UEFA Euro 2016 - It's a Knockout

It’s good to see that all the home nations that had made the finals of Euro 2016 have qualified for the knock out stages. Unfortunately, I was rather shocked that the rest of the country has decided to leave Europe. I honestly didn’t think that they would go for it but I suppose that is the sort of thing that can happen when you leave cretins in charge of the nation. I checked with the embassy to see how it would affect us. They seemed to say that we had nothing to worry about for the next two years but wouldn’t commit after that. I did rather get the impression that we would be OK but the rest of the country would be screwed. I’ll see how that one progresses.

Anyway, back to the football and I’d say that my feelings towards the tournament so far are mixed. On the one hand, I’ve enjoyed most of the actual football but some of the antics that have been going on in and around the matches have somewhat spoilt things, particularly the drunken, boorish  antics of a minority of the England fans and, more worryingly, the organised violence perpetrated by the likes of the Russian and Croatian “ultras” – basically violent wankers that deserve to be on the wrong end of the Gendarmerie. Well, enough said of them.

I think it is notable that so far there has been no one outstanding team. The likes of the French, Spanish, Germans and Italians have all put in perfunctory performances but not one team looked dominant. This is good as effectively any game is there for the taking and it has been the smaller nations that have put in the outstanding performances. Many of them have been hitting well above their weight. I suppose Wales are an obvious example for me although they do have players of genuine World class standing at their disposal but if I had to pick out one team that have delighted me it would be Iceland who deservedly won second place in their group and also riled Cristiano Ronaldo in the process.

Whilst we are at it: Cristiano Ronaldo is an arse. His outburst about the Iceland team after their draw was outrageous arrogance. I think he needs to look a lot more closely at his own performance. He is obviously a very talented footballer but football is a team game and he seems incapable of using his talents to inspire those around him unless he is surrounded with superstars such as those found at Real Madrid or Manchester United. What is worse, is that Portugal are not even that bad and looking through their team there is some real talent alongside some highly competent team players. I have a sneaking suspicion that he is trying the “old big head” routine that was endearing with the likes of Brian Clough or Muhammed Ali but possibly falls flat due to a lack of self-awareness. He does appear to be very generous with his time and money  in his private life and I suspect that privately he is probably a nice chap - although someone shot me down by describing giving to charity as “The Saville defence” (which isn’t a very charitable view, is it?)

Anyway, from the group games I’m going to say my favourite goal was Marek Hamsik’s stunning goal for Slovakia against Russia with Daniel Sturridge’s goal for England against Wales running a close second. I’m looking forward to both their next games with Slovakia playing Germany and England facing the might of Iceland. Wales also play Northern Ireland which should be a good domestic squabble. That last game should also feature the best of the fans in the form of the Welsh. If the “ultras” think that getting tooled up is going to get them somewhere they are in for a shock: try facing 20,000 Welshmen intimidating the opposition with that close harmony singing!