bit sorry for the cunt as he shambled off, Martin Tyler going on about this being “a terrible time in his life” or whatever. It’s all relative of course but he certainly looks like he’s got some stuff going on atm and could do with a holiday.

are we just going to ignore the fact that a charlton player scored a winning goal for a home nation

I still don't really understand this thing (I speak as a Scottish person). For most countries, isn't it the case that while it would be nice to win your group, the minute that stops looking likely you'd be better off getting relegated, so then you should try to lose your games?

Eran Zahavi scored a twenty-minute hat trick for Israel. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does for PSV, he has been one of the most ludicrously prolific strikers in the world for years.

― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Wednesday, October 14, 2020 10:43 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Same! And it wasn't even our most prolific signing, because we signed effing Mario Götze this window o_O Zahavi has made impact on arrival, by the looks of it, he's quite the personality and scored in his first match. I never knew about him tbf.

Nobody understands this tournament afaik, it's essentially just a more structured set of friendlies?

this should be fun

crazy good attempts from both teams already

deflected and in! wow

Filthy from Lukaku

Lloris beaten near post twice but not sure he had much chance either

ha, ya, man. i was at lunch, but saw it. i feel like france's offensive line tries to be too fancy

France deserved that. Benzema has been so good this season.

and just as i say that, france put one in

Pen for me

France come out serious this half, pretty irresistible

i think so. clumsy tbh

wow. this is getting good lol

Great peno, liked the confidence to have the ball set up and waiting too

Oh what football

Touch from lukaka in the buildup was dream stuff

Keeping an eye on the Euro Under 21 Qualifying score between Portugal and Liechtenstein, 9-0 at half time.

Which way

Given that there are only 15 people under 21 in Liechtenstein...

Theyll fade away in the second half so after the subs you're saying

Terrific break.

lukaku

Boom

Oh no, offside.

Carrasco def on?

What a game

lukaku has been offside quite a few times now

What a free kick.

Theo!

Amazing game.

Wow

Queuing up to hit that

holy crap. the table has turned

france were so confident in this half

belgium were so unorganized

Alderweireld and courtois must be better

Gavi looks an extraordinary talent

good lord

lol i just spotted gavi among all of the spanish squad

he does look like a 13 year old

What a riposte.

Amazing

Another fabulous game

Mbappe should score that tbh

Offside surely

I can’t understand that decision unless there was a Spain player offscreen playing him on.

i thought so, as well. but it almost looked like a spanish player touched it before it got to mbappe, which would make it on, i guess?

He’s still off when the ball was played unless he’s not interfering with play,

Yup that’s what we heard here

i thought so, as well. but it almost looked like a spanish player touched it before it got to mbappe, which would make it on, i guess?

Shot, save, top class stuff

lol i love when they get the goalkeeper to come out as well

it's so ballsy

Great finish to that

Goal should be ruled offside, hes off and its not a new phase ffs

so reading and watching examples of this kind of play, it looks like this is an attacker (mbappe) gaining an advantage due to the ball deflecting off an opponent (garcia):

gaining an advantage by playing the ball or interfering with an opponent when it has:
* rebounded or been deflected off the goalpost, crossbar, match official or an opponent
* been deliberately saved by any opponent

regardless whether it deflected off garcia, it would still be offside, because garcia wasn't deliberately playing the ball. and apparently, a lot of refs call this offside often.

however, it's not offside if the opponent (garcia) deliberately plays the ball:

A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball, including by deliberate handball, is not considered to have gained an advantage, unless it was a deliberate save by any opponent.

so, the ref must've thought garcia deliberately played the ball. his slide was intended to play the ball, but he never reached it enough to intercept and instead it was deflected, which would make it an offside, in my view.

there should be a clause added in the IFAB that a deliberate play of the ball means the opponent has possession of the ball, so it's not merely the opponent's intention to play the ball, and that way all deflections should be ruled offside

https://www.theifab.com/laws/latest/offside/#offside-offence

this is insane. i feel bad for spain

Ice cold finish from Mbappe 🥶 pic.twitter.com/KVndKblXGk

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) October 10, 2021

Agree with that take

Spurs got the benefit of similar vs lfc a few years back and it shouldve been tidied up after that

Mbappe is offside and interfering with play its a simple call

sOUThgate

love it!

To win the World Cup, according to Paddy Power:

France 11/2
England 13/2
Spain 8/1
Argentina 9/1

Now officially a bigger hiding than 1953!

Worst home defeat since the Wembley Wizards in 1928!

you can't be 2nd favs for the world cup and getting dicked at home by Hungary on a rainy Tuesday night.

omg even though idgaf about this competition, this is hilarious!

Channel 4 showing the England games has been a roaring success I must say.

Southgate was a mediocre to absolute shite flop of a club manager. But failing upwards is the English style, so fair enough. It looks like his lucky run has ended now though.

Stop calling me useless, Southgate tells England fans

Really sticking it to those racist Hungarian fans, great to see