24 replies to this topic

[AMIW]

Will

a) Ingerland lose to Italy on Penalties on Sunday

b ) ingerland lose to Germany on penalties next Thursday

OR

c) ingerland lose to Spain on penalties on Sunday July 1st

[Born To Walk]

Aren't the Italians nearly as crap at penalties as we are?

[newcastle roy]

Breaking news from sky sports...

Wayne Rooney has tested positive for a performance enhancing rug !

[AMIW]

Aren't the Italians nearly as crap at penalties as we are?

Italy have won 2 our of 6
ingerland 1 out of 5

[MagicRatAFC]

I have a wee notion ingurland will beat Italy.
No idea why.

[AMIW]

I have a wee notion ingurland will beat Italy.
No idea why.

you must have a fever or something after seeing BRuce thats crazy talk....

[MagicRatAFC]

First 0 0 of the tournie, there's a shock.

[MagicRatAFC]

Here it comes.

[LostSoul]

Italy win on Penalties. Probably just as well as England would have lost to Germany in the semis.

[Cozmic Kid]

Italy win on Penalties. Probably just as well as England would have lost to Germany in the semis.

Did England even show up for this game?

[AMIW]

Cant waitfor wc 2014

[newcastle roy]

well done Mr Hog, the worst player on the pitch real low on conferdence...Ash Young..let him take a pen.

the other Ash, mr Cole who is not a goalscorer ( fine game ) let him take a pen ?

fuck sake !

anyway, well done Italy, best team went through

[Orakelet]

There will not be many english boys named Ashley after this...

[newcastle roy]

There will not be many english boys named Ashley after this...

More girls called Ashley after tonight

[dr winston oboogie]

What a great day for all thoise named Ashley......

Shoulda got Mike or Laura to take those kicks.

[Joadboy]

England didnt deserve to get any further than this, but even more worrying was the woeful lack of ambition shown by the tactics that typify all of Woy's teams.

Watching England isn't gonna get any better for a long time, I feel.

[LeoGetz]

Italy win on Penalties. Probably just as well as England would have lost to Germany in the semis.

Italy had to go over 120 min, while Germany has two more days rest. Italians will collapse in the last 20 min against the Germans and will be overrun.

[MagicRatAFC]

Whatever else, Pirlo's pen was fucking champagne.

That took some spuds.

[Mission Man in AZ]

Whatever else, Pirlo's pen was fucking champagne.

That took some spuds.

Agreed.

[LeoGetz]

Whatever else, Pirlo's pen was fucking champagne.

That took some spuds.

Agreed.

But Prandelli looked like he s**t himself.

[Mission Man in AZ]

On Pirlo's PK, I actually started laughing out loud.

[JudgeBrown]

On eve of Wimbledon, English soccer despair

Bruce Jenkins

Updated 10:41 a.m., Tuesday, June 26, 2012






Wimbledon, England -- As morning dawned for the first round of the U.S. Open, the talk was all about Matt Cain's perfect game.Tiger Woods and the Olympic Club could wait; such was the residue of an extraordinary event from the previous night.
That's how it was on Monday's first day of Wimbledon, only without the joy.
The weather was spectacular, but the mood was pure gloom. England's national soccer team had fallen, once again, under the most excruciating circumstances. It couldn't be merely a conventional loss to Italy in the quarterfinals of Euro '12; it had to be the bane of England's existence: penalty kicks.
Although I had just arrived Sunday morning, bleary-eyed from an overnight flight, I built my evening around this event. Given a choice, I would have dropped into a bustling pub in Liverpool or Manchester, the better to absorb the public's fervor. But there's a certain charm to the Wimbledon village, particularly a lively gathering spot known as the Dog & Fox. The place was jammed, complete with painted faces, miniature flags and cardboard cutouts of Wayne Rooney's head.
A pregame television montage whipped the crowd into a frenzy: memorable clips of David Beckham, Paul Gascoigne, Michael Owen and many others in their Three Lions glory. What really caught my attention was the sight of the Italian players singing their national anthem, particularly the esteemed goalkeeper, Gianluigi Buffon, belting it out with his eyes closed.
There, too, was one of the great faces in sports, that of Andrea Pirlo, a mainstay of the Italian midfield for more than a decade. It's a face of leadership and experience, a ship captain's face, the type that demands respect in a game of this magnitude. I immediately ordered a Peroni, a fine Italian beer that dates to 1846. I've always been partial to the England team, but more than anything in international soccer, I back the passion.
Finding a spot in the teeming crowd, I stood next to a robust Englishman with a crew cut, a hard-looking man you'd expect to have worked a jackhammer all day. He really knew his stuff, but rarely spoke. England's moment of truth had arrived, in a tournament held every four years, and he wore the tension of untold heartbreaks from the past.
Not far away, I spotted a fellow American journalist doing a very American thing: fiddling. He rarely looked up from his phone, on which he engaged in texts, e-mails, checks of the Internet, whatever. All of this, apparently, was more important than the event at hand. So it goes with the fiddlers' generation: not watching, not experiencing, not living. Fiddling.
The game raged on, scoreless, through the end of regulation time. Something quite awful was near. After the first of two extra-time periods, the Englishman leaned in my direction and said, "Fifteen minutes to hell."
There could be no other way. Over the course of three World Cups (1990, 1998 and 2006) and two European Championships (1996, 2004), England has been eliminated by that cruelest of sporting exercises, the penalty shootout. Failed kicks are ingrained in every fan's memory, the names unforgettable: Stuart Pearce, Chris Waddle, Gareth Southgate,David Batty and Jamie Carragher, among others. The Germans haven't missed a penalty kick since World War I, or so it would seem. The English align regularly with despair.
"After last night," one of the British tennis writers mumbled in the press center Monday, "you have to feel it's a curse."
If there's an episode to be remembered, it shouldn't be Ashley Young's clanker off the crossbar or Ashley Cole's weak little grounder that was simply caught and smothered by the gallant Buffon. It would be Pirlo's delicate chip, a stirring display of outrageous nonchalance. As goalkeeper Joe Hart played his best guess and soared to his right, Pirlo's shot seemed to float goalward in slow motion, like a falling leaf. Sheer brilliance from the man making his 87th international appearance.
The clinching shot was drilled home with conviction by Alessandro Diamanti, sending Italy into Thursday's semifinal against Germany. England was left to deal with the consequences. Must it always end this way? Are the English to be defined by their pratfalls under pressure?
"I can take the despair," wrote the Guardian's Rob Smyth, calling up an old line from comedian John Cleese. "It's the hope I can't stand."
The morning headlines raged from the angry ("Ashes to Ashleys") to the contemplative ("At Least We Won't Get Hammered by the Germans") to the exasperated ("Oh No, Not Again"). Personal favorite, blaring across the back page of the tabloid Sun:
"Anyone for Tennis?"
Bruce Jenkins is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: bjenkins@sfchronicle.com

[AMIW]

stuart pearce, gareth southgate , chris waddle - great names in footie history

[AMIW]

http://www.dailymail...-Pizza-Hut.html

Found a link to the great 1996 Pizza Hut ad - I bet they still show this in Scotland?

[newcastle roy]

http://www.dailymail...-Pizza-Hut.html

Found a link to the great 1996 Pizza Hut ad - I bet they still show this in Scotland?

That's just plain cruel Andrew... you know must homes in Scotland haven't got TVs yet.