England vs France Last Night

[EFM's Librarian]

Surely it has something more to do with opera?

 

I've yet to ask my mum about the school episode, but shall try and remember tonight for you.

 

Anyone know if the tennis nets are up at Clarence park yet?

 

 

 

Just re-read, that message, apologies for the slightly 'Claire' style of it

[AFF]

Hi Libro.

 

A vague bell is ringing in my mind that it dates from the das of the Music Hall. At the end of the show, the M.C. would say "It's not over until the fat lady sings.....and here she is", but I might be wrong.

 

Libro. I thought of you at the weekend. I was watching something on T.V. and they mentioned the Dewey Decimal system being inferior to the 'Library of Congress' classification of books in libraries. Have your studies reached this stage?

[Claire!]

Quote:

Big J R said:
Thought you were an expert on singing and knowing when it's all over !

Soory ! Must have been mistaken.

OK, as long as you wern't suggesting that i should sing, and then it would be over. If you havn't noticed, i aint fat anymore. Tubby yes, fat no, so even if i sing, it certainly wont be bl@ody over.

[Northern Monkey]

Libro right it is an operatic reference

referring bto the days whem mezzo-sopranos were usually of the largeer varity of female and they usually had the closing aria( i think)I have some sneaking suspicion it may even be a Groucho Marx quote. Who Knows. <img src="/images/graemlins/affig.gif" alt="" />

[Northern Monkey]

batards

easy for them to say

Translated = ha ha we beat les rosbifs!!!! <img src="/images/graemlins/affig.gif" alt="" />

[GHA EFM]

In my very own humble opinion...

 

[*] England's goal was the only chance of the first half, for England. A goal very much against the run of play.

 

[*] In the second half, England defended around 30 yards too deep, trying to sit on the 1-0 lead over the European and former World Champions. That's never going to work.

 

[*] As a goalkeeper facing a free kick, you organise the wall to cover one side of the goal, and you cover the other side. James didn't really cover his side too well.

 

[*] Could've tried to stand up instead of bringing Henry down for the penalty, and once Zidane steps up, he's not going to miss.

 

[*] Of every single player on the pitch, I would have Zidane, Henry, and then Owen, taking a penalty. Rooney had a very good game last night (King my MOTM), and could possibly've taken it himself.

[YB941 5thD EFM ~soul~]

Quote:

England's goal was the only chance of the first half, for England. A goal very much against the run of play.

You must have been watching a different game to me, GHA. We were fully worthy of our half-time lead, and France had only threatened once (Trezeguet's header).

Cheer up everyone, for fks sake. A team rarely wins all three group games, and if we were going to lose one, then France was the best one to lose.

[AFF]

Hi Zealadan.

 

I'm with GHA on this one. According to 'opta-index':

 

France........................Ingerland

57%.......Possession.............43%

5.........Shots on target.........3

12........shots off target.........5

5........corners..................2

 

The French comfortably shaded the first half playing with a lot more skill than we did. We competed very well mind, and showed flashes.

 

At the start of the second half, France went into overdrive and we couldn't maintain the level of pace. They murdered us for the first 30 minutes until the penalty incident.

 

It's only one game. We can beat them in the final.

 

 

[YB941 5thD EFM ~soul~]

AFF - those OPTA stats. Are they first half stats, or stats for the whole game??

 

Not that I take much notice anyway - when Ramon Vega is 5th best defender in the Premiership according to OPTA stats, you know they count for fk all!

 

Agreed about the final. I saw enough last night to convince me that we are more than capable of beating France, or anyone else for that matter, in the Final.

 

 

[AFF]

Without wishing to sound negative, Zealadine.....

 

The Ingerland back 4 have got to play out of their skins

again ....Scholes & Lampard have to do it again and Beckham & Gerrard have to raise it......Owen can't play that badly again and Rooney has to do it again.

 

Ericsson has to leave well enough alone when it's going O.K.

 

While all that's happening, Henry & Trezeguet have to have a second 'mare, and Zidane must have an off day.

 

A walk in the park.

[YB941 5thD EFM ~soul~]

Eh? Have I misunderstood?

 

In your previous post, you suggested that yes, we can beat them in the final??

 

 

[Big J R]

The actual quote is,

 

"It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings ! And here she is !"

 

For the life of me, I can't remember where it comes from, though !

[YELLOW]

Well sorry for my negative comments last night Zeal but just felt so pissed off and angry. We played well for 89 minutes. We were never going to dominate the game but we produced a performance very simlar to the one against the Argies at the 2002 World Cup.

 

King, Campbell and Neville were outstanding. The amount of times King and Campbell got a head or a foot to the ball to clear. France were not spectacular and I've seen them play alot better. What was frustrating was we lost our concentration at a crucial time and at this level and against a side of France's quality you just can't do that.

 

I think we'll get through, Switzerland and Croatia have been the poorest teams at the tournament so far and in fairness we played alot better tha when we lost to Portugal four years ago.

 

Roll on Thursday!!

[CANV EFM]

normal service will be resumed by thursday.. by then we shall be confident we are once again the best team in europe and the world, we will be happily predicting a 4 nil stonking of the hoarders of jewish gold and spectacles..

one thing that is bothering me tho.. why was david blunkett at the match..? what a waste of a ticket! just sit the useless [****!!****] in front of a stereo radio and get two of his mates to sit next to him and stand up at the important bits ..

 

back to the france game.. i thought we did ok yes we did defend to deep, yes beckham has never taken on a player down the right in an england shirt, yes it would be nic eto see beattie and rooney out there .. but if we had won that game (and we should have) we would be talking ni terms of 'rourkes drift' and 'heroes' etc blah etc..

 

also i thought king had a great game .. terry will cost us a goal when he next plays by being out of position or not picking his man up.. am i the only person who dosent rate him..?

[YB941 5thD EFM ~soul~]

No. I don't rate him either.

 

Someone on here was moaning that England always seem to do it "the hard way".

 

Surely, if we'd beaten France, that would be doing it "the hard one".

 

By beating Swizterland and Croatia, we will be doing it "the easy way".

 

 

[AFF]

I have just received one of those circular E-mails from a chum who says that one of the French players has failed a drugs test taken following the match on Sunday. If true, Ingerland may be awarded the three points.

 

Perhaps we should reject the points in a spirit of sportsmanship and all that stuff.

 

My mate is with one of the fancy Law firms in London so it would be better to get confirmation from a more reliable source.

[YB941 5thD EFM ~soul~]

Check out the Euro 2004 Forum on here, AFF!!

 

Are you a Carlsberg drinker!!?

 

 

[AFF]

Oh. So it was a ...what's the word I'm looking for?.. errr....joke.

 

Typical Lawyer. I'll probably get a bill for that.

[mdetaylor]

Not very nice AFF.

 

I was there on Sunday - three observations:

 

1 - Nice ground inside. Outside is still a building site, you have to walk down a motorway hard shoulder to get in and the facilities are probably division 3 standard.

 

2 - Apart from when Rooney turned and ran at the French the build up was too slow. Time and time again Scholes got the ball, looked up, checked back on himself and passed square or back ignoring Ashley Cole if he overlapped.

 

3 - In the event there was any forward pass it was either: (a) hit at head or chest height at Owen/Rooney not giving them the best chance against two 6 foot plus centre halves; or ( played to feet but in a channel of about 15 meters wide straight down the middle. The ball would then be knocked around a couple of times and either lost by someone trying something fancy or passed back again to be hit long.

 

I accept that the idea was to sit deep and deny inparticular Henry any space behind the back 4 but the long ball/narrow play was not going to create much. There was a kind of grim inevitability that from about 70 minutes France were going to score. The defence were outstanding but you cannot afford to give any team quite that much posession.

 

All being equal however there were enough plus points to suggest that England should have few problems against the Swiss (particularly with Vogel suspended) or against Croatia. All we then need is the plucky (I believe that is the correct term) Greeks to beat Russia and set up a replay of Old Trafford - Beckham free kick in the last minute anyone ... here is to hoping!

[Claire!]

We're going to win tonight though!!!!!!!!!!

 

Keep smiling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!