Euro 2004 - Who Will Win?

[Comet]

rain_king - to answer your questions:
no, I don't think Beckham is brilliant, in the last world cup the only goal he scored was a penalty, where was his "talent" then? In the world cup before that one he was sent off. To understand why I cannot bear Beckham you would need to be regularly reading and watching the English media - as fara s they are concerned, only Beckham plays for England, no one else, so I don't know where that leaves the other 10 players in the team! The media here is obsessed with Beckham, his wife, his clothes and quite frankly many people here are sick to death of having him rammed down their throats day after day.

And our media reports that Beckham's wife doesn't think Madrid is good enough for her, that is why she didn't move over there with her husband!

And as to why I want Spain to win - well, as I said, I can never support England whilst Beckham is playing for them, I am normally a Belgium supporter but they haven't qualified, and as I said, Spain have never won anyting in years, and it would be nice to see a team like that go all the way instead of a team which has won loads!

And I am English and live in England

[Comet]

England - the only team in group B without a point
England - the only team in group B to have lost a match

Hopefully we will see more tears from Beckham after the game against Switzerland, we certainly had a damned good laugh when he missed that penalty and England ended up losing

Beckham the jessie in tears - oh the joy of it

[Avro]

I just knew that Comet would react on this when Beckham missed the penalty!

Me too Bart

I knew that Louise would react like that.
Louise, I don't want to spoil your fun, but England still has 2 games to play.!!!! (Don't worry I'm not for England )

I found yesterdays match really interesting. Especially the last 5 minutes

Greetz
Chris

[Comet]

Chris - I know that England still have two more games, but if they lose to Switzerland, no one in England will be laughing louder than us (unless they are Swiss people here on holiday )

Seriously, I think Switzerland did well to get their draw, when everyone had them written off before they started. It would be nice to see them go into the next round along with France from group B.

[luchtzak]

Chris - I know that England still have two more games, but if they lose to Switzerland, no one in England will be laughing louder than us (unless they are Swiss people here on holiday )

Switzerland is another cup of tea than France, England will not lose a second time in the group!

[luchtzak]

New scores: Italy - Danmark 0-0 and Sweden - Bulgary 5-0

[Avro]

Yep, I've seen most of both games

Denmark-Italy wasn't a splendid game, and well Denmark played better than Italy.

The second game of the day, was clearly the best of the two. Sweden played very well, and managed to show a very nice football. They can go far in this tournament if they play like that.

Chris
8)

[Comet]

Chris - I know that England still have two more games, but if they lose to Switzerland, no one in England will be laughing louder than us (unless they are Swiss people here on holiday )

Switzerland is another cup of tea than France, England will not lose a second time in the group!

Stranger things have happened! No one expected France to drop out of the 2002 world cup witout scoring one goal! Denmark went on to win a tournament once which they had not even properly qualified for, so I could never say that a team will not lose again.

Strange that Italy have not beaten Denmark, but not reallya surprise about Sweden against Bulgaria.

Useless info - during the 1996 tournament, the Bulgaria team were based in Scarborough for a while until they got bored with it and went to Newcastle, I used to see them when I took the dog out for its morning walk, and they were always wearing shorts!

[luchtzak]

I really like the 5-0 Bulgary-defeat as Belgium lost against Bulgary in the Euro 2004 qualifiers

[sn26567]

they were always wearing shorts!

Now we know why you like football so much, Louise

[Comet]

they were always wearing shorts!

Now we know why you like football so much, Louise

Sweet revenge that Bulgaria lost by such a big score. Belgium haven't done as well since Wilmots retired, he was superb in the 2002 world cup, he was what I call a proper captain, better than that specimen we're stuck with in England.

[sn26567]

Sweet revenge that Bulgaria lost by such a big score. Belgium haven't done as well since Wilmots retired, he was superb in the 2002 world cup, he was what I call a proper captain.

I fully agree with you, Louise. Senator Wilmots was a real leader. But the Belgian team is rebuilding itself: look at the recent 0-1 victory against the Netherlands, on their home turf.

[Comet]

Belgium needed time to rebuild a steady team I think, after the world cup they lost their captain Wilmots and then Verheyen also announced he would retire after the world cup, that was two main players gone at once. After that their results went down until the team remoulded itself. Now they are picking up again, we will hopefully see them in the next tournaments.

And they've still got Wesley Sonck

[luchtzak]

It's amazing how big Comet's knowledge is in Begian matters Plans to come to Belgium forever Louise?

[Comet]

It's amazing how big Comet's knowledge is in Begian matters Plans to come to Belgium forever Louise?

I wish As soon as my Bonds come up for a £1,000,000 I am buying a nice place in Brugge, though I also like Kortenberg, for obvious reasons of being good for spotting

Seriously, we did consider it a few years ago, but all the jobs I looked at in Brussels airport needed you to be fluent in several languages, as did hotel jobs, and whilst I have studied several languages, I am fluent in none of them

But I am tired of buying return tickets on SNBA to BRU, so one day I will be buying a single ticket

And if Belgium had been in Euro 2004, my big flag would have been in the window, along with my scarf, and I could have worn my Sonck top

[luchtzak]

Played this night:

Czech Republic - Latvia 2-1

Germany - Netherlands 1-1

Interesting to know how this group will end up as we have many Dutch members on the forums

[Jumbolino]

ok as I'm not a football freak anymore (the last Euro I saw completely was in the beginning of the 80's
but I vote for France as I like Zidane

[sn26567]

Interesting to know how this group will end up as we have many Dutch members on the forums

On EuroNews this mrning I saw amazing pictures of orange crowds in the city of Porto and on the river Douro, making music and singing and drinking beer!

[Comet]

Germany and Holland, bad news for the German fans who thought their team would win, as they were leading until the 80th minute, but good news for the Dutch who managed a draw instead of a loss. You would expect both these to be strong teams with a good chance of winning the whole thing.

Spain play against Greece today, I think they should win it okay.

[meerkat]

@ Comet

Please don't use the language card as a reason not to live and work in Belgium. There are many jobs where your mother tongue is all you would need. Dig around and you will find plenty of jobs and if you do have any extra languages then that will be a bonus. The possible downside is that you may have to work in an ex-pat environment but you still get to live (and spot) in Belgium. The big bonus of coming to work anywhere in the EU is that citizens of other EU states don't need workpermits and visas - I used to work with an Australian woman (she couldn't even speak English properly!!) who had to jump through serious hoops to get a permanent permit.

Go for it Louise and you won't regret it, and you'll get to drink real Belgian beer any time you like!

Personally I'd take Kortenberg over the Yorkshire Coast (except maybe in winter) even if the traffic is damn near impossible these days.

Meerkat