The best (previous) Euro finals
Not sure it was just that at all. Here's the Final thread which makes pretty constant references to the two divides all the way through the tournament. And in the Final is elf of course.
hah in 2004 i said....
congratulations to Greece, you have to admire their dedication, their professionalism and their organisation.
There used to be a time back when I was a lad when those qualities, and talent weren't mutually exclusive.
To be fair, the final did herald in a dark age of defensive football, with the change in mourinho's style from porto to chelsea, the arrival of benitez as well. Then you had a world cup in 2006 where there was barely a goal in the knock out stages. With portugal scoring one goal in the 23rd minute of the last 16, and scoring their next goal in the 88th minute of the 3rd place play offs.
Even then Italy won the tournament with basically only a defence and the driving fear that they would only be remembered for matchfixing.
That final thread is kind of funny. The reason that all of the irish posse were all on the same side back then was that greece being underdogs wasn't that novel to us, and that it doesn't protect them for all aesthetic judgements.
The other thing that is amusing is the cause of eternal rows on otf, the idea that the failure of the england team to pass the ball to each other is a technical one, rather than a failure of decision making on the part of the players.
Greece's ability to pass the ball five yards sideways when they had 10 men in their own half was heralded as an astonishing achievement for underdogs. Teams from these islands could learn from the technique of the Greeks.
Now given that at the previous world cup, the republic of Ireland had dominated possession against the germans to a degree (58%) that far surpassed spain in 2008 (48%) and 2010, (52%) and then went out and heavily dominated possession against Spain over 120 minutes (55%) despite the roy keane fiasco, and the useless manager. So you can see why we weren't falling over ourselves in awe at the technical ability of the greeks.
another curious feature of that thread is people trying to mitigate greece's unwillingness to try and create a chance, by pointing out that portugal didn't create much either. as though portugal's lack of a centre forward, and inability to break down a ten man defence was supposed to somehow be a mitigation for the crime on our retinas that was the greek gameplan.
Ah happy days.
Not sure it was just that at all. Here's the Final thread which makes pretty constant references to the two divides all the way through the tournament. And in the Final is elf of course.
hah in 2004 i said....
congratulations to Greece, you have to admire their dedication, their professionalism and their organisation.
There used to be a time back when I was a lad when those qualities, and talent weren't mutually exclusive.
To be fair, the final did herald in a dark age of defensive football, with the change in mourinho's style from porto to chelsea, the arrival of benitez as well. Then you had a world cup in 2006 where there was barely a goal in the knock out stages. With portugal scoring one goal in the 23rd minute of the last 16, and scoring their next goal in the 88th minute of the 3rd place play offs.
Even then Italy won the tournament with basically only a defence and the driving fear that they would only be remembered for matchfixing.
That final thread is kind of funny. The reason that all of the irish posse were all on the same side back then was that greece being underdogs wasn't that novel to us, and that it doesn't protect them for all aesthetic judgements.
The other thing that is amusing is the cause of eternal rows on otf, the idea that the failure of the england team to pass the ball to each other is a technical one, rather than a failure of decision making on the part of the players.
Greece's ability to pass the ball five yards sideways when they had 10 men in their own half was heralded as an astonishing achievement for underdogs. Teams from these islands could learn from the technique of the Greeks.
Now given that at the previous world cup, the republic of Ireland had dominated possession against the germans to a degree (58%) that far surpassed spain in 2008 (48%) and 2010, (52%) and then went out and heavily dominated possession against Spain over 120 minutes (55%) despite the roy keane fiasco, and the useless manager. So you can see why we weren't falling over ourselves in awe at the technical ability of the greeks.
another curious feature of that thread is people trying to mitigate greece's unwillingness to try and create a chance, by pointing out that portugal didn't create much either. as though portugal's lack of a centre forward, and inability to break down a ten man defence was supposed to somehow be a mitigation for the crime on our retinas that was the greek gameplan.
Ah happy days.
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