h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well done Italy, What a totally brilliant match!

The fanatic of negativity, Sven Goran Eriksson should be tied up in a darkened room and forced to watch it over and over for perpetuity!

Now, when France beat Portugal, who am I going to support in the final? I have French and Italian friends, what a dilemma Although if Portugal manage to survive, there will be no contest

Fantastic game

That is how the game should be played. Well done the ref

Blimey what a superb 30 minutes of extra time. The Italian team did not want it to go to penalties.
~ whole new ball game ~


The ref certainly did his bit. At least 9.5/10 for his performance.

Tonight; France v England's long time ally, Portttttuuuu.....whatever.

I have only one "live" player in my fantasy team - Thierry Henry - for tonight's game.

So neck-sticking-out-time again: France to win tonight by 2 clear goals, Italy to be champs by a score of 3-2 & Germany to win the 3rd place play-off against Pooo team by x number of goals (x = 2, 3 or 4).

I found this excellent artice from the Belfast Telegraph on the whole England/Eriksson fiasco

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/story.jsp?story=697270

Well worth a read.

I don't really care who wins now, providing it's not Portugal, No seriously I just want more of what we saw last night. There is a certain irony in that Italy have long been famed for their defensive mindedness and yet knew they had to go for the win to avoid the dreaded penalties. And how lovely to see how wonderful they could play when they emphasised attacking football.

It's enough to make you rummage around for your old footie boots, apply dubbin, stand to attention & say "Pick me, sir".

One thing's for sure, I've got more chance of playing in SA 2010 than McClaren has of still being in charge of England!

BUT....

I have been known to be wrong about these things before....

Having just watched Nadal destroy Bagdatis in the Wimbledon semi final, I'm not sure which final I'm most looking forward to on Sunday now.

Actually I think it's now the tennis. Nadal's just so brutal and gorgeous. Watching him play Federer will be like Beethoven against Mozart. I'm rooting for Nadal. It'll be a lot for Italy and france to live up to.

I love sport

Live News.......Fifa in doubt over Portugal world cup win against England

It's alleged that one of the Portuguese football players failed a drugs test after the match. If this is confirmed as positive, under World Football Federation rules, paragraph 6 sub section 2e, Portugal will forfeit the quarter final match and England will play France in a Semi Final replay match at a later date (scroll down for the full transcript of this report).



















































..Carlsberg do not send emails, but if they did they would probably be the best emails in the world.

I love you SWL

I'm sure I've seen that somewhere before...hmmm. 2004 I think

Steady on Fanny

Thanks for that absolutely brilliant article. I feel like circulating the reference to every person in the FA who has any influence on such matters.

As for the FA "supporting Rooney" stance - the best way to support Rooney would be to send him for anger management classes. When Ronaldo came running over (like he always does in a Man U shirt at which time he always has Rooney's full backing) Rooney looked like the 3 year old in the sand pit who has been annoying other children throwing the sand in their eyes with his friend all day who then gets a dose of his own medecine and can't quite understand what is happening.

Allez les Bleus (sorry should that be Blancs today?)

Glad you liked the article, Nitpicker.

A good assessment I think, but I fear the FA will avoid facing the hard questions as usual, otherwise they would have appointed Martin O'Neil. But I loved that joke towards the end, about 'the question not being whether Rooney's foot would stand up to the tackle, but whether Carvalho's 'tackle' would stand up to Rooney's foot'!

I do agree Rooney should have controlled himself, but to stick him up front all alone in frustration was asking for trouble. I see Michael Owen has come out today and criticised Sven for that, saying to play him up front all alone was like chopping off one of his legs!

Interesting what Alan Hansen said: the worst thing that happened was beating Germany 5 - 1 because it made everyone think that SGE was a genius. At the time, in our eyes, he was. Now he's just 'that Swede who wasted the golden generation'.

So enjoyed that match last night

Well done Germany

Now then, tonight, France vs Italy, anyone placing bets?

I (almost obviously) was happy for the German team to win that "small final" or whatever you might wanna call it. I also liked that the Portuguese did get to score. Figo's preparation of the goal was a great way to say good-bye.
But wasn't the atmosphere in Stuttgart stadium just great?

Y.

I have to be honest, the third place play-off match meant absolutely nothing to me, but it obviously did to the Germans, so well done!

As for the final, I can't wait. My dream result would be a Nadal win at Wimbledon, followed by Italy in the World Cup. (Shhh, don't tell my french friend)

We call the play-off the 'who cares who wins' game. Prediction? Italy to win.

Interesting start to the final anyway

Only four more years to wait till the next one