Most Unappetizing Fixture

[Discordant Resonance]

Czechia v Turkey doesn't sound like a goalfest on paper.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Im susrpised you dont follow that up by saying he was drunk.

Well I never said anything along those lines. And I've changed my post to make it clear that Sir Alex could have done better with his team in the 89 minutes available to him, but certainly was not 'drunk'. I'm susrpised you suggested such a thing.

[lambers]

At a guess Swede and Turkey Chilli* to go
(* chilli con carne, rather than the actual peppers)

That's it. Thanks for translating.

[scratchmonkey]

My guess would be Albania - Croatia. Albania got in by being incredibly defensively solid and the current Croat side has a similar approach, albeit with an overall higher talent level, even as their latest Golden Generation are having a harder time getting up and down the pitch. Plus it's not even likely for them to kick off, as the nations seem pretty friendly on the basis of a mutual hatred for Serbia.

[Bored Of Education]

I was just going to come on and say that anything with Poland or Croatia in is hardly going to be a classic. Anything with us in if we’d qualified possibly would’ve been the same but I wouldn’t have cared about that, would I?

[Felicity, I guess so]

I'm not really seeing this love-in between Hrvatska's nazi element and Albania..
I was at Cro v Rom in Bordeaux in 98 and came away shocked/appalled/disgusted at the 'blue boys' and their 'tzigani' chants, sieg heils etc

[Gangster Octopus]

Hmm, I was at the Jamaica Croatia game in Lens, and all I remember about the Croatian fans was that they all appeared to have Australian accents...

[ursus arctos]

The two things are not mutually exclusive

[scratchmonkey]

I'm not really seeing this love-in between Hrvatska's nazi element and Albania..

Surely that's a difference between the fan elements and the actual teams though, I was just saying the "entertainment" of a truly tetchy game with loads of cards doesn't seem be higher than the average.

(That being said, watch this match rival Portugal-Netherlands.)

[Satchmo Distel]

I was at Spain v Croatia in Euro 96 but I don't recall getting near enough to the fans to be able to detect accents. I'd have thought that with that being their debut tournament they'd have sold their allocation to Croatia-based fans, although some ex-pats could of course have bought tickets from the same source as me (UK phone sales, it being pre-Internet).

[ursus arctos]

The expats would have had significantly more disposable income on average

[Gangster Octopus]

We could spot the accents 'cos they were in the same pubs as we were.

[Nesta]

Spain didn't play Croatia at euro 96, do you mean Portugal?

[Satchmo Distel]

Shit, I was at Spain v Bulgaria (at Elland Road), not Croatia. A total memory collapse there. No wonder I didn't hear any Aussie accents.