UEFA EURO 2016

Also *** Portugal, they got the easiest group. Not fair!

Do you guys have another thread for Copa America so I can lurk on that one too while I am at work? Or do you guys not watch it all?

If we can discuss it here I think that the final would be Mexico 3 Argentina 1 (Because since I live in Texas and it doesn't look like Team USA is going anywhere, this championship at least, I will cheer on my neighbors down south)

SEE?? This is why I wanted to make a soccer general thread! *stabs Leneth*

James my love is playing there.

James got hit pretty hard, as of yesterday commentators said his eye/face was still swollen... wonder how many games off he is going to get.

Tipp saved!

So you want a handicap so that the average user can compete with you?^^

Mhh.. while one can always guess the ones who scores as well, there won't be any bonus points! (unless the majority agrees on it.) Outside a few defenders with a header after a corner, most scores are produced by the same 3 persons which makes guessing a bit easy.

I don't think we have a channel which covers it, but I am not too sure at the moment. As for a thread, maybe try the random sportsball thread..

I never said you could not open one! But I would like the Brasil thread to remain as it is, for the good feelings it preserves.

Anyone else hoping Spain get beat tonight?

Tonight? No, I don't care. During the tournament though, yes I would like to see them lose if their performance is boring to watch or if they play against Germany. (or if they face Italy before it meets us. I really want revenge...)

Not me

Looks like Germany's defense took another blow. The replacement for the injured Mats Hummel got injured today. Antonia Rüdiger suffered a hit to the knee. Couldn't find a diagnose yet.

Khedira and Boateng both had to abort the training for safety reasons.

You're so not missing much without Rudiger <_<

I said that in the OP too, but I still prefer a second class defender over a third class one. (not counting world class as first class).
Even without injuries our defense is already bad on the wings (said that in OP too). Thanks to the injuries we have to put these bad defenders already in our center as well..
Well at least the young Joshua Kimmich is guaranteed to have playtime now. Good investment for the future.

Did he use to be an adventurer?

I had something similar (arrow) in mind when Seha talked about Verratti, but I avoided it out of respect.

EDIT: Germany is weak. We just had our first game without getting a goal for over a year! and we lost to slovakia just a few days ago. Unlike the other people here who downtalk their teams (which are favourites) I have justified reasons to do so.

Germany is not a favourite this time. Getting into semi-final would be a surprise, but of course I dream of the championship regardless of reality.

EDIT2: @Sandraa want to participate in the Tippspiel (guessing game)? See the OP for rules. Same goes for Herrera.

That would be Germany. Everyone thinks Germany and France are the favourite teams this year.

This Italy is very weak. Reporters can't stop harping about how it's the weakest we've ever been in the last 50 years or something.

Mind you, all teams are not extraordinary this year, so I think the bar is set pretty low. The quality of players around is much lower in general compared to the past competitions. I hardly see any champions with capital C.

The Germany of the World Cup 2014 is the champion of the world.
Lahm quitted afterwards. The best right wing defender we had. Making one wing stable allowed us to play in a different way. Guardiola moved him to midfield position and Löw took over that change. I remember how the whole country screamed to put him back to his original position. The game vs Algeria came. Germany on its way to defeat. Mustafi got injured which forced Löw to put Lahm back to his original right wing position for the rest of the tournament. How that ended we all know.

Also let us not forget France 2002, or spain 2014. titles of even the recent past don't mean anything.

I know everyone outside of Germany thinks that. But it really is unfounded. For that I'll make a quick reality check:

Germany 2:4 Argentina (rematch after the world cup final)
Germany 2:1 Scotland (a close win yes, but vs scotland)
Poland 2:0 Germany (The first loss vs Poland in history!!)
Germany 1:1 Ireland (draw against the team of which you stated that even your weakest Italy since 50years will defeat)
Germany 4:0 Gibraltar (a team of policemen and firefighters that always plays with the goal of keeping it single digit.)
Spain 0:1 Germany (a spain without its best players after a bad world cup, defeated only by a 25m shot)

These were all games after the world cup in the same year 2014.
One already noticed the huge drop in quality.

2015:
Germany 2:2 Australia (and it continues w)
Germany 1:2 USA (and goes on)
Germany 3:1 Poland (revenge for the defeat in 2014, it was needed or we wouldn't have ended up as first in qualification for the Euro 2016)
Ireland 1:0 Germany (50 years comment from above with even more impact!)
Other 3 games were Georgia 2x and Gibraltar with wins, but one cannot lose vs them even with just 8 players on the field <.<)
France 2:0 Germany (Last game of 2015, no chance at all!)

2016:
Germany 2:3 England (favourite?)
Germany 4:1 Italy (yes, but it doesn't count. Italy never even tries to win against us in friendship games. It's like they don't want us to analyse them and then beat us EVERY SINGLE TIME in the KO-phase of a big tournament.)
Germany 1:3 Slovakia (first test game after the 27player squad nomination, so pretty much the team that will attempt the Euro 2016)
Germany 2:0 Hungary (not as one sided as the result, and that is vs Hungary! Oo)

I didn't leave any game out. Make your own judgement. This is reality.

Rüdiger is definitly out.

I insist that the bar is set very low in this cup. All teams are weaker than ever, so the hierarchies are hardly different.

For reference the quotations for the first 8 teams:
France 4.20
Germany 5.50
Spain 6
England 10 (lol)
Belgium 11
Italy 17
Portugal 18
Croatia 27

aside from England which is really out there, that's about what you'd expect.

Lower the score more chance of winning?

Thing I've noticed about Germany is that they're a Tournament side. They don't tend to play well in friendlies but they're a total different class when it comes to games that matter. England on the other hand, entirely the opposite.

It's most likely from a betting site.
The number is the factor of the return.
So if you paid one £ for betting on England, you get 10£ if they become the champions for a net profit of 9£.
The lower the factor the more it is expected to happen.

All my illusory dreams for this tournament rely on this. But I fear it will be like 98, 00 or 04 all over again.

Up to this point I agree for most teams (excluding teams like belgium and poland who went up). But I really feel like Germany dropped in the hierarchy for this tournament, based on what I saw in the last 2 years.

Poland could be a nice surprise. Milik-Lewandowski yum!

It will hugely depend on their path, but if they are not too unlucky they have the potential to be semi-final candidates.

It starts tomorrow, everyone who wants and still hasn't given me their Tipps (guesses on the game result), do it!
Rules are within the OP.

One of our last few remaining defenders cought a bad cold... <.<;

7 hours till the first game starts.
Friday, June 10: France v Romania (BST 20:00, CET 21:00, ET 15:00)

No big news from Germany's Lazarett.
A few players can train again, but won't be ready for the first game.

Vorberichterstattung (reporting before the actual event) started 30 minutes ago in German TV.
Stadium is filling up...slowly I'm feeling that it really starts today.

French team is kinda bad, defense is utter ***, I don't see us getting far. Especially considering the mentality of most of our players, who are complete retards.

I'm glad the coach left out the REALLY bad players (in term of attitude) as it's a remake of the 1998 world cup in term of coach vision, but there are still a few terrible elements to have in a team (Evra, to name one) and the ones that are good people aren't as good as the bad elements we left out, so this is pretty much team B/C.

If we win, I'd be really surprised, just like most of the French people.

Could you elaborate? I'm surprised because he is actually one of the very rare players I've ever heard not sounding like a complete dumbass or broken record during interviews.

It's starting. I need 5 goals from France for 3 points. Let us see how the 'best' defense (weak group) of the qualification crumbles.

and away we go!