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You are here: Home / Sports / Euro 2020 Football (Soccer) / Early Morning EDT Sportsball Thread: Euro 2020 Updates

Early Morning EDT Sportsball Thread: Euro 2020 Updates

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This post is in: , ,

Reminder: I am fully aware that (a) I don’t know soccer, and (b) ‘Nobody here’ [for specific values of ‘nobody’] ‘cares about that sports crap anyways’. Meanwhile, here’s a place for you footie folks to discuss the tourney, timed as best I can for your schedules & mine…

Strongly held opinions! political content:

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And for future reference, ICYMI…

Reader Interactions

30Comments

  1. 1.

    piratedan

    congrats to the medical team for their rapid response and efforts.  Kudos to the players for shielding Eriksen from the prying eyes of the media while the med team did what they needed to do.

    Accolades to the Danes and the Finns on how they handled themselves when the game was continued.

  2. 2.

    Sloane Ranger

    Glad that Eriksen seems to be OK. I really admired the Danish and Finnish fans, who set up a chant with the Finns shouting Christian and the Danes replying Eriksen.

    I’m usually neutral when watching football unless England or another home nation is playing, but I was really rooting for Belgium last night and they really rubbed Russia’s nose in it. I hope Russia lose all their games by a similar margin.

  4. 4.

    cope

    I’ve never quite understood the enmity toward soccer in this country.  It’s a game that a person who has never heard of, never watched could step on the field and begin understanding and playing almost immediately.  They likely would not play well but they would grok the game.  Only basketball comes to mind as an equivalent.

    A friend and I tried to get our high school PE department to support intramural soccer but at the time, late ’60s, it was not meant to be.  I took it up in college, played for four years and earned a varsity letter.  I played through graduate school against teams that were generally composed of nationals from various parts of the world.  There was an Asian team, an African team, South and Central American teams.  Somehow, I became captain of the “International Team”,  the leftovers from every other part of the world.  The highlight of my grad school soccer league career was a Sunday morning pickup game against a bunch of roustabouts and performers from a traveling circus that was in town. Their most flamboyant player was less than 4 feet tall and played in his suede fringe jacket and cowboy boots.  Fun time.

    I continued to play in recreational leagues until my early ’30s when I explosively deconstructed my left anterior cruciate ligament.  I coached boys at the high school level for 28 years and coached club teams when my son was little.  I follow Liverpool and the EPL pretty religiously and always get caught up in major world tournaments, men’s and women’s.

    The point of my reply:  I don’t know but when has that ever stopped a poster here at BJ.

  5. 5.

    JML

    Watching Christian Eriksen go down like that in real time is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in sports. Just horrific to watch. Gave me flashbacks to Hank Gathers. UEFA made a mistake in resuming play later, I think. Yes, the players wanted to finish (apparently even Eriksen told the rest of his squad to finish) but they were in no place to make a rational decision and when you saw the players in tears in warmups…it was like “No, this isn’t right”. Better to finish the next day when people have a chance to process a little. Rough either way, but better to postpone it to the next day. Denmark was still shellshocked.

    Nice but not surprising to see Belgium run Russia off the field. Russian team simply doesn’t have the quality at all. Not sure this is that strong a Belgian side, but they handled Russia with ease. Hope the Russians get squashed.

    I enjoyed the Wales-Swiss tilt; Switzerland had the game in hand until they tried to park the bus and ride it out and the Welsh took advantage, and then the Swiss woke up again and the last 15 was pretty electric with good challenging play. (Nice to see neither team trying to settle for the draw and go for the 3 pts, even if they didn’t necessarily need it) I love rooting for underdog teams like Wales, but they have a chance in international play like this because their squad is usually well-settled and they know each other. Many of the bigger soccer nations have so much turnover on their squads that they don’t have the same chemistry.

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    UEFA threatened to throw Russia out of the Euro 2016 group stages because of rioting fans. As I recall, the leader of one group of such fans was attending Russia’s matches that year as a guest of the Russian FA. So I’m not surprised about them at all.

  7. 7.

    JML

    Gareth Southgate continues to be an arrogant ass and not start Jack Grealish. Ridiculous.

  8. 8.

    Tony Jay

    Yeah, that was a gut-wrenching watch yesterday. For a good chunk of the interminable post-collapse coverage it really didn’t look like there was much hope, and when the news came through that he was awake and breathing…phew. Still can’t believe they went ahead with he game, if for no other reason than the Danish team were clearly in no fit state to play, mentally or physically, with the missed penalty by Hojbjerg making that crystal clear.

    Belgium stonking Russia was a pleasure to watch. In Bad Vlad’s hometown as well.

    Currently England are all over Croatia and could easily be 1-0 or 2-0 up. Nice to see after the braindead racist contingent (for which read England Supporter’s Club) continued with their not-at-all racist booing of the players taking a knee to oppose racism. You know, I’m pretty sure every inch of that crowd is under camera surveillance, and tickets come with seat numbers, so I’m wondering why the English FA hasn’t done the obvious thing and said they’ll ban the Boo Boys for life. Maybe it’s not that easy, or maybe they’re just gutless turds who don’t want to take a stand.

  9. 9.

    Tony Jay

    England have dropped a couple of gears in the last 15 minutes, allowing the Croats time and space to get back into the game. They’re revving up again now, snappier passing, pressing the Croats back into their own half. Given the muggy heat I’m not surprised they’re not going 100mph without pause, but we could really do with making more goalscoring opportunities to underline our on-pitch superiority.

    I’m feeling this could be a game where impact substitutions are very important.

  10. 10.

    dnfree

    @cope: I think “soccer” (as it is called here) is pretty big-time in the US at the amateur level, from preK through college.  Our youngest daughter started playing it as a kindergartner in the late 80s and continued through high school, in a small town with untrained coaches.  It’s expanded since then.

    No attention on the sportsball post to Djokovic v Tsitsipas at Roland Garros?

  11. 11.

    NobodySpecial

    You know, I’m pretty sure every inch of that crowd is under camera surveillance, and tickets come with seat numbers, so I’m wondering why the English FA hasn’t done the obvious thing and said they’ll ban the Boo Boys for life. Maybe it’s not that easy, or maybe they’re just gutless turds who don’t want to take a stand.

    I’m going with both. It’s probably really hard to actually tie a supporter to a particular seat, as it would be easy to switch seats and get someone else in trouble. But they’re also not good at handling racism.

  12. 12.

    JML

    @Tony Jay: As a Villa supporter, I’m still bitter Southgate won’t start Grealish. England started out great, but they’ve faded and let Croatia make more runs and aren’t pressing them as much.

  13. 13.

    tokyokie

    Like others here, I was happy to see Les Diables Rouges put a hurting on the Russkies. I think it’s all due to my wearing my Belgium jersey yesterday. Although I maybe should have worn a Helvetia jersey. After watching France trounce Wales in a friendly a couple of weeks back, I figured the Swiss wouldn’t need my help.

  14. 14.

    cope

    @JML: I felt the same way when Eriksen went down. All I could think of were other super fit world class athletes who succumbed to hidden health issues (Jim Fixx, etc. ).  I hope his issue is transient.

    As for underdog teams, yes, a strong incentive for me personally. I also agree about major national teams ripe with talent that have trouble gelling because they don’t usually play together. I pointed that out to my wife while we watched the recent US/Mexico game.

  15. 15.

    Tony Jay

    @NobodySpecial:

    Announce the policy, make it clear that booing ant-racist statements will be treated as harshly as chucking a banana or making monkey gestures. How likely would anyone be to agree to seat-swapping if they know it means a lifetime ban?

    Go big or look small.

    And with that, Sterling makes it 1-0 for England.

  16. 16.

    Tony Jay

    @JML:

    Grealish is a special talent, and I can definitely see him playing some part in this game as the Croats start to flag in the heat, but damn it if that goal hasn’t just given Southgate’s selection of Sterling the stamp of righteousness. Which is a pity, because I think Jack offers a lot more to the team than Raheem.

  17. 17.

    JML

    @Tony Jay: agreed. getting a result out of sterling doesn’t mean the thinking was correct.

    So far no subs in this heat and it’s only a 1-0 lead. I don’t understand Southgate’s “tactics”. Grealish is a player who can control the flow of play (and will win free kicks in abundance) which helps you close out a match. Not like it’s a downgrade defensively from Sterling, who doesn’t mark back much as it is.

  19. 19.

    J R in WV

    I don’t recall if it was mentioned on the front page, but just very recently my alma mater, Marshall University, of Huntington WV, won the NCAA National Championship in Soccer aka football. Which was amazing.

    I also have a nice green sweatshirt from many years back when the MU American Football team won the NCAA championship up in Idaho, IIRC, it was a loong time ago, before MU went Division I.

    I know BlogLord John Cole is a WVU fan, so am I, every member of my family went to WVU but me. Too long a drive from the farm in SW W Va for me to go to WVU as an adult, and Tricky Dick Nixon took me out of college in the winter of 1969-70 straight into boot camp in March of ’70.

    But still, Marshall is the only other actual university in West Virginia, and when they do well, they deserve a little credit, so here it is~!!~ Actually, my mom started college quite young after being bumped a couple of grades in elementary school, so she also started at Marshall College, where she could live with her Aunt Helen. IIRC she started college aged barely 15 or so. Transferred to WVU where she could major in journalism to graduate.

    Also glad the Danish footballer seems to be recovering well~!!~ Glad I wasn’t watching THAT, which was so close to a tragedy. Modern medical services are a miracle, such a shame so many people don’t believe in medicine until they hit the ER doors.

  20. 20.

    JML

    Color me bitter than Southgate buried Grealish (again). Smacks of managerial arrogance, sending a message that he’s in charge and if he doesn’t want to play someone, they’re gonna sit no matter how skilled. Hope that level of stupid doesn’t end up costing England. Stirling played well, but Rashford gets some run over Grealish as a sub?

    Bah.

  21. 21.

    billcinsd

    I’m looking forward to the Austria-North Macedonia game, hopefully it is a better game than most of the tournament so far

  22. 22.

    TomatoQueen

    Southgate used to manage ‘boro and carries the same worried frown he wore then. I am always annoyed at Denmark about something but Eriksen right at the edge of the world and all its glory was unfathomable–not surprising that the match went ahead, dumb decision full of romance, but if the side wants to do it neither sensible people nor blubbering Steve McMananananamamanananan can stop them. Spurs players, eh? How do they work? My young man’s last caregiver was a Spurs supporter and used to shout at Luca Modric. I want to slap his face, and anyone else who booed. The undiagnosed cardiac issues in athletes ought to be diagnosable by now, too many are dead and forgotten and it’s heartbreaking.

  23. 23.

    JAFD

    My soccer background…
    Back in the ’60’s, when the Philadelphia Ukrainians won the US Open Cup four years out of seven (years in between, were visiting team, championship game v California team), they played some of their games at the Upper Darby 69th Street recreation center* and I lived a few blocks from there.
    *Tina Fey wrote about the Pathmark that was down the block

  24. 24.

    NetheadJay

    Coming in late here, but I’m in Denmark and I think that was the worst night since I started following the National team more than 3 decades ago. Thankfully it didn’t end in total horror and from the press conference this afternoon the situation is relatively stable, but man there’s a strange mood here, both last night and today. I’m still kinda processing it all.

  25. 25.

    ronno2018

    @cope: so cool you were an early USA soccer player and coach.  it is becoming incredibly popular in the US now.  atlanta mls team gets 70K fans in their stadium,  my team gets 40K often.

  26. 26.

    billcinsd

    Evidently, Eriksen was in cardiac arrest before being resuscitated

    The Austria-North Macedonia game has been fairly entertaining

  27. 27.

    ronno2018

    @NetheadJay: I watched it live here in the USA as it happened and started crying and turned the tv off when they started the chest compressions.   I called my sister to talk to her about it and did not want to get an update, but man was I relieved when I finally checked twitter an hour later.  thank god for the trainers, physicians and the automated external defibrillator.

  30. 30.

    burnspbesq

    @JML:

    Not sure this is that strong a Belgian side,

    Belgium crushed Russia with no contribution from its two best players. If DeBruyne gets healthy and E. Hazard gets his head on straight, it’s over.

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