European Football Thread

[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.

[Landslide Lyndon]

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.

Of course.
We can't compare the old format with the current one.

[Silent Hunter]

Al has good reason to be happy.

I currently don't. Much.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Coming so close to beating the Forces of Darkness was... strange. Still. It's hard to beat the play-until-we-score injury time rule at Old Trafford...

Tragic news though... Portsmouth (one of my least favourite clubs for reasons that I can't quite remember now) managed to win the other day. Ending their impressive losing streak (seven games, seven losses).

[Silent Hunter]

Tragic news though... Portsmouth (one of my least favourite clubs for reasons that I can't quite remember now) managed to win the other day. Ending their impressive losing streak (seven games, seven losses).

Yep, the triangle/line/knife jokes have now expired for this season. Squares aren't as funny...

[Јas]

Argh!

[danny]

Argh!

At least you still have the the playoffs, we need to beat Switzerland away and have Greece lose points at home against Luxembourg just to get to where you are.

[Јas]

Argh!

At least you still have the the playoffs, we need to beat Switzerland away and have Greece lose points at home against Luxembourg just to get to where you are.

Yeah - the Argh! was more about us conceding a sloppy late goal (again) rather than qualification - which TBTB have already decided to try and rig in favour of the higher ranked teams. Double Argh!

[minionofmidas]

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

[Gustaf]

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.

So the rankings are pretty much set in stone. Now, had Sweden been able to take out Denmark yesterday and knocked off Portugal, while Latvia beat Greece and took that second-place it could have been interesting.

Damn FIFA and their rankings and seedings.

Anyway, I saw Germany's game, Lewis. Great show, I must say. Özil seems like a real rising star. And the goal-keeping was top class.

And in case someone missed it, Sweden got knocked out yesterday. End of a great string of qualifications, matched only by Germany, Spain, Portugal, France and Italy among the European teams. I called it before the first game but I'm still not happy about it.

[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?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Sweden can only finished second if Portugal fail to beat Malta on Wednesday, so I'd say it is pretty near over.

[Gustaf]

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...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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

Yeah, the first case was sort of straddling the line, but the second one seemed pretty clear-cut.

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.

And as regards Sweden, see Gully's response. Portugal is simply too good to fail to score against Malta (and Malta has not scored a single goal so far in the qualification). So I guess Sweden's chances are about 0.1% or so.

[Tender Branson]

Meh, if we had just beaten the Faroer Islands in the first game, instead of playing a tie, then we would be 1 point behind France right now and we could have beaten France in Paris in the final game and moved past them into second place ...

If we beat France now in Paris, we'll remain 1-point behind them and fail to qualify.

[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.

[Јas]

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

Greece would have been prefered, but France probably would've been a reluctant second choice for me. We were in the same group for the last World Cup, drew in Paris and lost to a moment of Henry magic in Dublin. Out play-off record is pretty terrible though.

[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.

[Јas]

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).

[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.

[Јas]

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.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I said from the start that we would make the play-offs and then fail as history dictated. And tbh, I can't see myself changing my mind now.

Ukraine and Russia to qualify. A bit unsure on Bosnia-Portugal; depends on which Portugal actually play.

[Silent Hunter]

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...

[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."

[Silent Hunter]

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."

I noticed, but thanks for the point-out.

[minionofmidas]

So I've, in turn, noticed.