EPL Talk - Latest Comments in The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Dave — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:41:54 -0000

2 on the ranking: England?

Made me laugh hysterical!

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Michael — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:30:43 -0000

Inler has been good, but there is no doubt that Yakin was their best player all tournament, and he would've been even without scoring two goals yesterday.

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Shane Breslin — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:30:34 -0000

Tomas Rose-Hickey and Michael,

You're missing Switzerland's best player of the tournament, midfielder Gokhan Inler.

Nice blog Gaffer.

My experiences of watching Croatia-Germany in a pub in Ireland (as opposed to an "Irish pub") can be read here:

http://www.eleven-a-side.com/blogs/viewblog.asp...

Shane

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Hudsonland — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:42:45 -0000

Didn't the Swiss play better in the first game after Frei went off? Jus' sayin' ....

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Kartik — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:30:43 -0000

Frei's injury really changed the tournament no doubt. I just think the Swiss would have been strong if they had had him.

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Michael — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:16:16 -0000

To add onto Alex's list, Valon Behrami and Ludovic Magnin are good players as well.

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Tomas Rose-hickey(formerly ale — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:45:29 -0000

kartik its your opinion and we respect your opinion.
christopher walker, i dont think switzerland is a poor team.
senderos, gelson fernandes, johan djourou, hakan yakin, barnetta, alexander frei are quality players.

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Kartik — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:55:29 -0000

Ranking the top 10 footballing nations in terms of national team talent right now:

1- Argentina
2- England
3- France
4- Spain
5- Germany
6- Holland
7- Brazil
8- Italy
9- Mexico
10- Portugal

Subjective rankings based on technical skill and talent. Obviously controversial, but my point is that three of what I consider the top nine sides are OUTSIDE Europe and do play in Copa America. Thus neither competition has the overall top level talent that the World Cup has, but the Copa matches I prefer as they are artistic and wide open. Five of the top six sides are in Europe.

The World Cup does have minnows like some of the lesser African qualifiers, the US, Costa Rica, Saudi Arabia and Japan who more often than not disgrace the competition and give the seeded teams more glory than they may deserve. So on that level the Euros are more competitive.

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Chris_Walker — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:06:33 -0000

im not sure its 'snobbery' as such. Oustide Europe there are probably only 2 teams capable of winning the world cup and they are Brazil and Argentina. The Euros are a lot more competitive as the quality is generally higher, hence we get to see great games like Netherlands vs France the other night. The flip side to this though is that there always a chance of watching 2 great teams in their own right totally nullify each other

Im not saying the euros doont feature some poor teams though, look at Switzerland, Poland Austria, and this year Greece

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

tampasoccerfan — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:44:56 -0000

Hmm, Euro v. Copa '07?
Copa last year had boatload of goals, crazy scores and very offensive display. And Brazil winning yet again without their top two/three players.
This Euro has had 3/4 really boring games, and several superb ones(all the "group of death" except Romania-France), Croatia-Germany, Portugal's games, Spain's games.
And 4-5-1 is definitely not the death of football. I know defense wins tourneys(Greece, Italy in previous two big tourneys), but it seems that offense will win this time around: look at the potential champions: Portugal, Spain, Holland, why not Croatia.
Bottom line, while the European teams are much more disciplined than South Americans in terms of tacics and emphasis on defense, entertainment in this tournament is not lacking. There are plenty of thrills, even with "safety first" approach. Yet, 2/3 of the goals scored so far have been on counter-attacks...tells you where football is going.
My $ is on Turkey today: they are the better side, but we'll see.

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Hudsonland — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:57:37 -0000

There's a standard America restaurant/bar in town where one of the owners is English (and if his 'Yiddoes' chants are any guide, either a Spurs fan or a rather virulent anti-semitic). I saw all the WC2006 England games there, sometimes over full English breakfasts for the early games.

As the tournament progressed the crowds got bigger and noisier. The Portugal game was on a Sunday morning, before the local laws allow alcohol to be served. I guess they knew there might be trouble if they had hundreds of thirsty Englishmen waiting a couple of hours for the bar to open, so they put a guy on the front door.

"Are you here for the private party?"
"Huh?"
"The private party"
"Uh, yeah, sure"

And thus the beer did flow. There must have been four or five hundred people in there by kick-off, couple of hundred past fire regulations, about half English ex-pats and the rest were youngish Americans who were totally digging the atmosphere. Word had spread that this was an experience unlike anything American sports had to offer.

By late in extra time, the floor was covered in spilled beer and broken glass, and the crush was easily equal to anything I'd experienced on the terraces in the pre-Hillsborough days. It was dangerous, noisy, exciting, and the only time watching a game in a bar ever really matched those good/bad old days for atmosphere.

Irish pubs have never seemed particularly 'Irish' to me. I guess it's like Indian food in Britain, it's not necessarily like food in India, but it's what the British have come to expect.

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

kurtmiro — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:40:20 -0000

Please help I don't want to watch the games as they are too early in the morning here in Vietnam but want to doze whilst listening to them. From the UK originally but radio 5 live is blocked - anybody know any web sites?

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Brad — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:35:38 -0000

I think some euro-snobbery is into play with saying that Euro 2008 is vastly superior to Cope America 2007. Last year's Copa America was a firecracker of a tournament, and while Euro 2008 has heated up starting with the Netherlands-Italy game, those first two days were pretty dull.

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

The Gaffer — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:22:57 -0000

Sanjay:

Sure I do. Name a few games from the opening round of Copa America 2007 that were better than Holland v Italy, Spain v Sweden, Holland v France, Croatia v Germany and Italy v Romania.

Cheers,
The Gaffer

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Kartik — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:05:13 -0000

Copa in 2007 was the best tournament recently I can recall. Copa in 2001 was pretty darn good as well as Amado Guevara dominated the event.

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Sanjay — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:42:50 -0000

Do u seriously believe its been better than Copa America 2007?
You are looney, mate...

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

eplnfl — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:45:23 -0000

To my great luck a new Irish Pub opened down the street from my office. A real pub menu and charm with several nice HD TV's.

The Irish food is fair, the American grub better, but the big thing in a Chicago suburban location you can have lunch and get Euro 08 action. What a stroke of good fortune.

Friday, was the first day I took it in and it was the best lunch I had in a long time. My normal lunch hour covers the 2nd half of the first game. Just wonderful!

Re: The Pleasure Of Watching Spain v Sweden In An Irish Pub

Hudsonland — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:38:40 -0000

I watched (wearing my Spain jersey) with two Swedes and three neutrals. Occurred to me later I should have attempted tapas and smörgåsbord rather than just laying on chips-n-dips.