Summer of Football thread: Euro 2020(1), Copa America, CONCACAF Gold Cup

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As Battista alluded to, I do indeed support Germany. This is obviously not the strongest Germany side ever (although it’s good to have Müller back), and we have a comically tough group, but I hope that the side can benefit from having the least amount of expectation on them pre-tournament in ages.

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Eriksen is reportedly conscious and stable. Huge respect for the professionalism and courage of the medical staff to revive him under such immense pressure, and for his teammates for shielding him from the prying eyes of the media, and referee Anthony Taylor for immediately spotting the severity of the situation. This is what every football fan hopes they will never have to witness

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The match will resume in 12 minutes. This hopefully means that Eriksen is no longer in a serious condition.

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Germany quite frankly played Portugal off the pitch today, although defensive frailties were still present. All the dismissive takes after what was by no means an especially bad performance against France are looking rather silly now.

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England v. Germany, it is then, just about. Cue the full awfulness of the British tabloid press.

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Lol, ESPN is calling Denmark's run a "fairy tale", completely ignoring that they were in a group with 2 useless teams and one of the weaker "big teams", 2/3 of teams progress from the group stage, and they played one of the worst teams on paper in Wales in the Round of 16.

Portugal 2016 - winning the tournament after winning only 1 game against Wales - was both a fairy tale and a bit of a disgrace.

My pre-tournament prediction was for Denmark to reach the semis. However, considering the events of their opening match, I think it is fair to say they have outperformed expectations in that regard.

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As my second team, delighted to see Switzerland go through, and fully deserved as well. My favourite game of a Euros so far which has wildly exceeded my expectations. I can only begin to imagine how parochial boy is feeling right now!

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England should get to the final. We're playing the Ukraine on Saturday which should be an easy win; and then (if we win) Czech Republic or Denmark, which should also be an easy win. In the final we play one of Spain, Switzerland, Belgium or Italy; though I doubt the lattermost. My prediction is that we get to the final and lose, albeit putting up a good performance.

Denmark have played better than England at the Euros so far.

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Italy played very cleverly, but truly disgustingly, in the final few minutes of that game, and the ref fell for it totally.

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At this point, there really is little to separate Denmark from Italy as tournament favourites.

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Shoot me, but I think England are going to do it.

At least, I hope they do, they are by far the most sympathetic of the teams still in.

Denmark, surely?

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Shoot me, but I think England are going to do it.

At least, I hope they do, they are by far the most sympathetic of the teams still in.

Denmark, surely?

In "support the underdogs" yeah, I'd love to see them do it obviously. But I feel pretty positively inclined towards this England team in particular (far more so than Spain or Italy, especially after their outing against Belgium), and there's a romantic side of me that would love to see England finally do it.

I was referring in particular to the trauma that befell Denmark in their opening match, and the team’s magnificent response to it. They seem to be everyone’s second team this tournament.

I agree that this England side is fairly likeable; the core fans are as awful as ever, though.

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England might be the weakest team remaining in the tournament even if Spain looked worse this week. Just relax.

It's coming home

The home:

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Harsh on Spain, were probably the better side over the 120 minutes. They really grew into the tournament as it progressed. Congrats to Italy though, have been the best side over the whole course of the competition.

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What an extraordinarily dreadful match.

What makes you say that? I thought it was one of the best of the knockout stages so far. Very open.

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England were the better team on the day, but the circumstances in which they have gone through are so disgraceful. When even all the English pundit hacks are saying the penalty was soft, you know it’s a blatant dive.

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Oh my f-cking God, there were two balls on the pitch when Sterling took his tumble for the pen. Scandalous officiating.

https://mobile.twitter.com/CWShanahan/status/1412886766764367877

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A laser was also being shone by an England fan in Schmeichel’s eye as Kane was taking the penalty. Tbf, not the referee’s fault, just the typical awfulness of England fans.

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England were the better team on the day, but the circumstances in which they have gone through are so disgraceful. When even all the English pundit hacks are saying the penalty was soft, you know it’s a blatant dive.

It was a blatant dive but there was also a small amount of contact. I'm afraid that football's badly written rules and the frankly Byzantine nature of the unwritten ones that referees have to abide by often lead to messy situations like this. I like the sport a great deal but there are reasons why I prefer Tennis and Cricket, must say.

Indeed. It is was it is and England were the better side, but it leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth. From a neutral’s perspective, no one wants to see a match of this magnitude decided in that manner.

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Deserved win for Italy. Clearly the better side. Feel bad for my Arsenal boy Saka though…

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I think it’s safe to say that England will not be hosting a major tournament for a long time now. I hope all the Italy fans got home safely.

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I’m not really sure that the average knucklehead abusing Rashford et al pays much mind to whatever Johnson and Patel have to say. I doubt the situation would have unfolded any differently even if we had Prime Minister Corbyn flopping to the floor every five minutes.

I mean, it doesn’t change the fact that their behaviour has been nakedly hypocritical and cynically politically oppurtunistic (more so than is usual for politicians trying to exploit sport).

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I’m not really sure that the average knucklehead abusing Rashford et al pays much mind to whatever Johnson and Patel have to say. I doubt the situation would have unfolded any differently even if we had Prime Minister Corbyn flopping to the floor every five minutes.

I mean, it doesn’t change the fact that their behaviour has been nakedly hypocritical and cynically politically oppurtunistic (more so than is usual for politicians trying to exploit sport).

Well Boris Johnson is Boris Johnson, so opportunism is a given and I don’t think it’s especially worse than it has been on previous occasions, after all we all remember the Olympic farrago and some of us will be aware of Blair’s awarding OBE’s to the entire English test team of the 2005 Ashes (including Paul ‘Seven Runs’ Collingwood). I don’t really see the hypocrisy here. One can criticise kneeling down and one can also criticise the abuse of players on social media. This is just another one of those gotcha moments - if they’d remained silent or issued more tepid condemnations (you can’t really get more condemnatory than stating it’s a matter for the police after all) then they’d have been pilloried for that too.

I think the thing that sits so badly with many people is he and Patel saying that it was okay to boo your own players, which is pretty much the worst display of disloyalty possible in football, then trying to tie themselves to the team’s success.

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Spikes up into the head is always a straight red, whether it's an attempt on the ball or not

This is correct. More football fans need to read the rules on red cards. More referees need to as well, come to think of it.

“A tackle or challenge that endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force or brutality must be sanctioned as serious foul play.”

Hard to think of a more textbook example of this than the above.