[Aberlour10]

Performance of the referees is not the best so far.

[gwnn]

all in all a truthful draw I think after a solid match by both teams.

[Aberlour10]

It seems, nobody is able to stop Flying Dutchmen

[han]

Amazing match. The Netherlands did not play as well as against Italy, perhaps also because France was stronger. But with a little luck and beautiful goals we had a nice evening after all .

[gwnn]

what about your bet?

btw what do you think about the Holland-Romania match? in theory the Romanians may seem like easier opposition for the semis than either world championship finalist, so they may not really want to get any points of the last round.

[han]

Csaba you won the bet, congratulations.

They were talking on Dutch tv about letting Romania win so that France and Italy are out. The tv people all thought that was a great idea and the soccer people all thought it was a horrible idea.

Clearly the players with small injuries will not play and that's quite a few. But I think that the players that do play will try to play as well as they can.

My own thought is that right now Spain seems more dangerous than either Italy or France so it isn't so clear that having a weaker team to be second in the group is good for the Netherlands. It also isn't really clear yet if Romania is actually considerably weaker.

[Trinidad]

After yesterday's match, "Someone else" is leading in the pole. And I think that if "Someone else" keeps playing like they have and are a little lucky (which is always needed) they could win it.

Rik (living in "Someone else")

[Mbodell]

FrancesHinden, on Jun 8 2008, 09:16 AM, said:

Their aim is that when all the betting has stopped, they are indifferent to the actual result of the match. If they have taken £w in bets, and have to pay out £x, £y or £z depending on the result, I expect that they are always planning for (£x+£y+£z) < £x, and ideally for x, y and z all to be about the same.

I know this doesn't happen in practice, because you do hear about bookmakers making big losses when something extraordinary happens but I think it's generally true.

(I've made all of this post up, I don't have any actual knowledge- but it convinced me!)

This isn't actually right, at least for many North American and Central American bookies. While they do move lines in response to action and try not to be hugely over balanced they will often take positions. If they know their fairly accurate true odds estimate and know that the public is over betting one side they will stay closer to their estimated true odds instead of staying at the balanced point.

It was interesting that the Luftansa folks stopped general service and movies to announce the score several times on my flight back to the US from Germany during the Croatia-Germany game.

[Rossoneri]

I'm hoping that Romania will go through.

Italy and France have produced lacklustre performances, and do not deserve to go through.

Times have really changed when the world cup finalists are going to battle it out to avoid getting knocked out in the first round of the Euro!

[gwnn]

I used to play chess and this happened to a friend of mine in the qualifications for the national championships. I think it was the last round or something, and he really really needed a win - so did the guy who he was playing (albeit that guy was probably not making it anyway). His opp was his long time rival and they almost never won against one another. So after about 25-30 moves, in a position which seemed to lead nowhere, they agreed that they flip a coin and the winner wins.

I'm wondering, what if Italy-France is a draw after like 89 minutes? Would they do something like this, literally or somehow unconsciously? Of course if Romania lose, a 1-1 draw is OK for Italy and so is a 0-0, as long as Romania lose by 4-0, but that's the only position a draw is good for either team.

[han]

Well, both teams will start to play more and more offensively so a goal can be expected. I don't think they will "flip a coin".

[Rossoneri]

gwnn, on Jun 14 2008, 08:51 PM, said:

I used to play chess and this happened to a friend of mine in the qualifications for the national championships. I think it was the last round or something, and he really really needed a win - so did the guy who he was playing (albeit that guy was probably not making it anyway). His opp was his long time rival and they almost never won against one another. So after about 25-30 moves, in a position which seemed to lead nowhere, they agreed that they flip a coin and the winner wins.

I'm wondering, what if Italy-France is a draw after like 89 minutes? Would they do something like this, literally or somehow unconsciously? Of course if Romania lose, a 1-1 draw is OK for Italy and so is a 0-0, as long as Romania lose by 4-0, but that's the only position a draw is good for either team.

LOL, that never happened to me last time! (I used to play chess too)

Doubt it though, France and Italy have too much bad blood between them. (Cf. Materazzi-Zidane and Gallas' recent comments)

[Aberlour10]

An interesting detail. According to the new regulations, if the match Turkey vs Czech Republic will end in a tie tonight, penalty shooting must decide which of these teams qualifies to the QF.

Robert

[Al_U_Card]

Not being an afficianado, I caught a bit of the Romania-Italy game.

Not much going on....the Romanians score an "opportune" goal and the Italians seemed to kick (pun intended) their game into overdrive, had several good chances and then got a goal within 2 or 3 minutes. Then, back to not seeming to try. If they could score by "pressing" so easily, did they not have to try to win the game?

[cjames]

What a match! Did BBO crash due to turks go:Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

?


Go Turkey

[gwnn]

Al_U_Card, on Jun 15 2008, 10:24 PM, said:

Not being an afficianado, I caught a bit of the Romania-Italy game.

Not much going on....the Romanians score an "opportune" goal and the Italians seemed to kick (pun intended) their game into overdrive, had several good chances and then got a goal within 2 or 3 minutes. Then, back to not seeming to try. If they could score by "pressing" so easily, did they not have to try to win the game?

It was something about Romanian relaxation after a goal. It's a general phenomenon in most teams, but especially Eastern European teams. BTW Italy-Romania had actually a high rhythm. If you didn't enjoy it, I'm afraid this sport isn't for you

[bb79]

sorry about being fanatic but

goooooooooooooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllll

[helene_t]

cjames, on Jun 15 2008, 09:56 PM, said:

What a match! Did BBO crash due to turks

Not BBO as such but a Turkish tourney I played yesterday evening suddenly got flooded with tourney chat about footie. Has happened before but this time it was really amazing. Detailed reports about which players kicked the ball in what direction after how many minutes etc.

[gwnn]

Appalling performance by our team. I can't believe how they treated everybody's dreams - Austria, far outclassed by Germany, tried, fought, with their last breaths, to win. I even got the impression that Holland (Holland tried not to score in the first half. It's amazing how big a difference there was between these two teams tonight - the Oranje got to our goal in 4-5 passes if so they wished, and we only got one shot on goal in 90 minutes.

[FrancesHinden]

gwnn, on Jun 17 2008, 09:43 PM, said:

Appalling performance by our team. I can't believe how they treated everybody's dreams - Austria, far outclassed by Germany, tried, fought, with their last breaths, to win. I even got the impression that Holland (Holland tried not to score in the first half. It's amazing how big a difference there was between these two teams tonight - the Oranje got to our goal in 4-5 passes if so they wished, and we only got one shot on goal in 90 minutes.

It was really in Dutch interests to lose to Romania, as that would have eliminated both France and Italy. Seems they couldn't quite manage it.