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You can analyse stats all you like, the bottom line is that France are a great, creative, entertaining side to watch, whereas Engerland are absolutely ****ing awful. The gulf in creativity is vast.
Speaking of entertainment, this Portugal v Germany game is brilliant. The polar opposite of last nights woeful bore-fest
Are you not entertained?
It's a tournament, the Germans come alive now. Qualifiers and friendly form is irrelevant for them.
I don’t think France are that entertaining to be honest. Very good side but set up to win the tournament, like all the others, pretty functional. Binners, you’d have self combusted if England drew with Hungary.
Agree re the comments (jonv) comparing international football to the Champions League / top European clubs. Standard is lower. It’s maybe why people think England should be better - the players look better than they are as they’re surrounded by better players.
You can analyse stats all you like, t
I know, right, it's tough when actual evidence undermines your argument.
France are good. They should be, given the advantages they have in demographics. Although when you look at where the players play. Their left back is from Everton! Not even top 6!
The gulf in the two or three star players is vast.
Portugal sloppy and error prone. Germany frantic and error prone. It's a barnburner but hardly great football.
They should be, given the advantages they have in demographics.
What is that supposed to mean?
Nelson Semodo is having a shocker!
Portugal sloppy and error prone. Germany frantic and error prone. It’s a barnburner but hardly great football
It’s ****ing great to watch!
I’m guessing you’re a fan of Italian football? 😉
Italy are the only side who’ve clicked thus far, although they’re in a pretty easy group.
That’s because Mancini is running the national squad like an EPL squad, in a very very un-Italian manner
Serie A is great for people who regard football as a game of chess, but **** me it’s boring
The FA should be looking at this German side (and those of bygone eras) and comparing it to the current England set up. It really is boys against men physically. England seem to breed a certain type of midfield/attacker. If you’re not nimble, small and fast you’re out. Yes, they’re successful at a club level, mostly because they’re being fed by these strong midfield international players. Kante obviously the exception to this rule, but we don’t have one of him either.
I remember when England were a big strong team, they never did much then either.
What is that supposed to mean?
Heartbreaking as it is for football fans but the single best predictor of the outcome of league football is the wage bill. For international it's demographics like population, GDP.etc.
It’s ****ing great to watch!
It's exciting. In a smashup derby kind of way.
Neither team could mark a garden gnome or track the movement of a snail. Passes misplaced, miscontrolled. Neither team could tackle so they settled for kicking lumps out of each other. All germany had to do was slow the game down, keep the ball, kill the game off. So they gave Portugal the ball as much as possible, let them back in.
’m guessing you’re a fan of Italian football?
A) there is no such thing.
B) Christ, no.
Serie A is great for people who regard football as a game of chess, but **** me it’s boring
Pretty sure I just read it was the highest scoring league per game this year?
Edit: according to the Guardian anyway
Anyone surprised to see an Italian team that prefer attack as the best form of defence at these Euros cannot have been paying close attention to Serie A, which had the highest goals-per-game average among Europe’s top five leagues in 2020-21.
Don’t you be letting facts get in the way of Binners’ ranting.
Facts? Pfft! Massively overrated
Does this mean I have to pretend it’s the 90’s and start watching Italian football again?
Sunday morning? Channel 4? 😃
Everyone else watching Serie A again then?
The trick was to watch the Saturday show with the previous weeks goals rather than the Sunday live game, which could often be, er, tactical. Ok, 0-0!
Sunday morning?
I remember Sunday afternoon? Late 80’s early 90’s?
Unless you had Sky it was the only live football on the telly. How things have changed!
Not really - you still need Sky and now BT Sport for domestic leagues. Poxy FA Cup and Scottish Cup on cooncil telly.
spain poland?
spain 82% possession, and win 2-1, the final score being incidental to the possession.
and theyre off......
I remember Sunday afternoon? Late 80’s early 90’s?
It might well have been Sunday afternoon. I just remember watching it every week in a befuddled post-ecstasy haze on the comedown from a massive Saturday night
I may need to start taking ecstasy again to fully appreciate Italian football. Result! 😃
I just hope the premier League are watching how VAR can be made to work reasonably well
It might well have been Sunday afternoon. I just remember watching it every week in a befuddled post-ecstasy haze on the comedown from a massive Saturday night
Anyone else think James "Espresso-and-a-newspaper" Richardson should have been given a Tour de France presenting gig?
I just remember watching it every week in a befuddled post-ecstasy haze on the comedown from a massive Saturday night
Most of what you say here about football reads like you’ve written it after taking drugs. It’s nearly all utter shite.
Football Italia:
Peter Brackley and Ray Wilkins best commentary double act.
Butch: He just turned on a sixpence.
Brackley: Y'know they don't make them anymore.
Don’t you be letting facts get in the way of Binners’ ranting.
Oh, yeah. Sorry. Erm, ManU something! Moanrinho something! Clattenburg, grumble! Bollocks. I've run out.
Oh come on Bravissimo. Lighten up. I know you didn’t qualify and you support a mid-table side but you can’t suck lemons all your life 😃
Anyone surprised to see an Italian team that prefer attack as the best form of defence at these Euros cannot have been paying close attention to Serie A, which had the highest goals-per-game average among Europe’s top five leagues in 2020-21.
Does this make sense? I'm not sure it does. Are they saying Italy can't attack and can't defend? If they attack as a form of defence and they are the highest scoring league, that's means their defence is no bueno. If the attack is the best form if defence, and their defence is turdesque, that mean their attack is also merde, no?
So Alaba steps on a guy's foot in the box. Penalty. Moreno gets his foot stepped on in the box, VAR takes a look, decides it's a pen. Ref agrees.
Sterling gets his foot trodden on in the box, nada. What exactly is the point of VAR if it isn't used consistently?
Heartbreaking as it is for football fans but the single best predictor of the outcome of league football is the wage bill. For international it’s demographics like population, GDP.etc.
That doesn't apply for Czechoslovakia 76, Denmark 92, Greece 04 etc. Too frequent to be statistical outliers
How does Argentina's population and poor GDP compare to England, France or Germany??
Sterling gets his foot trodden on in the box, nada. What exactly is the point of VAR if it isn’t used consistently?
Brexit.
That doesn’t apply for Czechoslovakia 76, Denmark 92, Greece 04 etc. Too frequent to be statistical outliers
You'd have to look at who they played and what the results were before you can say they are outliers. Or frequent.
Some countries do consistently over or under perform their demographics. Brazil is the best example. But it's consistent.
Spain are a completely different team now. They've lost the midfield maestros that used the tikki talks to kill games and put opponents to sleep. They dont attack down the centre, it's all wing play and cross balls for the forwards, and while they actually have forwards now, they aren't great ones. Stones' header from yesterday was miles ahead of anything Morata or Morano could produce.
So the at this stage a Germany Italy final might be my first bet (figure of speech as I don't bet).
You’d have to look at who they played and what the results were before you can say they are outliers. Or frequent.
The point is that your theory doesn't work if major championships are won by teams that don't fit in with your theory . It's happened far too often.
Your demographic/GDP theory would have the USA winning every World Cup. Total nonsense. How do explain the Netherlands, Denmark, the current Belgian team (and the mid 80s one), Yugoslavia in the late 80s/early 90s ?
The point is that your theory doesn’t work if
A) it ain't my theory B) it is statistically sound, not a theory.
There are are about 8? Factors that go into it. From memory, population is the single biggest, National income is second, international experience is 3rd. Can't remember what the others are.
This does not mean that ranking highest in those measures mean you will win every game. That's not how stats work. Those are, however, highly correlated with international success and are the biggest single predictors.
I kept it simple because I really didn't want to type out a treatise. Anyway, in the measures, France should be better than England and they are, almost exactly as much as they should be.
does no-one google anymore? First hit
I'm going to read it properly later, but before googling I wondered on 2 other factors
1/ history or pedigree - we know Brazil is football obsessed (I interviewed a BR candidate for a role recently and one of the questions he asked us was whether we had a works football team! - he got the job too) so something about how ingrained the culture is. I mean, CN and India both have massive populations but don't have a long football pedigree.
2/ Star players - not only in their own right but who can lift a team around them.
I've just scanned the paper / summary and 2/ is definitely in there. 1/ is, as far as I can see by 2 measures - member of FIFA before 1924; and secondly by seeding which is in itself a measure of past performance which is somewhat a measure of ingrained 'footballness'
TLDR - C-O's right, but there's more to it than JUST GDP and Pop.
Uruguay and Croatia export a disproportionate number of talented footballers - both are seemingly genetically gifted.
Given yesterdays results, is anyone going to stick their neck out and predict any scores today. I'm giving up betting, thats for sure, after yesterday 🙂
Surely you've learnt by now just to let Mrs binners bet for you? 😉
You'd think so, wouldn't you?
She had a good day yesterday, as always.
Italy 3-1 Wales
Switzerland 2-2 Turkey
RM.
we know Brazil is football obsessed
I was in Rio for Scotland v Brazil years ago at a conference. I was chatting with a girl who said her grandmother didn’t think Ronaldo should be in the team. I remember at the time thinking my grandmother couldn’t name a footballer.
I'd like to see Wales get a draw tonight but I think they'll get beat (lower GDP and all that 😉).
Swiss v Turkey could be a dead rubber or very entertaining. 🤞
Italy 2-0 Wales
Switzerland 1-1 Turkey.
Turkey will chuck everything at it. They have nothing to lose so balls out.
(Turkey, US, Japan, Australia, Iraq will dominate international football in about 15 years. You heard it here first. Demographics!)
🤣🤣🤣
I'm not confident.
It's going to be fascinating watching Ramsey and James. Moore's size will be missed but I fancy Chielini and Bomucci? Would not have enjoyed dealing with Ramsey's pace. If the ref doesn't let them get away with their usual 'guile' and 'cunning' I might want to revise my first estimate, which was based on an Italian collapsing any time Moore got within 5 yards.
Pretty easy to knock an Italian player to the ground.
Knock? That's being incredibly generous. That was a flat out dive in the box. VAR doing it's usually bang up job.
As soon as they feel a finger touch they hurl themselves at the ground. Someone mentioned the lack of diving. Wonder if they've changed their opinion. This looks like the Euro grass diving Championships of old.
That was a flat out dive in the box.
That was pretty obviously a blatant simulation or whatever the offence is.
Red card!!!
This is why I generally lose interest min tournaments at about this point. Utterly ridiculous reffing. Italy are pursuing a deliberate and thought out strategy of clattering Bale from the back everytime he gets the ball. Allen gets a yellow for an awkward challenge.
Ive lost count of the number of ankles that have got stepped on without even a fre kick. Ampadu gets a straight red for that. Just absurd. Almost exactly that happened in the Spain game for a pen but not even a yellow as I recall. Certainly not a red.
This is the ref who gave the other red card in this tournie. Absolutely ridiculous. Zero consistency. Absolutely pointless trying to play the game. Just come with your best $h*%housery.
Bastoni still hasn't been booked.
I had hoped VAR would be used to clear up this sort of blatant unfairness. More fool me.
Mancini was being interviewed just before and made the point that as it's a British side they'd be very physical.
Obviously played the ref.
Yellow at best for first offence and just mistimed.
as it’s a British side they’d be very physical.
I agree, Italy have been very physical. And snide. So the ref can't claim he hasn't been warned.
A Roumanian ref really has no business in a game of this level. He is utterly out if his depth. When Bastoni battered James off the ball he is still just giving him a friendly warning.
Nope, was perfectly well explained by Peter Walton, ex PL ref that the teams were all told before that that kind of sole of the foot challenge onto the feet and ankles (not really a stamp, but sort of) would be a sending off.
You can argue it shouldn't be, and I'd kind of agree, but when the refs have been told to interpret the law that way, and the teams warned that it would be, the discretion for 'first offence, a bit late' is gone.
The refs don't write the laws, they may not even agree with some of them....but they're there to apply them.
Now - discretion / common sense vs consistency, is a whole 2 further pages.
Nope, was perfectly well explained by Peter Walton, ex PL ref that the teams were all told before that that kind of sole of the foot challenge onto the feet and ankles (not really a stamp, but sort of) would be a sending off.
Which is fine. Except it hadn't been in the innumerable occurrences. So to randomly pick one out of the hundreds for a red card is utterly ridiculous. You can't say the refs haven't seen them, because they have given fouls.
It matters not a wit what UEFA says it's going to do. The players will go by what they refs have done. Apparently this referee thinks everyone else in the parade is marching out of step except him.
An Italian player raked the back of Bale's ankle with his studs very early on he is still on the field.
Just as an aside I wouldn't pay a lot of attention to what Petr Walton says. He is very often tragically ill informed.
Nope, was perfectly well explained by Peter Walton, ex PL ref that the teams were all told before that that kind of sole of the foot challenge onto the feet and ankles (not really a stamp, but sort of) would be a sending off.
Given that warning, yes it was a red, but not sure how consistent it's been. (I worked briefly with Pete Walton when he was still a part time ref, just before he got his PL call up)
Gareth Bale doesn't seem to have done much work chasing down and challenging today.
Gareth Bale doesn’t seem to have done much work chasing down and challenging in the past 2 years
FTFY
I'm not disagreeing with the inconsistency but the fact that others have got it wrong - even he's got it wrong previously in this game - doesn't mean he didn't get that right.
In fact seem the only consistency is that you disagree with everything I say! Even over whether left is right.
Think that was a good result for Wales. Playing with only 10 men for the last 30 or so minutes and not conceding any goals is great. Gutted that Bale didn't get the equaliser though.
Indeed. Fair play to Switzerland, they had a good go at it.
I’m not disagreeing with the inconsistency but the fact that others have got it wrong – even he’s got it wrong previously in this game – doesn’t mean he didn’t get that right.
If every other referee has got it wrong up until now, I'm pretty sure UEfA would have acted to fix it. I think the reaction of the Italians tells you everything you need to know. They were as stunned as the rest. What I'm saying is that Peter Walton says thats what UEFA said. As much as he fancies himself an insider, we will be as much briefed by UEFA as him. I suspect he's got that third hand from his contacts. If you really want to know what UEFA said, go by what the refs have done so far.
The one from the Spain game yesterday would have been reviewed by VAR because it was a penalty. If UEFA had genuinely said what Walton claims, surely viewing the video would have guaranteed he got it 'right'
To be fair, you confused me slightly by saying right hand side mid instead of just right mid. So I assumed you were talking about the mid on England's right.
Based on that game, I think Wales will fancy themselves to go further and I think they'd be right. Whichever of the 3 teams they face, I think they will match up well. I can see them getting to the 1/4s.
Robert Earnshaw said, in the panel interviews and agreed by the other pro's, that this type of tackle (treading on the foot) happens routinely in any training session, and indeed routinely when you play 5-a-side with more clumsy players. UEFA should try and clamp down on the leg breakers to the shin and ankle. And also pull players up for simulation more often..
Its almost sometimes like some of the UEFA bureaucrats have never played the game.
To be fair, you confused me slightly by saying right hand side mid instead of just right mid. So I assumed you were talking about the mid on England’s right.
I don't doubt you were confused but what I actually said was
yelling at the RB to tuck in who in turn would have been yelling at the RHS midfield to be getting back on cover
Anyway, onwards and upwards. Could turn out to be a decent second round for Wales, assuming Belgium win their game. Denmark, Finland or Russia?
Caher. I agree. But if that's what UEFA have told refs (red corner, Peter Walton vs blue corner C-O) that's what they've been told.
And that was well above the foot,
and it was VAR checked so the officials in Switzerland agreed (or at least didn't disagree)
It was quite dangerous play, clumsy but still dangerous
Calhagalou (sp?) did one worse about 10 mins later and got a yellow. It's the inconsistency that is annoying
Billy Gilmour has tested positive for CV19
If close contacts need to isolate then that's England's midfield shut away cos he had them in his pocket for 90 minutes on Friday night!!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57551368
b'dum tish
Why can't the players who have been in close contact just take PCR are tests?
Also UEFA are ****s.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57566224
think they have and come back negative.... seems bizarre that no one from the Scotland squad has to isolate too.... Wonder what will happen is Croatia "kick off" about it?
Seems odd. Surely Gilmour must have been in closer contact with his team mates than Mount and Chilwell walking up the tunnel?
and Steve Clarke was hugging his players at the end of the match. One has to assume Scotland Players don't get a post match massage.
totally not a*sed about this evenings England game now. I knew the new Euros format/expansion was a load of crap but didn't expect a bunch of dead rubbers like this
who knows, England might actually play well now all pressure has been removed. They might even play Grealish and Foden at same time.
this is bonkers
I see the true flag-waving believers are hoping for a third place finish in the group to try and avoid playing anyone remotely decent. What lofty, vaulting ambition.
Next on their wish list: Kane having a shot on goal
Don’t hold your breath.
Through without kicking a ball means I can watch the T20 so i'm all for it.
I knew the new Euros format/expansion was a load of crap but didn’t expect a bunch of dead rubbers like this
It's not a dead rubber for Scotland (largely down to the format/expansion) and it shouldn't be for England, topping the group should be worth playing for although this time, and last time, that hasn't worked out. Maybe the group winners should get a bye and the second and best thirds have an extra knockout round.
It’s not a dead rubber for Scotland (largely down to the format/expansion) and it shouldn’t be for England, topping the group should be worth playing for although this time, and last time, that hasn’t worked out. Maybe the group winners should get a bye and the second and best thirds have an extra knockout round.
Yeah some teams have got stuff to play for, but for some fans (ie England fans) all we have to get excited about is 'ohhhh, who will we be playing next?' rather than 'we might walk this or finish with nothing'.