2015/16 Football/Soccer thread

[Rowan]

fuck that goal was good

 

[Nelson Tangela]

The goal of the tournament.

 

[Random Passerby]

Well, Poland somehow got through thanks to that choke by Xhaka. They need to step up their game though as they avoided elimination by a hair's breath.

 

[destinyunknown]

So I'm hearing/reading the opinions of TV analysts and mainstream media about this Wales-NIR game, and all the analysis so far has been pretty much: ''Poor first half'', ''Boring'', ''Terrible game'', etc

How does that even qualify as analysis? Ok, NIR might not be fun to watch, but their tactical structure is almost flawless, and their pressure is extremely well executed. Wales is similar, both are teams heavily lacking in quality compared to other nations, but they have been able to go quite far thanks to good tactics and teamplay.

So my question is, why is the mainstream football analysis SO BAD? The majority of the so called 'pundits' aren't more knowledgeable than your average football fan watching the game in a pub. I have watched other sports over the years, and in every sport besides football the analysts and 'pundits' actually know a lot about the game and make insightful comments about what's happening.

In football however...

 

[Random Passerby]

One of the problems was when they started to employ personalities to give their analysis instead of actually testing out if these people had tactical insight. That's how you get pundits like Owen, Lawrenson, Redknapp, Hoddle, etc. They might be decent players but that doesn't mean they are intelligent enough to dissect tactics.

 

[Lavern]

Watching this match makes me feel like I'm watching stall

 

[Eagle4]

After i criticised the Poland-Switzerland game, there was a goal like 1 minute after.

So this game has been shit (pls be a goal).

edit: Honestly tho, this was my most anticipated game of the day, and what we've had is 0 shots on target and nothing exciting whatsoever.

 

[Nelson Tangela]

I'm not much of a football fan and usually don't really care about this sport,
but damn this match could convince me to never waste another two hours watching it again...
This is just too much of nothing.

 

[Eagle4]

I can just picture this game going to penalties and each player missing the target by a good few metres over and over until the ref says fuck it and decides it on a coin toss

 

[destinyunknown]

Honestly the issue with this game is that both teams are great at doing cynical fouls, which is exacerbated by the referee not punishing that kind of tactical fouling. The fact that after 90 minutes of cynical fouling there have been 0 yellow cards is just ridiculous.

With proper refereeing (or proper rules, at this point I wonder if the referee is the only issue), this match would have been more entertaining, because teams couldn't have relied on tactical fouls to stall the game.

 

[manodelrey]

Gol de quaresma espetacular golo de Quaresma

 

[g]

Quick recap of today's games

Switzerland - Poland:
mouthache due to extensive yawning

Wales - Northern Ireland:
total sleep since the 10' of first half

Portugal - Croatia:
taken some strong drugs, at the end i was wasted as fuck since i imagined Portugal qualifying with a Quaresma goal

 

[phalanx]

Portugal are terrible

 

[Random Passerby]

Portugal are terrible

Lucky as always. Let's hope Poland can kill them off next ( although they too have been far from impressive )

 

[Phadunk]

Poor Modric, had me feeling all sorts of things seeing him cry.

 

[Rowan]

there was a feeling of croatia will never get a better chance than this. Honestly thought they could make it all the way to the final. Now Portugal will be making semis for the 5th time in 6 euros, despite not winning a game in 90 minutes so far

 

[phalanx]

well England could just have got lucky if Ireland win

 

[Nelson Tangela]

45 minutes until the FREXIT.

EDIT: Okay... maybe not.

 

[Random Passerby]

The moment when you realised you just sold Griezmann from your Fantasy Team :-(

 

[phalanx]

buy him back so he stops scoring :P

 

[HBK]

The moment when you realised you just sold Griezmann from your Fantasy Team :-(

This. Replaced him with Ronaldo thinking it was genius.

Was certain Croatia would eliminate us (with Ronaldo scoring a goal or two or so I hoped) but damn. Any progress from this point onward is just over achievement.

 

[Nelson Tangela]

1. Draxler just gave Götze another reason to cry.

2. If Die Mannschaft brings Podolski against you, you just know that they don't take you seriously anymore.

 

[X5Dragon]

The moment when you realised you just sold Griezmann from your Fantasy Team :-(

Well it's a good thing to see the heavy favorites find their groove again. Hopefully we still manage to get a shock or two (if Portugal defeating Croatia isn't to your liking that is).

 

[Nelson Tangela]

So... how many obvious corners have the refs missed today? Seems like alot to me.

 

[No Luck Involved]

Lack of upsets is always sad but on the bright side it should make for high quality games next round so I can't wait! I feel for NI, they deserved something but I guess that's tournament football - if it's not you it's them... I hope Wales can step it up a bit because they haven't been that good so far imo, maybe even not as good as Ireland who played well for 45 mins today and then lost it a bit.

DestinyUnknown - football pundits are the worst, especially the BBC pundits like Alan Shearer. I don't know if they're told to dumb it down as much as possible or if they are actually that stupid. ITV are a bit better for pundits imo but I watch RTE now purely for the comedy. Three absolute dinosaurs constantly arguing and berating each other but they come out with some nice analysis occasionally!