Soccer

some football showe went into detail on the changes that have occurred in Iceland over the last say 20 years. for a country with such a small population it's hardly feasible they made it to the second round in the Euro Cup

they used to be able to only train well in Iceland for about 6 months a year. in the extended winter period all football players had to play on fields that had snow etc on them. it is only when they had about 10 (only 10!) stadiums built with roofs that could be closed that players could start playing in good circumstances all year round. since there are only about 10 of these they are used all the time, 7 days a week, hour by hour, by as many groups as possible. it seems this was the start of the second generation of internationally worthwile Icelandic football players

Iceland also have a real sports culture in that they heavily encourage kids to practice football through school support. they've been doing it with girls for years. on this show I was watching I heard for the first time Iceland is one of the major players in women's football (never watched it)

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Originally Posted by HANZO

Each player got a bonus of 500,000 Euros just for being there, more than the win bonus of every other team.

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I always marvel at the large amounts of money that Turkish football seems to conjure up. where does all the money come from. tv rights & company sponsors? the amounts are downright astonishing

From the kebab stands outside the stadiums and in the fan centers.

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Originally Posted by Lee Towers

@ Durag : congrats on defeating the Italians & making it to the second round. Ireland - France should be an interesting game

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Cheers.

We were excellent. Hard to describe the emotions after watching it when you see people like Roy Keane crying. If only we had played like that against Belgium. We have a good history against the Italians in major tournaments so we didnt fear them. I think we feared Belgium and were in awe of the players coz we were excellent against Sweden as well. I am worried about France coz I think we could play like we did against Belgium. We do need revenge for that Henry handball though.

Rageing I missed yesterdays earlier games. Portugal Hungary looked epic and would have been great to see little Iceland get a last minute goal.

Cant wait for the weekend now.

Im really hoping the knockouts are a lot more open. The group stages were pretty boring, I think the 3rd place thing had a lot to do with that.

Wales v Northern Ireland should be a cracker. I'm a bit disappointed it's on at 2am here because I won't be able to stay up with my whooping cough lol think Wales should win. They could very well go deep in this tournament.

Switzerland v Poland is hard to choose. Both have been good defensively but misfiring up front. Id probably go Poland just on the Lewandowski factor. He's been subdued so far but it only takes one moment and he's the best striker.

Croatia v Portugal should be another cracking match. It seems like Modric will be fit and playing. Portugal were pretty crap on the group stages but now it's down to moments and somebody like Ronaldo can have one of those games. So can Pepe :lmao: a Ronaldo hat trick and a Pepe red card + fight are just as likely as each other

Should be 3 good games coming up

What a goal by Shaqiri probably goal of the tournament. Shame the goal wasn't enough, the Swiss missed some great chances. The penalty by Xhaka was atrocious.

The current Wales - N.Ireland game has been shit so far. Hope it gets better.

Jesus Croatia Portugal is atrocious. One of the worst of the worst I've seen so far

No shots on goal until the 115th minute. All the games today were kinda crap.

I feel really sorry for Croatia, such a cruel way to go out when they played so well until now. They had such a great chance to make the final but blew it in my mind. The game was boring yes but you gotta give credit to both teams they defended really well.

So it sounds like 3 shit games lol this might just be the worst tournament for a long time. Poland should have scored after 25 seconds that was a woeful miss with an open goal.

Lol Ireland 1-0 up after a 2nd minute penalty wow

I just turned it on and it was already 1-0, what was the penalty given for?

I'm not watching I'm just reading the live score on Eurosport before sleeping but they said Pogba knocked over Long and that it was a definite penalty

I thought the penalty was given a bit too easily

Ireland did really well in the first half! so much energy, had the French team locked down in that they forced the French to play a physical game, which is not the French's strength. the French should have been combining, playing over the ground (Irish backs are too tall for the French's long passes in the air)

France did very little in the first half. but then with the tactical change after the break the French did so much better while Ireland seemed to have spent most of their energy on their superb first half

I thought the second half was a good watch




Boateng just scored for Germany, gonna go watch the game now

Slovakia was ehhh ... not up to the challenge lol

Belgium were 1-0 up and Hungary has a few half chances then I go have my morning poo and Belgium are 3-0 now haha