Football Related lesson

In hindsight, I’ll bet England are thinking it would have been less of an embarrassment to lose to Northern Ireland, and they might have won!
Also they could have been - er - sympathetic to Wales if Iceland won and pointed out the size difference if Wales beat Iceland!!

1 Like

I sure hope that Wales will do well against Belgium tonight (in Oz) - the Red Devils are a very strong team, but the Red Dragons have a strong spirit, it could be interesting :exclamation:

3 Likes

Beat them in the qualifiers so have proved it can be done. I’m certainly not keen on the 4:30am start for my Saturday though haha.

2 Likes

Now you know how I used to feel when I had to listen (no TV) to All Black’s games at 02.00 a.m.!! :wink:

1 Like

Haha yep. Lifelong Arsenal & Ajax fan so ‘fairly’ used to middle of the night games. Just getting softer and more sulky as I get older :joy:

1 Like

If the rugby was still on at 2.00 a.m., I’d record it and watch it at a civilised time!!! Lwc dda Cymru heddiw!!

Woohoo!!!

1 Like

Oh my gosh. Cars are hooting in downtown newport, singing is wafting across the roof tops from Rodney parade…

3 Likes

Wow what a game ! Lost for words

Oscar got up to watch with me. Fantastic. Absolutely stoked!

My nephew in Gent is very disappointed, he foolishly predicted 2-1 for Belgium, and was allowing for 1 goal by Bale out of sympathy for Wales. Ha!

1 Like

I know someone, a Welshman, that dreamt a 3-1 scoreline. So he put a bet on. For Belgium.

Wonder if he’ll ever live that down…

3 Likes

I chucked a sneaky fiver on WAles before the tournament at 65/1. Hedged my bets by adding a fiver on Germany too though.

As you all know, my ignorance of this game is profound, but I heard a reporter, before we…dydd hapus iawn…won…ennill…

anyway, this reporter said, “Of course we could end up with Wales v Iceland in the Final!” He thought he was joking, but I started to think…
Belgium, England… rich (I presume) Leagues… lots of expensive players…loads to choose from…what do you get? Are you not in danger of getting a load of prima donnas, all wanting to shine?
Iceland is tiny, everyone knows everyone type tiny. Huge cwtsh of feeling, team spirit. Cymru - pel droed normally over-shadowed by rugby, not that many brilliant players. Gets excellent - is it coach or manager? - Gary Speed, who begins to put together a team of likely lads, who become friends. After his terrible death, they are determined, with his friend Chris Coleman, do do it for Gary! Is it any wonder they can win? So - why NOT Wales v Iceland in the final?? :thumbsup: :sunny:

England are now and always have been overrated. So I’m not too surprised they got knocked out. Belgium have a gifted group, but they aren’t a team unless things are falling their way. Could see it this morning in the game, lacking that same spirit, people trying to do things themselves instead of as a team etc. Although I think if Nainggolan hadn’t spent the 80 minutes before flying about like he’d been shot, he would have gotten a late penalty at 2-1. Ref was good in ways, yet below average in others. The yellow card stacking is utterly ludicrous. But still very happy.

Roedd y gêm yn erbyn Gwlad Belg yn gyffrous iawn. Dwi’n edrych ymlaen at y buddugoliaeth nesa yn erbyn Portiwgal. Roedd y gôl Hal Robson-Kanu yn arbennig. Lllongyfarchiadau i dîm Gymru.

1 Like

The pool to choose from is relatively small in the case of England: the leagues have large numbers of overseas players who do not qualify to play in the English national team, this has been a problem for England for ages, as Mick said

Aha! Just what is happening to rugby!! (Yn Gymru.). But that is self-inflicted. There are, after all, a lot more little boys playing football in England than in Iceland or Wales. Why doesn’t the English Football Association set up training schemes to bring on those lads so they end up playing in the English leagues??? Is it laziness? Is it stupidity? Is it parsimony? What do they do with all the TV money? Pay the players ridiculous sums for being, in effect, modern slaves, bought and sold like merchandise! Can a player refuse to be sold?
Why don’t they learn by watching Wales and Iceland? I guess Spain is another example of too many players bought in? Certainly Real Madrid bought Gareth and that Portuguese chap! (I’ve forgotten his name!).

Yes and no to all of the above. Yes, there are a phenomenal amount of foreign players in the premier league. But for a large part these are top players who improve the quality of the league. And that in turn should help raise the quality of the local players.
As for the money, not much of that would find its way to grass roots. The clubs have their academies yes, but an interesting figure I came across perhaps a week ago was uefa qualified coaches. France and Germany for example have tens of thousands around the country coaching. Something like 70000 in Germany I think it was. Say 15 kids per coach is what, just over a million players getting top quality coaching. England was down around the 3000 mark.
Not necessarily a cause or solution. Just food for thought.

I don’t know if you saw a clip on TV where an Icelandic lady footballer mentioned that her country has more coaches per head of population than anywhere else in - I’m not sure if it was Europe or the world! So it looks like you have a good point!! However,

  1. I was sorry Iceland got knocked out.
  2. Thinks… Iceland beat England…what would France have done to them? Transmogrification comes to mind!!
  3. I saw the crowds in Iceland still cheering their team after the game, because they had all done so well! They will get heroes’ welcomes home and I hope Wales do too, even if we get knocked out!

I think, in a way, we are both right!