Yet the pundits were all slating Germany last night for not playing a "proper" striker as well, having one is over-rated.
Not a great result for the Irish considering they were the better side. Vialli on the BBC now.. TBF he was a decent pundit at the World Cup if I remember.
Great game between Italy and Belgium tonight. A masterclass in counter attacking 3-5-2, showing it's not quite the dead formation some think it is...
How is Wilmots still Belgium coach? They've been useless in every game I've seen & his choices tonight were baffling.
Got back tonight from 4 days in Lille, staying about 5 miles from the centre. Went to the Germany Ukraine game last night, wonderful stadium and excellent atmosphere. We were sat at a restaurant in the area where it kicked off between Ukraine and Germany fans, but had moved on about an hour earlier so we saw no trouble. Generally the atmosphere was excellent, we mixed with Germans, Albanians, Dutch (!), Welsh, Irish and many others. Great city, shame it's going to get trashed later this week when Russia and England turn up.
Yup, you can't play with just 1 striker against a back 3 and expect to get a result. Was expecting a change when Origi came on but he just took off Lukaku instead!
Playing De Bruyne out wide, and leaving Carrasco and Mertens on the bench but then starting Fellaini as well :sick1: Don't get why you put Vermalen at CB instead of Vertonghen either.
Wilmots is a disaster. His managerial CV is dreadful and he is entrusted with the country's golden generation. He takes about 10-15% off their potential if they had a proper coach and thus they are consigned to mediocrity interspersed with the odd magic individual performance. Utterly hopeless and out of his depth.
3 points. The center of the park is yours, the midfield is far superior in quality to Italys. You're matching them in wide areas, whilst the combination of Hazard, Origi + Lukaku (with KDB always around) will keep the defence busy. Game over.
Prodl will most likely get a game in the next one at least. Gabor Kiraly in goal at 40 is amazing. 40 years old, good value for a mistake each game in his career and he has hardly been tested. The poor man's Ibrahimovic, Arnautovic has just spent the whole game falling on his backside begging for a foul.
Well, Ronaldo made a proper *** of himself last night didn't he? Absurd post match comments. Did he really refuse to shake the Iceland players' hands?
He kind of did. Was having a go at the ref about something after his last kick of the game free kick, maybe that they moved forward over the white spray. The ref was walking away and he was following while one Iceland player tried to shake his hand. Not sure if there was another instance. He was behaving like a tw@ though.
A narrow victory for Slovakia today and an England win tomorrow would guarantee England get through to the next round. Wales would only need a draw to knock Russia out. I think in WC86, 90 & 94 any team that got a win and a draw and finished 3rd in the group always qualified.
Slovakia showing just how impressive England's result and performance on Saturday was. As I said, absolutely hopeless.
