just a quick poll out of interest to see who us English are backing now our country disgraced us

Question:
Who are you supporting in Euro 2008?

Choices:
Germany
Spain
Portugal
Italy
France
The Netherlands
Greece
Croatia
Austria
Switzerland
Poland
Sweden
Romania
Czech Republic
Russia
Turkey

 

Obviously as everyone knows I'm not English, so I'm used to being a neutral at these tournaments, so I'll be supporting the Germans

OK, make that three for Germany and none for the other 15 .

I was excited ( ) by the comments of Frings today about how he's worked harder than ever before in order to reclaim his place after two serious injuries.

Contrast that with the attitude of entitlement of some English players and / or their preference to take the easy option (US league etc).

Because many of them are not seen regularly in the CL, it's easy to forget just how classy some of these German players are.

Frings has played 75 times for Germany. Schweini's past 50 caps and he's still only 23, for heaven's sake. That's staggering imho . Think about it. How capable a footballer must you be to achieve that in a national team like Grmany?

Same applies to the coach who seems to be highly effective but has minimal public profile outside Germany.

I went to the Wales v Germany game here last September and Schweinsteiger ripped us apart. It was one of the most accomplished displays I've seen at a game I've been present at (and I've been to hundreds over 30 years). OK, we gave him a little too much space, but nevertheless, he made us pay in bucketloads. He's now one of my favourite players after watching him do that to us

He's great although has been a bit off form recently and there's even talk here today that he's not a certain starter.

One of the strengths of German football is that they've got any number of central players who are capable enough to command a game with a match winning performance. It's often Ballack of course, or Schweini.

Even in their recent injury hit phrase when the team was patched together, Lahm did it v England (in a position he'd not played before) and so did Poldi v Cyprus (ditto).

And it's also of course why Hargreaves is a totally different animal to most UK midfieldersof course. He came up through the same system.

I'll be supporting Holland, although I don't think they'll win it.

I've always like the way the Dutch play.

Johan Cruyff, Ruud Gullit, Dennis Bergkamp & Ruud van Nistelrooy are amongst my favourite footballers ever.

quote:

Originally posted by vbland:
Lahm did it v England

I like Lahm, one of the most under-rated players in the modern game

Well, Lukas P has certainly hit the ground running

A great display, but I'd have taken Gomez off instead of Fritz. Unless he was injured, of course. Gomez did nothing apart from miss that easy chance

quote:

Originally posted by vbland:
Well, Lukas P has certainly hit the ground running

Owww yes! Cuz he's awesome he is
My fantasy team is off to a great start Annoyed that Fritz was brought off though
Frings shud have been taken!

I always support Germany as my second team.

quote:

Originally posted by revenge is sweeter than you ever were:

quote:

Originally posted by vbland:
Well, Lukas P has certainly hit the ground running

Owww yes! Cuz he's awesome he is
My fantasy team is off to a great start Annoyed that Fritz was brought off though
Frings shud have been taken!

Problem is, Frings was superb last night and he and Ballack link up brilliantly. If anyone should have been subbed, I'd have gone for gomez when Schweinsteiger came on and maybe pushed Podolski into attack

I suspect that Fritz went off because, realistically, Schweini is (like Frings) ahead of him in the first XI.

Perhaps J Lö was putting down a marker - look what we can do even with some of our top-class stalwarts sitting on the bench (and with incrasingly ropy keeping) .

I agree that Poldi's star turn masked brittle displays by Gomez and (more worryingly perhaps) Klose. I think Gomez needs international matchplay so I can see why he was kept on.

Otherwise, it was exactly like Germany always play these days. High tempo attack from the start, bit of a breather in the middle, then step up again. Clear win. No goals conceded. And so on.

quote:

Originally posted by revenge is sweeter
Owww yes! Cuz he's awesome he is

And from my entirely unscientific sample of German women spoken to this morning, a number have been keen to tell me that the man who pushed their hot buttons last night is none other than Saint Jögi himself.

Lots of "he's so - sigh - sympathetic" type lines accompanied by fluttering eyelids .

Germany scored me 16 points in my dream team v Poland, which was good. But, cheers Buffon, he did his best to wipe that out last night

quote:

Originally posted by AndyCardiff:
Germany scored me 16 points in my dream team v Poland, which was good. But, cheers Buffon, he did his best to wipe that out last night

Yes, what a shocker. I'm not going in a fantasy league but, if I had, I'd have picked him too.

Also, haven't last night's results rather changed our perspective.

The top half of the draw was regarded as the weak one with the glamour teams at the bottom - but, suddenly, Portugal and Germany look like the heavy hitters.

dont ya mean Netherlands??
cant believe France! they wasted my time! *pwwwwt*
i expect awesome points 2nite though!
have 6 spanish & 1 swedish
god i love metro & there 3 transfers a day