Abrak

Looks like it is going to be tough for GB as Senegal are probably the weakest team in the Group. UAE were very impressive and a bit unlucky in their loss to Uruguay.

Still a better start than Spain who went down 1 nil to Japan.

The GB v Brazil match later tonight - 1.45am kick off - should be interesting. Brazil do really have one hell of a team on paper and it has all the makings of a cricket score. Brazil are now 8/13 to win having been backed down from 8/11. Any punters backing GB are being heroically patriotic I fear.

GB olympic football team get their first outing in a friendly with Brazil on Friday. Live on BBC1.

Without Becks, I think they might struggle.

Well this is a criminal public order case. There will be an FA investigation into the use of racist language against Terry regardless of the trial.

So what are the England and Wales team's chances?

Well here is the Brazilian squad. Actually it is 22, so they have to lose 4. Well 5 actually as Ganso is currently injured but will be ready for the olympics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_national_football_team

They will murder the GB team.

GB will be lucky to make it past the quarters.

didn't scotland say that they didn't want any part of it? hence no fletcher, adam, caldwell etc.

Both the Wales and Scotland FAs said that they were not keen for players to take part for GB in the olympics but that it is a decision up to the players.

Bale has ruled himself out through injury although he was keen to take part.

I dont think there will be any Scots although that is down to the level of players. Same applies to the NOI.

Squad to be announced on Monday.

Interesting to note that the 2 finalists have come from our group. It puts into stark perspective our prospects beforehand of getting out of the group, though the manner of our "challenge" will always remain a huge disappointment.

I think the media has been way too critical of Ireland. England would not have made it through that group yet we are been credited with playing quite well. Truth is, we were lucky with the draw, you were not.

Yes, well the seeding for Euro 2012 is actually a farce.

Poland and Ukraine get seeded number 1 in two Groups despite having the lowest UEFA coefficients by virtue of the fact they are hosting the competition. Spain and Holland get seeded number 1 in the other two Groups by virtue of the fact they have the highest UEFA coefficients. So not altogether surprisingly you end up with a seeding process with two very difficult groups and two very easy groups.

Three cheers for Stuart Pierce for not bowing to what must have been serious pressure from certain quarters, and picking the squad on footballing merit. The impression has been given in the build up to this that somehow Beckham had some kind of entitlement to be picked, due to his celebrity status and the capacity of Brand Beckham for self promotion. I bet Victorwia is spitting feathers!

Well sort of....

I mean actually GB scores 0 in terms of taking this tournament seriously and picking the best players available on football merit.

Take Brasil for instance, their squad (currently of 23) has been together now for well over a month and has had 4 'friendlies' against full senior international teams including a 3-1 win over Denmark and a 4-1 win over the USA. GB havent even announced their squad yet and they are not due to meet until next month.

Of course we are not going to play most of our best under 23s because they were in the Euros squad while the likes of Juan Mata will be playing for Spain. Then you would be hard pressed to say that Bellamy is the best you can do for an 'over-age' player in a tournament when there is a match every 3 days.

So it is pretty silly pretending you are taking it seriously when you are not (and other teams are). And if you are only there for show you might as well include Beckham and fill the stands.

beckham not in the squad apparently. quite a shocker that. times reporting that giggs, bellamy and richards are all in.

Cor... that's a rotten swiz..... Richards refuses to go on stand by and we have to send our best GB olympics RB available, Kelly, out to sit on the bench in Polkraine. Then Richards gets a special slot for the over-aged in the Olympics and our man from Hollywood who almost certainly can kick a mean ball especially if it is stationary, misses out. No slot for Steven Fletcher either - not looking good for Scotland!

Yes it just doesnt stop does it?

Britain will shortly announce its Olympic football squad. The team will play a friendly on July 20th against Brasil and the tournament starts at the end of the month. GB are slightly handicapped by the fact that many of the younger England players will be excluded because they were part of the Euro 2012 squad. Also it seems that for our 4 'over-age' picks (i.e. not under 23) we are going to pick players who are simply 'past it' like Beckham, Ryan Giggs and Bellamy. Still, England could well win this (at least according to the bookies) who have made them favorites to win their Group and 3rd favorites to win Gold after Spain and Brazil.

Of course expectations might be a little high. For instance, in their Group they have Uruguay. Uruguay are led by their 3 'over-age' players which include Suarez and Cavani (a forward from Napoli) upfront and the National team goalkeeper, Muslera.

Still this is perhaps nothing compared to Brasil who in their current 35 man squad have Neymar, Hulk, Damiao and Pato to choose from upfront. Spain are hampered similarly to England by having a number of their best younger players tied up in Euro 2012 but they are EU21 champions.

If you haven't watched it then why are you judging it? Anyway, whats it got to do with you statboy......

Nothing really - I suggest you download Breaking Bad.

Yes I agree. England just doesn't have a really decent playmaker or 2. Without that it doesn't matter how good everyone else is, and some of them are world class. What if Pirlo was English? or Messi? or even Modric. I rather think that would make us champions because the rest of the positions are well covered.

The arrogance didn't take long to return then?

Its getting a bit boring now after all these weeks.

I thought you were busy watching Vengeance Carmine, that looks like a chick series which I imagine is far more boring.

Rooney was very poor want he? I thought he didnt look match fit. Italy havent been particular good in the tournament but England made them look like Barcelona. They are not know as a high passing, high possession team but they had 833 passes with 89% completion and as Stevie pointed out England had less possession and conceded more shots than Ireland.

Overall I think England did well to make it to the last 8 as I think there were at least 8 better teams in the tournament - France, Spain, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Italy, Denmark and Russia. Harsh maybe? Mind you, all the teams that England played said they were better than them.

The answer to you question, yes Paul Scholes can even at his age now and with Carrick and a holding midfielder we would have done a lot better than the Gerrard ad Parker, Gerrard both who just ran out of puff, Scholes evben at his age knows how to pace himself not run around like a headless chicken chasing the ball.

Woeful performance it is time for out with the old guard in with the new, but will Roy do this hahaha don't think so, but it is plain to see bring in the young guns and be patient with them they will gell and deliver in the long run.

Nev, I know you are a Utd supporter and all but dont you think you are heroically optimistic in thinking that Scholes would last 90 minutes (let alone 120 minutes in a match) when it is his 4th match with 4 days rest period imbetween. I mean since he has come back from retirement, he has started 15 matches and lasted 90 minutes just 5 times and has been substituted 10 times. Incidentally Scholes had 0 assists last season while Gerrard has 3 in this tournament.

Parker just reminds me of Park for us runs around a lot falls over but looks ok but not class

It seems to me there are certain players - Parker is one, Johnson another - that even if they play a blinder, some people will always argue they arent much good or just ok.

Just for the record. Parker is ranked...

2nd in the PL for tackles per game

3rd in the PL for interceptions per game

14th in the PL for pass completion at 89.5%

14th in the PL for total passes per game at 59.3

...he is probably one of the top 3 or 4 DMs in the league

How about posting the full list to see who is the best in each of those statistics mentioned, and who are the other two or three DM's you rate higher.

The stats are from 'whoscored.com' where you can easily rank players or teams by various measures.

I guess I probably consider the best couple of DMs in the PL as Lucas Leiva (stats not on whoscored as not played enough games but had the best tackling stats in Europe when injured) and Yaya Toure.

Parker just reminds me of Park for us runs around a lot falls over but looks ok but not class

It seems to me there are certain players - Parker is one, Johnson another - that even if they play a blinder, some people will always argue they arent much good or just ok.

Just for the record. Parker is ranked...

2nd in the PL for tackles per game

3rd in the PL for interceptions per game

14th in the PL for pass completion at 89.5%

14th in the PL for total passes per game at 59.3

...he is probably one of the top 3 or 4 DMs in the league

Except that we will have to pay another 400 baht a month to continue with GMM if we want any German or Spanish* fare with our English game. I suspect that after the 2013 season we can even kiss goodbye to comprehensive cover of the EPL at a reasonable cost. I see people welcoming the onset of competition. Since when was a duopoly good for competition?

*(or was it Geman and Italian, can't remember)

Exactly right.

The FA or whomever will still have a monopoly over premiership rights and UEFA or whomever will still have a monopoly over CL rights. If you have 2 companies bidding for the rights to receive them then the price will simply rise.And if two different companies win the two different packages the consumer will not only end up paying for the increased costs of buying both packages but the extra costs of two set top boxes, two subscriptions channels, extra transponders etc..

I have no idea what Milners role in the team is??

He is certainly not playing as he does at City. Even though he is somewhat limited, he does a decent job at City.

All I see him do for England is stand on the wing with his finger up his rs!!

Personally I would play Walcott or Ox Chamberlain against Italy.

Agree that Gerard is having a magnificent tournament

To be honest whoever has taken that wide midfield role or has been destined for it has been pitiful.

You could in fact argue that Milner was the best of a bad bunch until the 3rd game when he completed just 9 passes before being taken off. Admittedly over 3 games 2 successful crosses from 13 wasnt much to write home about.

Still he was competing with Young who managed just one successful cross from 11 over 3 games and managed to lose possession 18 times in the Sweden game which was rather more than the 11 times he managed to successfully pass it in the previous game.

As for the super sub Walcott who was brought on in the 69th minute of the game against the Ukraine, he had precisely 1 touch of the ball.

Oxlade-Chamberlain is possibly beginning to look good on the basis that he didnt make a single cross so he doesnt have a failure record and 15 completed passes isnt that bad afterall (even if only 4 went forward).

Of course we could use the player with the best pass completion record this season and with the second most assists in an England shirt over the past two years but his name is Downing.

Well I am hoping for a shock win for France tonight. I think it would do Spain good to lose for once. I mean what sort of team plays without a striker? Most people seem to have written France off since they sucked against Sweden but they rank second only to Spain in terms of shots at goal, shot on target and fewest shots conceded per game.

I think that those looking in the central midfield as to why we dont retain possession are probably looking in the wrong place. Parker and Gerrard have 89% and 87% pass completion stat so far this tournament.

http://www.eplindex.com/15792/england-player-stats-accumulated-euro-2012-opta-stats.html

Of course, stats don't tell the whole story, but I found it quite interesting.

Regarding Portugal, for all their shots (both on and off target) how many more goals did they score than England?

Actually that's my point. Portugal is not the anomaly. England are.

You see the conversion ratio for 'shots on goal' in the premiership is 28%. So with 17 shots on target you would expect 'on average' 5 goals which is what Portugal scored. Now England scored 5 goals with 10 shots on target - a conversion ratio of 50%. Very good - exceptionally good. But they are very unlikely to score so many goals with so few shots on target again.

Conversely say France have had 21 shots on target and scored just 3 goals. So you might it expect things to improve. However if they continue to shoot from outside the area it is doubtful as its not a great strategy.

By the way it is interesting to look back at the World Cup when we were generally regarded to have played crap...

In the group stages....

possession 53.0% (42.3% Euros)

shots for 15.3 (10.3 Euros)

shots against 12.7 (17.7 Euros)

SOT 6.0 (3.3 Euros)

I was looking at this today on the BBC.

Looking at that, our possession isn't too bad. It's never going to hit the heights of Spain, but is on par with a fair few other teams. Our minutes per goal just shows we are actually quite dangerous when we have the ball.

I'd have liked to have seen the minutes not in possesion versus goals conceded stats for the complete picture.

The only problem is our very high conversion rate tends to make us look more dangerous than other measures.

So in terms of total shots at goal during our 86 minutes we took 31 which was the 4th lowest of the 16 teams and had 10 on target which was 5th lowest.

By comparison Portugal in their 78 minutes had 50 attempts on goal of which 17 were on target and that was against Germany, Holland & Denmark.

By the way it is interesting to look back at the World Cup when we were generally regarded to have played crap...

In the group stages....

possession 53.0% (42.3% Euros)

shots for 15.3 (10.3 Euros)

shots against 12.7 (17.7 Euros)

SOT 6.0 (3.3 Euros)

just watched the highlights of Portugal v czech rep. Don't think they showed one C P shot, anyone watch the full match, I don't 100% trust the highlights but it looked the most totally one sided in the tournemont so far.

The Czechs were woeful. Not a single shot on target (and only 2 off target). Portugal were the only team other than Ireland to have a lower percentage of possession than England in the Group stages (41.6%) but the Czechs simply sat back and let them have 62% possession. It didnt help that they had 68% pass completion which I think is the lowest by any team in any match during the tournament. All in all, they almost certainly made Portugal look a whole load better than they actually are.

See England are now slight favourites with the bookies to beat Italy in the quarters on Sunday. Seems relatively optimistic to me all things considered. I saw these stats on England v Italy earlier.

The Italy numbers are really about what you would expect for a team that has qualified for the quarter finals - it is the England numbers that are more revealing.

The possession stat is hardly a surprise - the third lowest of any team in the tournament. Ireland was lowest - 3 guesses which team was 2nd lowest (it isnt entirely obvious.)

More worrying is the shot ratio - 10.3 for/17.7 against or 36.8% of total shots. That is not good. In fact it is worse than any team in the premiership (Bolton 40.1%, Wolves 40.6% and they were both relegated, City top 63.6%).

And with just 3.3 shots on target per match you are not likely to score many goals. It is just that England has a 50% conversion ratio (virtually double the average of the premier league) which is unlikely to be sustainable.

I mean we didnt expect England to get many shots on goal so we didnt expect them to score many goals. In the event they didnt get many shots on goal and have scored quite a few. But it looks a bit lucky.