English need to quit whining - the ref didn't give the french a penatly shot for what was clearly a handball in the box (hit the guys elbow and he had his arm up), so really I'd say the English had the advantage in calls that game.

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Originally posted by Z1D English need to quit whining - the ref didn't give the french a penatly shot for what was clearly a handball in the box (hit the guys elbow and he had his arm up), so really I'd say the English had the advantage in calls that game.

it hit Neville's upper shoulder and wasn't intentional. The refs will only call a handball in the box if it is blatant and clearly on the lower half of the arm. And that's the way it should be.

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"No offense, but you're stupid"

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Originally posted by m0sh england plays like shit

What's the point on giving us your thoughts on a match you didn't see?

england had terrible bad luck yesterday and deserve to win imo, but don't blame it on the ref

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Was unbelievable what happened last night, but it's still an early stage so there's still time for everyone to put their acts together.
Go Holland!

Whilst I'm English I'm not incredibly patriotic and have nothing against France, so am not deeply affected by the score, and will happily admit if England played shit & didn't deserve to win or whatever. In this case I think the match was pretty equal all the way through, and either side deserved to win.

HOWEVER, I do believe this was very much a game of luck on the french part... seriously how often d'you get a free kick right infront the goal AND a penalty in injury time? Zidane is indeed a great player but those two goals were no way a testament to his skills, imho.

Also I really don't get why Rooney was subbed for Heskey... Rooney was England's strongest player by far up until that point! Then Heskey goes, fucks up & wins a free kick for France

Normally I'd say hats off to France but I just can't this time. Maybe next time...

To quote a Push tune, 'til we meet again

While I have always grown up supporting England (I am not English) the fans in the student bar made it extremely difficult for me not to smile when Zidane scored that penalty. Particularly, I was standing next to this group of racist pigs who couldn't shut the fuck up throughout the whole match. And this coming from students whom you'd expect to be a little more educated than common folk. And then there are always the idiots who start singing "football is coming home" half an hour before the end of the game. Ha.

I have the impression that half the people in that place were not true football fans and couldn't care less about the rest of the games England was not involved in. Just a pretext to get drunk and sing really.

Having said that, a lot of people say that English media complain too much. I would like to kindly refer you to the Italians and Spanish whom we didnt hear the end of after World Cup 2002. And idiot fans are everywhere. Try to catch a Syria-Lebanon game with some Syrians-ha.

Silvestre should have been sent off, no doubt. But you can take nothing away from the French team. England should have a good tournament with this showing- bar a distaster in the last 2 group games.

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Originally posted by paranoik0 england had terrible bad luck yesterday and deserve to win imo, but don't blame it on the ref

I'm not blaming defeat solely on the ref, but I was pissed off with his decision. He was weak all game, I was surprised Rooney wasn't on a yellow card and James should have been sent off as well as Silvestre.


If Eriksson was going to take Rooney off IMO he should have brought on Dyer (and that's not just my Newcastle bias). He runs all day long and has amazing pace (I'd say faster than Vassell). He could have closed them down and given us a counter-attacking option in those final few minutes, as well as scaring the French defence with his runs. He would have been a much better substitution than Heskey.

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Originally posted by Xavier agonising? Vs Iran, MCG 1997 (2-2) Vs Uruguay, Montevideo 2001 (0-3) Now those are agonising defeats

I never said Australia was any good. I thought the subject was england v france?

I've been watching England's major tournament games with interest since 1986 when they got done by Maradonna in the Mexico world cup. They've never done anything. There's always this buzz about them but they never do anything. They haven't even reached a final yet? What's going on? The closest I think they've come was when Linaker was playing in Italia 90. I thought they're games in that tournament were fantastic, but again, they didn't win anything, or get to the final.

I actually voted for England to win this tournament. I want them to win, I'm just pissed, again, that they've dissappointed.

England have had many disappointments the last 20 years but I think it's harsh to say we've done nothing. We missed a place in the 1990 and 1996 final both on penalties and World Cup 2002 we were knocked out in a tight 2-1 game with Brazil (Quarter Finals), the winners of the tournament.

The English media do hype their team up too much, but I think many foreigners react to this by underrating England. I think yesterday's game shows a lot of the hype was justified because it was a solid performance.

I haven't read the whole discussion so someone might already have pointed this out but France shouldn't have gotten that penalty in the end, it was a missjudgement from the ref...

if you look at the replay you can clearly see that it was a 100% clean challenge on the ball but the ball slipped between the goalies legs.

it's a pitty that they're not using the same system as in hockey where they can check the replay on a little monitor and base the judgement on that coz yesterday it ruined the whole match :/

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Originally posted by davedresden i suggest getting the gabriel & dresden prog-a-minute. in 3 easy steps you too could change the face of dance music. batteries not included. - dave