European Football Thread

[minionofmidas]

Representation of European Nations in first full round of European Cups (CL+UEFA):

Scotland 2 + 1
England 4 + 4
Netherlands 1 + 5
Belgium 0 + 3
France 2 + 5
Spain 4 + 4
Portugal 3 + 4
Norway 1 + 2
Sweden 0 + 5
Finland 0 + 1
Denmark 0 + 4
Germany 3 + 4
Switzerland 0 + 3
Austria 0 + 3
Italy 4 + 4
Poland 0 + 1
Czech Republic 1 + 2
Slovakia 0 + 1
Croatia 0 + 1
Bosnia 0 + 1
Serbia 0 + 1
Macedonia 0 + 1
Greece 1 + 4
Turkey 2 + 2
Cyprus 0 + 1
Israel 0 + 1
Bulgaria 0 + 3
Romania 1 + 2
Ukraine 2 + 2
Belarus 0 + 1
Russia 1 + 3

A few serious upsets this year:

Ireland 0+1
Scotland 1 + 1
England 4 + 5
Netherlands 1 + 5
Belgium 0 + 2
France 3 + 4
Spain 4 + 4
Portugal 2 + 5
Norway 0 + 2
Sweden 0 + 1
Finland 0 + 1
Denmark 1 + 3
Germany 2 + 6
Switzerland 1 + 3
Austria 0 + 2
Italy 4 + 4
Poland 0 + 2
Czech Republic 0 + 2
Slovakia 0 + 3
Croatia 0 + 2
Serbia 0 + 2
Greece 1 + 1
Turkey 1 + 3
Cyprus 1 + 2
Israel 0 + 1
Bulgaria 0 + 3
Romania 2 + 5
Ukraine 2 + 1
Belarus 1 + 0
Lithuania 0+1
Russia 1 + 3

[minionofmidas]

Hertha Berlin

Please don't say that ever again. It's either just "Hertha", or "Hertha BSC".

[minionofmidas]

Ugh.

[minionofmidas]

The grammatical number? Is this an antisemitic joke?

Because, otherwise, I give up.

[minionofmidas]

A triangle has more points.

Oh, heh.

Until tonight, Eintracht Frankfurt had as many points as a triangle... thankfully, we've doubled the count now. With some high drama too - playing better than the opponent but still painfully harmlessly for 80 minutes, then getting the 0-1, coming back two minutes later, and scoring the winner in injury time.

Man was this needed.

[minionofmidas]

Ha, Austria won 2:1 against Romania ...

Are we not sucking anymore ?

Romania seems to suck.

Though that game must have been awfully boring to watch.

Excruciating would've been my word of choice.

After the Italian goal, we dominated the game - overall we had more than 65% possession, a ridiculous amount. Italy didn't get a second shot on target. The second half was played within the Italian half - and yet we couldn't score and struggled to create many decent chances.

Ah yes, that kind of game. But what do you expect when someone's sent off that early and his team's in the lead?

What was the Red Card about, btw? Was it justified?

[minionofmidas]

Red Cards for these elbow thingies - unless it's really, really obviously pure malice and/or nowhere near the ball - generally get on my tits.

[minionofmidas]

2-1 against Cottbus.

We're exactly where we belong at 12th place. There's one or two teams above us that aren't obviously better, and one team below us that isn't obviously miles worse.

Still a weird game; we went down and came back during the first 15 minutes by two penalties that few people would have awarded.

[minionofmidas]

We beat Gladbach 4-1. Should have won by a lot less, incidentally.

[minionofmidas]

There goes the quintuple...

Champions Leage, Cup, League, League Cup and... what's the fifth title?

[minionofmidas]

Oh, btw...
Hamburg's next fixtures on the hunt for the triple:

Wed 22nd Apr German Cup semifinal, at home vs Bremen
Sat 25th Apr some league fixture (away to Dortmund)
Thu 30th Apr UEFA Cup semifinal, first leg, away to Bremen
Sun 3rd May some league fixture (at home vs Hertha)
Thu 7th May UEFA Cup semifinal, second leg, at home vs Bremen
Sun 10th May league fixture, away to Bremen

Lol.

[minionofmidas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vzt2QVjpa0&feature=popular

O. M. G.

And as youtube videos from the Bundesliga don't survive long...

http://soccergoalvids.blogspot.com/2009/04/bayer-leverkusen-vs-karlsruhe-0-1.html

[minionofmidas]

I hope Sunderland stay up.

Yeah,if they go down after all that might finish Al off.

Hope he's back soon.

[minionofmidas]

HE'S POSTING AGAIN!

And you found the only hint I dropped in public right away! Though I told Afleitch via pm, too.

[minionofmidas]

And good rcomparatively harmless triumphs over evil on three consecutive rounds! (Though the evils got consecutively smaller)

[minionofmidas]

United has been very very big even before the Big Evil Three-and-a-Half crystallized for good.

Besides, they still have a couple of players (Giggs, Scholes) who've been there for decades and were actually locally raised. And they beat Bayern on those fateful two minutes ten years and a couple of days ago. That's gotta count for something.

Speaking of ten years ago... The greatest day in World History.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu%C3%9Fball-Bundesliga_1998%E2%80%9399

http://www.dfb.de/index.php?id=321583

http://www.dfb.de/index.php?id=321593

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH1Ihv9k9Ss

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW5jiPvsDc8&feature=related

[minionofmidas]

Eintracht won by the minimum margin they needed to overcome Nuremberg by goal difference? If this wasn't Germany and Kaiserslautern wasn't trying to get into the Champions league, this could have raised interesting questions

Yes. Also note when we scored all those goals, and take out your pocket calculator and look at where Nuremberg stood in the table after 33 rounds.
Lautern basically gave themselves up after the 2-1. It was a scorching hot day.

And of course that 5-1... on the 89th minute when you're still missing a goal to stay in... I still can't believe it.

[minionofmidas]

United has been very very big even before the Big Evil Three-and-a-Half crystallized for good.

Besides, they still have a couple of players (Giggs, Scholes) who've been there for decades and were actually locally raised. And they beat Bayern on those fateful two minutes ten years and a couple of days ago. That's gotta count for something.

I still can't believe it's now 10 years ago... talk about "it felt like only yesterday" (the European Cup final, not Frankfurt staying up ;p). Will I get into your bad books Lewis to say at the 89th Minute of the game my 11 year old self was getting ready to celebrate Bayern's imminent victory against the forces of darkness?
 

No. You don't know Bayern the way we do.
But for not caring about Frankfurt staying up that year, you do. Get into my bad books.
Here's one of them:

[minionofmidas]

5)Barcelona scored 32 goals on her way to the top, a record for a European champion. The previous best was Manchester United from 1999 (29 goals). But United played just 11 games instead of Barca's 13, so they still have the best average (2,63 against 2,46 for Barcelona). 

This is "best average" for "champions league" days only, I presume?
Real Madrid scored 20 goals in 7 matches on the road to becoming the first ever European Champions (just semi-randomly checking the first ever year), which is a higher average.

[minionofmidas]

Just from looking over the names though, it seems possible that Ireland might actually end up in the upper half of the draft?

[minionofmidas]

Just from looking over the names though, it seems possible that Ireland might actually end up in the upper half of the draft?

Not really, no. The seeded teams are going to be Russia, France, Greece and Portugal, in that order. It's based on FIFA rankings (which suck). Right now Portugal is ranked 17th. Ireland is 38th. The Ukraine is the highest ranked non-seeded team at 25th.

Yeah, I could only think of Russia and France as obviously higher-ranked teams when I wrote that, forgetting Portugal.

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They needed it to be. Yeah, Özil's really good (despite looking like a startled frog).
I am yet to see a penalty awarded against Germany in the last ten minutes. I'm at over half a dozen possible ones and counting...

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Wait - is that dried and dusted, or just exceedingly likely?

[minionofmidas]

And now that I'm reminded, that guy Boateng is someone you need to get rid of. He didn't seem able to hold his part in the defense at all. I could see the eventual sending off a long way off.

Didn't have a particularly successful debut, that kid.

[minionofmidas]

Is one out of four bad?

Play-Offs:
Ireland v France
Portugal v Slovenia
Greece v Bosnia
Russia v Ukraine

with Bosnia the sole lower pot qualifier, was my joke guess last night.

[minionofmidas]

Is one out of four bad?

Well, technically it's only 1 out of 5: losing to Spain (1966), Netherlands (1996), Belgium (1998) and Turkey (2000); beating only Iran (2002).

Nah, I meant my guess.

[minionofmidas]

Hear about Sunderland's victory against Liverpool?

Somebody chucked a beach ball on the pitch. As it came down, the white ball bounced off it and went in. They allowed the goal...

Already posted. Thread titled "best.goal.ever."