Euro 2020

Kicked off with Italy gubbing Turkey 3-0, Wales v Switzerland today for British interest.

The one we're really interested starts on Monday though, where Scotland kick off their comp against the Czech Republic. Then the big one at Wembley on Friday.

Actually looking forward to this now, after not really giving it much interest during the qualifiers (waiting on us to fall short in the last game again). The Team is looking half decent with a sprinkling of quality players in it, Dykes and Adams is looking a good combo up front too. Bit of luck and we could actually get through to the next round, although i'm not falling for it again, and getting my hopes up........................................................................YET.

Yeah, your eternal optimism relating to Livi turns to “Bertie-mode” when it comes to Scotland.

Italy looked good last night but seemed to lack a cutting edge until they got the lucky break with og… they took their next 2 goals well though.

We are doing a prediction thing at work where you predict the whole competition in advance. Plug in your scores and see how the groups pan out then fill in the knock out round accordingly. If the teams you predict don’t get through to the knock out stages they are replaced by the teams that do actually get through & your predicted scores apply. I’d rather it was done in stages but it’s the same for everyone so it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

I got off to a so-so start as I predicted 1-0 to Italy for last night. So I’ll get a point or 2 for getting the right winner.

I ended up with a France v Spain final from which I predicted a win for France.

But if you asked me to predict a winner I probably wouldn’t suggest France, so pretty weird how it worked out.

I think I’d like Belgium to win it as they have been so good for a few years now but I don’t think they will. Portugal might actually repeat as champs & actually deserve it this time as the team is much better than last time & not so reliant on Ronaldo. France, Italy, Germany & Spain can’t be written off either & much as I’d hate England to win it, they have a chance & I actually like a lot of their players.

Sticking my neck out… I’m going to say Portugal to emerge as champions.

Dark horses… Poland - don’t think they will win it but they might give some of the big guns a scare

Scotland? If we emerge from the group stages anything could happen thereafter, I don’t think we will.
I can actually foresee us drawing all 3 games & still finishing 4th - England to beat Czechs, Czechs to upset Croatia & Croatia to beat England would see all of them finishing with 4 points & us on 3, unbeaten but out.

I've got £20 on the Italians.Got them at 11/1 last week.They were so impressive last night,dominating Turkey from the start.Definatly in with a shout.Dark horses for it as I feel any of at least 6 could win this.Good to have football back again.And good luck to Scotland,we're there and have got nothing to lose.Have a go boys.????????????????????????.

Yeah Italy could win it if they sharpened up in front of goals, good defence and attack, but wasteful with opportunities, practically having to walk it into the net instead of hitting it at times, and when they did take a shot, it was pish.

DeBruyne is still injured from the CL final, and wont be properly fit even if he manages to play in later games, that'll be a massive loss for Belgium.

Never know with Germany till they start playing, even when they've been shite they usually grow into tournaments and reach the semi finals and beyond.

England have good strikers but poor defence, looking like their usual, and they'll come a cropper once they get out the group stages and meet a good team.

France or Italy would be my bet for winning it.

Our best chance of progressing after the groups would prob be to come in 3rd place qualifiers, to play the winners of groups B or C.

Yeh as I said earlier L/F.Any of 6 could win this.France,Germany,Belgium,Spain,Portugal,and dare I say it Engerlund.Got a great price on the Italians and their in with a shout.For me its good that there's no out and out favourite for this.Momentum going into any tournament is crucial, and the Azzurie have got it..

Thoughts & prayers with Christian Eriksen & his family and his teammates & those in the stadium who must have felt helpless as they watched the harrowing scenes when he collapsed on the pitch but swift reactions & response from ref, teammates & especially the medics appear to have saved his life.

Hopefully he continues to improve (apparently awake & speaking) & whatever tests are performed on him reveal the problem & allow it to be addressed & corrected.

The game was apparently restarted after a 90 minute break, at the request of the players involved.

Yeh,find that strange tbf Bertie. Brought back thoughts of Phil Odonnel on that fatefull day years ago.Football must take a back seat in these unfortunate circumstances. Massive credit to those medics who virtually saved his life.They are going to conclude the game which I find astonishing, but both parties seem to concur.If that was a Livi player nevermind any other I know where my thoughts would lay.But credit to both in what will be trying conditions.

Croatia were a major disappointment- as comfortable a 1-0 win as you’re likely to see for England.
England’s youngsters were impressive, especially Kalvin Phillips. Friday will be very tough.

Austria won but looked less comfortable winning 3-1 than England had winning 1-0.

Holland v Ukraine has started with end to end stuff… it’s only 5 mins in & the best game so far

Bertie Bassett wrote:Yeah, your eternal optimism relating to Livi turns to “Bertie-mode” when it comes to Scotland.

And there we have it, beaten 2-0 by the Czech Republic in the first game and our tournament looks fecked already.

Was optimistically thinking we could draw this game too.

Wonder if we could win against Croatia and qualify as a third place team, knowing our luck Croatia will beat the Czechs and we'll come last on GD.

For not taking the numerous chances we had luck or not we got what we deserved. This game was crucial to us and we failed again.Friday will probably finish it for us making the Croatia game immaterial. Doubt even a 3rd place finish will be enough for us to go through as others will be better placed than us going into that game.Yeh we qualified for this tournament but in the end might be one we're likely to forget.Frustrating and deflated.

In the cold light of the late evening…. We actually played some good stuff, we created a lot of chances but a combination of poor finishing & quality goalkeeping (more of the latter than the former IMO) not to mention little or no good luck, coupled with 2 quality finishes from Schick left us licking our wounds.

From what I saw, Che Adams should have been in the starting line up, Christie & McTominay shouldn’t be in the squad, Hendry has promise but is naïve (should never have tried to shoot when his blocked effort let them break for the second goal), Marshall made some decent saves but why oh why was he so far outside his box? Ok we had a corner but when you are up against a side that can breakaway at speed & who are technically very good with the ball, you should not be nearer the half way line than your goal line. I hate seeing keepers that far out their goal unless they are going up for a corner at the end of the game, they are simply inviting someone to do what Schick did.

The rest played ok but there is a huge difference between the Czech side we beat twice & this one & a huge difference between qualifying for tournaments & the tournaments themselves.

Can we get something from Wembley…. Probably not but on the day, if we perform & take any chances we create then who knows?

From what I have seen Croatia are not up to much, so we have a chance there. (Having said that they will probably play like world beaters against us).

The keeper looks bad because we got caught with Hendry's shot being blocked and breaking to them inside their half. The keeper acts as a sweeper to stop balls being hit over our players into our half, getting in behind our last man, unfortunately it fell in their half and their player took advantage of his lucky break, hitting it over Marshall into our net.

Made no difference though, we couldn't score a goal, so 1-0 would've still done it for them. The minute we hit the bar i thought it was up for us, and we weren't ever scoring in the game, Dykes missed a great chance too, that their keeper should never have got his foot to,. Marshall also had several good saves to make, mostly with us getting caught on the ball, fannying around in our own half.

Their opener was a third corner, where we didn't learn from the first two, and have a player dropping to the edge of the box, 3 times it went in and headed/cleared out the box, and the Czech's collected the ball and put it back in, the 2nd time they even had a runner doing an overlap (exact same as when they scored), but their player ignored him and crossed the ball himself, we again didn't learn from that and the same thing happened again, only this time the overlap was used and they put the ball in and scored.

Thought we played better with Adams and Dykes playing together, and Forrest made a difference too, would've been good if we had started with them. First half we were far too cautious, turning back with the ball and not driving forward, we needed to have the likes of Forrest and Robertson driving forward at them, and being a lot more direct.

Yeah I know the theory but that doesn’t change the fact he was too far up the pitch. Ederson is probably the best sweeper-keeper on the planet & he is never that far upfield unless he’s going up for a late corner.

Agree with the rest of your post.

Yeah never really looked at how far up Marshall was, saw the boy looking up to have a shot at goal, and wondered just how far out our keeper was, then the camera went to our goal and you could see he had no chance of stopping it if Schick was on target.
Schick also said in the post match interview he knew Marshall went up the pitch high, so it was something they obv targeted as a possible opportunity to score against us, so you're most likely right, and Marshall goes a bit too far up the pitch.

Neuer was the best at the sweeper-keeper role for years, think it's part of the keeper's role now, covering for defenders when they're going up the pitch.

My son had a few images which suggest that Marshall would have saved it if he had been as little as 5 yards closer to his goal line. You can see clearly he is inside the 6 yard box when it goes in.

Ally McCoist made the point that if he’d been 10 yards closer to his goal then Schick probably doesn’t even attempt it.

Regardless, he took it well & as we couldn’t score it wasn’t the goal that won the game… in fact it didn’t even deflate the team cos they still created chances after it.

Italy looking very impressive again. Ok you could argue they haven’t really played a difficult team yet but they are building on a fantastic unbeaten run & they are both solid defensively & exciting going forward.

They also have to be the most passionate National Anthem singers around.

Totally dominated again tonight.Thoughrally deserved and should have scored more.Im getting a run for my money.Impressive from team who are notoriously slow starters in tournaments..

All set for the big one, fingers crossed we can get a result here and be in with a chance of getting through to the knock out games.

Mon Scotland.

I hope im wrong here,but ive a bad feeling about this.Our defence is going to be under so much pressure. Hopefully they can hold it together for as long as possible . As opposed to the other night we've got to take any chances that might come our way,we might not get many.Would take a point if offered.But massive good luck to our boys????????????????????????.

Must remember to ignore my feelings Magnificent effort from those boys.All over the park stuck to their belief and thoughrally deserved that result. Mcginn and Gilmour standouts for me but harsh to pick from what was a terrific performance from the whole team.Will be difficult but we've givin ourselves a chance to progress.Honestly thought we'd get a doing tonight,delighted to be proved wrong.????????????????????????.

Yeah much, much better tonight, and surprised me that we went with Dykes and Adams from the start, just wish we'd done that against the Czechs. Rode our luck in a spell of pressure from England but had a couple of great efforts on goal ourselves, same again against the Croats, and hopefully we get a win and England gub the Czech Republic, for us to get 2nd place on GD and automatic qualification.

Bottom line is we need a win against Croatia, otherwise we're out, can't ask for anything more though, that it is still there for us to progress through to the knock outs, into the last group game.

Like you Troy, I feared a real beating but our lads showed they can compete with a very good side & threaten them. I thought both teams played well - regardless of the narrative coming from England - & both defences held firm. Kane wasn’t in the game but the way England are playing just now is not to his strengths, he had  one good run & shot that I think Hanley blocked.

I thought we had the better individual & team performances & a win would not have flattered us. Hanley had probably his best game in a Scotland shirt, McTominay definitely had his best game for us especially after his stilly attempt at dribbling out of defence early on. Robbo & Tierney were very good; Marshall did what he had to. I though Gilmour was more of a creative player but he did well enough on his first start & played a Kante-esque role; McGregor worked hard, O’Donnell had one of his better games, McGinn also worked hard, Adam & Dykes are pretty good together, just a shame neither could score.
Armstrong offered something new when he came on & made two or three runs that no one picked up on to feed him the ball. Nisbet didn’t really have much time to show anything.

All in all a much better result than I expected.

One other thing… I’m sick of hearing that we didn’t play well against the Czechs, we DID play well but we lost the game to two very well taken goals which were arguably poor from a defensive viewpoint. They didn’t outclass us, we gave as good as we got. Today we also gave as good if not better than we got but this time we didn’t concede.

So bring on Croatia- it won’t be easy but if we can sneak a win we might just qualify.

I'd argue we were far too negative first half against the Czechs Bertie, and that's where the frustration/negativity in our performance against them comes from. Also not starting Adams was wrong, and that game was where we had a far better hope of getting a win was.

We set up much more positively against England, and they're the top team in this group, and we got a draw against them, which could easily have been a win.

Anyway, we're still in with a chance to progress, but that's always where we feck it up, so i'm staying negative with my expectations, i'm in full Bertie mode.

I’m not saying we were perfect against the Czechs but we didn’t play badly. I agree that we should have started with 2 up front - I’d like us to play that way all the time. When I saw the team I said immediately that it was picked with not losing as the priority but we then played the game & created a barrow load of chances & played every bit as well as they did. But we came unstuck thanks to Schick’s excellent finishing… we made errors at both goals but they still had to be clinical in taking the chances created as a result & unfortunately they were.

What’s been annoying me is people saying it was a poor performance, it wasn’t poor at all & their keeper had to make more difficult saves than Marshall.

Last night was an even better performance which proved we can give the top seeded sides a difficult game & live with them at this level. Sadly it might not be enough but we still have hope going into the last game & that in & of itself is better than I expected.

Dust settled.I agree we didn't play badly against the Czechs.Just not taking our chances cost us.Last night guts and determination against a lacklustre England nearly got us a result we would have more than deserved. Sets us up for Tuesday with all to play for against the Croats.Thought we'd be out tbf but its up to us to take the chance weve got to do something special. ????????????????????????