Euros 2020

[surfer]

btw are we stoked for the euros or are we not ? what are IHM stokeness levels across the board ?

i must say i am pretty stoked, because of the whole postcorona-normalization effect (my psyche needs these euros a lot) - about 8/10, which is pretty high considering that serbia is not playing. and i must say my stokeness levels are greatly fueled by the possibility of a stellar, once in a lifetime macedonia performance.

I watched Croatia draw with Albania in Gorica near Zagreb today. It was an A lineup, and they were coasting but they had upwards of 20 shots and maybe 3 were on goal. Not that they've ever really had clinical finishers since Suker but man they are going to have problems in the final third.

I am about 5/10 stoked level and 2/10 for the England match. I think England are going to be one of the teams to beat, and I could see them crushing Croatia in revenge for WC semis, and then Croatia never really recovering for the remaining group matches. but I guess now 3rd place can go through so wtfdik

after the last WC its only possible to be disappointed unless they make semis, maybe quarters. Also sad that this might be Modric's last international tournament.

[DarkAttraktor]

you surely meant Caucasian Albania*, not the Balkans Albania

i must say at this point that it's only natural that stokeness levels go down for CRO fans after the rootin' tootin' WC 2018 performance. i mean they can only go down from that point because anything of the sort isn't realistically replicable and at this point WC 2018 kinda looms over this team as a burden because it kinda takes away the underdog position that enabled you guys to get there in the first place and furthermore marks a target over your heads as a team to beat (especially since it is more or less the same generation). from the standpoint of the massive historical success that campaign was i think you guys need at least 2-3 forgettable competition cycles only to accumulate some CRO 21st century median stokeness levels. in Serbia we would milk WC 2018 for at least 30 years - God knows maybe even 50 - but you guys are better than us and you need just a couple of junk cycles to come back to normal !

i am setting the bar for a successful CRO campaign at passing the group. you are defacto playing with two host teams and a NT that's essentially a club side in disguise (extension of Slavia Prague). it's gonna be tough.

*whenever Azeris made territorial gains into Nagorno Karabakh last year and retook an ancient Armenian monastery or medieval Armenian monument from Artsakh they insisted that they were liberating ancient Albanian cultural heritage from greater-Armenian imperialism. i understood that in extreme circumstances the Azeri propaganda can apply the term to the whole of Armenia.

only appropriate to start off the quadrennial spectacle of footy & nationalism with a little bit of territorial cretensions intro, hardy har har !

[surfer]

you surely meant Caucasian Albania*, not the Balkans Albania

I meant East Albania (some people refer to it as Armenia)

[Wombatz]

i am totally understoked, i'd rather just watch the transfer window. whom could i possibly root for? scotland? (i like archie fisher and josef k and they have the best independent bookstore for selfmade zines and stuff ... )

[surfer]

you surely meant Caucasian Albania*, not the Balkans Albania

I meant East Albania (some people refer to it as Armenia)

I've come up with a song for Armenia. In this skit I play Ted Danson and you play coach:



Ar-men-i-a
Ar-men-i-a
You border Tur-key to the east.
You land is most-ly arid steppes,
and your main export is steel.

[DarkAttraktor]

i am totally understoked, i'd rather just watch the transfer window. whom could i possibly root for? scotland? (i like archie fisher and josef k and they have the best independent bookstore for selfmade zines and stuff ... )

you can root for scotland but i must warn you they are quite tragic. not to sound like sour grapes over here after they kicked us out in the qualifying playoffs on home turf (and quite deservingly so !) but possibly the single worst team on the EUROs right now (i haven't watched slovakia, tho).

so let's see who else is there to root for..

[DarkAttraktor]

- i expect a great tournament for Turkey (and i am rooting for them)
- haven't watched them but i've been told - the Finns this year can the break the mould
- Ukraine has so far been a helluva and i mean HELLUVA good team. i don't know what Sheva is feeding them but they are the tournament dark horse for me
- in the same group, Macedonia has proven it's got everything it takes to take down favourites and crash the party with their truly multiethnic, multi-confessional all Balkans squad that plays some amazing attacking football. my number one team i will be rooting for

besides these teams i am stoked about i am kinda rooting for Portugal's failure so they can finally retire CR9 functionally and symbolically and let this team breathe. i am also kinda hoping for Belgians doing something in this probably last shot at glory they've got and i am hoping as always for some surprises meaning that someone wins this who isn't France, England or Spain. hoping to have like 2 second or third tier favourites in the semis, that kinda stuff. i really don't believe in them because of the factors i alleged in my first post but if Croatia can make it - hell yeah, i'll take it.

[DarkAttraktor]

I've come up with a song for Armenia. In this skit I play Ted Danson and you play coach:



Ar-men-i-a
Ar-men-i-a
You border Tur-key to the east.
You land is most-ly arid steppes,
and your main export is steel.

i must say this key and peele segment with albanian vs macedonian cafe is among my all time favs. it's a bit over the top and awkward in the way crunches ethnic stereotypes from all over the place into the balkans mould but the core bit is so true !

[Wombatz]

you can root for scotland but i must warn you they are quite tragic. not to sound like sour grapes over here after they kicked us out in the qualifying playoffs on home turf (and quite deservingly so !) but possibly the single worst team on the EUROs right now

great, i'm sold, i'll root for scotland then. and for north macedonia, i completely forgot it was them that won in germany despite the ref whistling against them ...

[surfer]

i must say this key and peele segment with albanian vs macedonian cafe is among my all time favs. it's a bit over the top and awkward in the way crunches ethnic stereotypes from all over the place into the balkans mould but the core bit is so true !

Seems like a fairly straightforward documentary to me. The knife could be perhaps a small exaggeration.

I'm kidding, this is great, I cant believe I've never seen this before. I know places like this, several in fact. There was an Istrian restaurant in SF run by a guy named Bruno (Albona Restarurant Istriano https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/articl ... 422293.php ), a very small restaurant, maybe 10 tables in a small living room, and Bruno would seat every single party and conduct an ongoing interrogation of each member of the party to make sure you are ordering something that fits your personality (his words). We used to eat there not a lot but once every few years, and we would take friends, and one time my friend ordered osso bucco and didnt know what cut of meat it was, and Bruno gets this look, eyes go wide, and then he takes his 65 year old leg, and plops down right in the middle of the table, and rolls up his pants to the knees, and rolls down his black socks to show on his anatomy exactly what this young lady would be eating tonight. She changed her mind and ordered the gnocchi.

Another time I ordered the brudet and mentioned that my mom used to make brudet, and he looks at me with a look of complete disdain and says "This is not the same as Dalmatian brudet, completely different from that kind of brudet!"

It was a very good restuarant, no cevapcici though, but you had to have a high tolerance for Bruno because he was constantly around and in your face. His famous saying which he repeated every time I went was that "Croatia in its history has had a lot of flags but they've all had the same shaft at the end."

[surfer]

- i expect a great tournament for Turkey (and i am rooting for them)
- haven't watched them but i've been told - the Finns this year can the break the mould
- Ukraine has so far been a helluva and i mean HELLUVA good team. i don't know what Sheva is feeding them but they are the tournament dark horse for me
- in the same group, Macedonia has proven it's got everything it takes to take down favourites and crash the party with their truly multiethnic, multi-confessional all Balkans squad that plays some amazing attacking football. my number one team i will be rooting for

besides these teams i am stoked about i am kinda rooting for Portugal's failure so they can finally retire CR9 functionally and symbolically and let this team breathe. i am also kinda hoping for Belgians doing something in this probably last shot at glory they've got and i am hoping as always for some surprises meaning that someone wins this who isn't France, England or Spain. hoping to have like 2 second or third tier favourites in the semis, that kinda stuff. i really don't believe in them because of the factors i alleged in my first post but if Croatia can make it - hell yeah, i'll take it.

Finland has a very Iceland 2016 feel to me: lots of spirit, organization, hard work, and a modicum of technical ability. Pukki is ok but if its possible he's overrated because of that hot streak he had a while back. Denmark could be a neutral's favorite because that group is now wide open with KdB possibly out. Braithwaite is decent up top, Eriksen, PEH (who played more minutes in the PL than any outfield player), Schmeichel. They have a good spine. Lutz, what happened to Poulsen this year, he seems to have had a really off year?

[Wombatz]

Lutz, what happened to Poulsen this year, he seems to have had a really off year?

his great year was two seasons ago under rangnick. he was central part of that creative chaos theory that nagelsmann always wanted to control so he got stifled. i guess last season he only played one half per game? anyway, since nothing really worked in attack, everybody's personal form is pretty much unclear ... didn't watch the friendly against germany, but he got the goal (very pretty) and was much improved in the second half, i hear

[DarkAttraktor]

i must say this key and peele segment with albanian vs macedonian cafe is among my all time favs. it's a bit over the top and awkward in the way crunches ethnic stereotypes from all over the place into the balkans mould but the core bit is so true !

Seems like a fairly straightforward documentary to me. The knife could be perhaps a small exaggeration.

I'm kidding, this is great, I cant believe I've never seen this before. I know places like this, several in fact. There was an Istrian restaurant in SF run by a guy named Bruno (Albona Restarurant Istriano https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/articl ... 422293.php ), a very small restaurant, maybe 10 tables in a small living room, and Bruno would seat every single party and conduct an ongoing interrogation of each member of the party to make sure you are ordering something that fits your personality (his words). We used to eat there not a lot but once every few years, and we would take friends, and one time my friend ordered osso bucco and didnt know what cut of meat it was, and Bruno gets this look, eyes go wide, and then he takes his 65 year old leg, and plops down right in the middle of the table, and rolls up his pants to the knees, and rolls down his black socks to show on his anatomy exactly what this young lady would be eating tonight. She changed her mind and ordered the gnocchi.

Another time I ordered the brudet and mentioned that my mom used to make brudet, and he looks at me with a look of complete disdain and says "This is not the same as Dalmatian brudet, completely different from that kind of brudet!"

It was a very good restuarant, no cevapcici though, but you had to have a high tolerance for Bruno because he was constantly around and in your face. His famous saying which he repeated every time I went was that "Croatia in its history has had a lot of flags but they've all had the same shaft at the end."

man, thank you for introducing me to bruno. he sounds like a bit too much for me to sit down and enjoy a meal or a night out but i guess people go there for his antics as much as the actual food. that shaft bit is just clutching at shafts as far as half assed metaphores (or imagined continuities) go

i picked danes and swedes both to come to semis in russia 2018 on a hunch, but the danes were pretty underwhelming while sweden went as far as they possibly could. the tables could turn now, tho.

[surfer]

https://www.kicktipp.com/ihm/

Let me know if it asks for a password, not sure what it is

[DarkAttraktor]

yaaaas, lets goooooo

btw doesn't ask for password to join !

[Antoine]

Joined!

I was looking at the schedule and the stadiums, didn't know that some teams are playing all their group games at home (Italy, Denmark, Netherlands, England, Spain, Germany). If England reaches the final, they could even play 5 of their 7 games at home.
I suppose the attendance will be limited, but still an advantage in terms of distance to the base camps... I thought they would manage to schedule the games in "neutral" places.

[Wombatz]

(brought my son along)

[surfer]

Mine as well. Kind of bummed no Carlos or Walto this time. I reached out to Walto on FB (as well as Jon) but he never got back to me.

[surfer]

Joined!

I was looking at the schedule and the stadiums, didn't know that some teams are playing all their group games at home (Italy, Denmark, Netherlands, England, Spain, Germany). If England reaches the final, they could even play 5 of their 7 games at home.
I suppose the attendance will be limited, but still an advantage in terms of distance to the base camps... I thought they would manage to schedule the games in "neutral" places.

Yeah I think some analysts are really not taking into account the home field/county/stadia advantage. I think it will be a tremendous advantage especially for England.

[DarkAttraktor]

this kneeling debate at the EUROS pissed me off so much. especially with the supreme racist in EU, victor orban - weighing in on the debate with the opposing stance on it and solidifying a block of usual suspects who never kneel (except to hitler ): poland, czech rep, slovakia, hungary, croatia, ukraine. we'd be there too if we were a participant on the EUROs, no doubt about it.

i can understand how the PL got enmeshed in the kneeling with PL's rapid commercialization and its middle class-ization and the PL's cohorts of american club owners and how this cultural substrate eventually transferred to the english NT but to have mainland european squards behaving like they're in US, adopting all the etiquette and the right attitudes yet not getting to vote in US elections.... man, always a sad sight

i mean i know it is a totally meaningless symbolical action - and its especially drained of any meaning now in 2021 - but nonetheless the overall mechanics of it is irritating. as someone said on a local web board: makes me want to unplug the internet for some folks