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lol he even tagged him.

TABLE AFTER ROUND 7 After one final game in which Spain deservedly finished winners, we also have our own deserving winner from the regular standings before the Bonus Questions are taken into account... Congratulations to @Viva la FCB for his victory in the Euro 2024 Prediction League. Having led the way since the group stages, he could not be toppled, and finished in style with a perfect score to cement the lead. 8 points was the highest score achievable - @Michael, @OrangeKhrush, @CaaC (John), @Rucksackfranzose & @Bluebird Hewitt were the only others to correctly guess Spain's 2-1 scoreline over England. It meant there was only 1 point between 3rd and 7th, and a small gap of 5 points between 8th and 17th! Bonus Questions to be calculated in due course...

There is a case that England had the worst tournament we could've possibly had. We've fluked it far enough to breed the illusion that it was a good tournament performance, meaning that there won't be any proper reflection or anywhere near the criticism that there should be, but not enough luck for us to actually break our duck and get a trophy secured. We've had our numbers come up on the lottery and not bought a ticket. I've no doubt Southgate gets 2026. I've no doubt it goes similarly. We would've been better in the long run to just lose to Slovakia. Force action. Embarrass us into striving for better. As it is now we can just trot out the same stuff we hear all the time after a tournament failure. Ignore all objective criticism because we threw four sixes in a row with the draw. I've not forgotten the gobbing off after the Slovakia win. You don't get to do that without the trophy. Where is it?

So far the shooter's death seems the worst one.

Thank you @Rucksackfranzose, it was interesting predicting the scores and final outcomes at these Euros. It's always tricky gauging outcomes in these types of competitions because of the tough competition, but I am happy that I won in the end. Thank you @Stan as well for running this competition and to everyone else who competed. I personally found it a very entertaining Euros.

TABLE AFTER BONUS QUESTIONS Here comes the conclusion to see if anyone's pre-tournament wisdom pays off! And it certainly did for @Michael! He outscored the regular league-leader by 6 points and therefore jumps up into 1st place on 161 points! @JoshBRFC also outscored him, and the tie-breaker of Most Perfect Scores throughout the tournament meant that he also finished ahead of @Viva la FCB. @Bluewolf was perhaps the most wise, so to speak, as his predictions amassed 79 points and he flew into 5th from 19th place. Also gaining several places was @Spike, who went up to 7th, and interestingly was the only one to bag 15 extra points for predicting Spain to win the tournament, as well as being the only one to choose Bellingham as top scorer, who ultimately finished joint-2nd. @Coma was the only one to score 60+ points from the pre-tournament predictions in the bottom half of the table. Congratulations again to @Viva la FCB for the tournament predictions win, and again to @Michael for doing enough during the season to be in with a chance to finish 1st once these bonus questions were tallied up, and it paid off! Thank you everyone for taking part For reference, there were several 'joint' goalscorers for 1st/2nd/3rd in the actual tournament - we only had predictions of Kane/Mbappe/Lukaku/Bellingham/Havertz. Kane was top scorer with 3 goals; Bellingham & Havertz with 2; Mbappe with 1 Top Goalscorer 15 points if player finishes 1st - KANE 10 if player finishes 2nd - BELLINGHAM/HAVERTZ 5 if player finishes 3rd - MBAPPE Tournament Winner 15 points if team wins - SPAIN 10 if team finishes 2nd - ENGLAND 5 if team finishes 3rd - NETHERLANDS/FRANCE

I've been reading how this shooter wasn't allowed into the rifling club at his high school because he was such a bad shot or something. My takeaway here is, what the fuck is a country that has rifling ranges in high schools? Fucking insane.

You are an absolute fucking crank.

Another thing, Bellingham is one diving cunt.

Watched it out so don't know what the prevailing narratives and opinions are but my take on the game is as follows. Both teams and the game started off pretty well but then fizzled out into a bit of a non-event of a first half. Spain looked more like they had a clue what they were doing when they carried the ball into the attacking third but didn't really create anything. Second half, Spain were pretty much in control for most of it, didn't sit on their lead and could easily have killed it off with a second. Instead another moment of quality from England draws it level. Again I was left thinking how lucky this manager is. Based on the moments England players have produced to keep them in the tournament, they probably could have got this far with Rishi Sunak managing them. Spain obviously reestablished themselves after England equalised and went on to take a deserved win. Spain were the best team in the opening set of fixtures and remained so throughout. Germany were the only ones who got close and really that quarter final between them should have been the final. I don't think I've ever seen so many "big" countries perform so poorly at a major tournament. England, France, Italy, Portugal and Belgium were all pretty shite. Netherlands had their moments but were disappointing overall too. Spain thoroughly deserve the trophy as the only team who looked like they were really used to playing as a cohesive unit and not just "keeping it tight" and hoping their star players produce a moment to decide the game. That takes me on to England. The performance against the Netherlands was the only one that probably met expectations overall. The rest was pretty much crap performances bailed out by an individual moment of quality. That's usually enough to get you to a quarter final or a semi final before you get found out. On this occasion, thanks to a combination of how the draw panned out and a lack of actually good teams to get drawn against, it got England to the final before their luck ran out. You won't see another final with the performance England served up in the tournament overall. I think this might be the worst possible outcome for the team to be honest because it leaves them without a trophy again, but it's enough to see Southgate get given World Cup 2026 as well and he's just a bad manager. Why is he a bad manager? We've just spent the entire tournament watching Kane, Foden and Bellingham look painfully ineffective compared to what we all know they're capable of. He changed the entire approach mid-tournament. I don't think any England player can come out of that tournament rated higher than a 7/10 and I don't think you could even go that high with any of the attacking players. You can't be given that much talent and not find a way of playing that gets near the best out of at least a couple of them. Overall, I'm actually glad that tournament is over now. Group stages were class. The knockouts went on too long and the majority of those games were pretty turgid. Made me look forward to having the domestic season back at least.

Chelsea about to make a £50,000,000 offer on Cucurella.

Sign up here in this thread! First gameweek commences weekend of 10-11th August, 2024 Rules and Guidelines - HERE @Michael @JoshBRFC @Viva la FCB @The Palace Fan @Bluewolf @Pyfish @Spike @Dan @Redcanuck @Tommy @Rucksackfranzose @CaaC (John) @Pep Talk @Azeem @Bluebird Hewitt @LFCMike @MUFC @6666 @RandoEFC @Devil @Coma @nudge @londonerlilie @Panflute @Smiley Culture @Lucas @Raja1991 @Rajabhat Rovers @Storts @nawoo @Mark Mark @Faithcore @Dr. Gonzo @Carnivore Chris

Mamardashvili Theo Hernandez - Guehi - Saliba - Cucurella Rodri Yamal - Musiala - Dani Olmo - Williams Gakpo Honourable mentions - Pickford, Unai Simon, Fabian Ruiz, Cancelo, Mainoo, Mikautadze, Kvaratskhelia, Calafiori, Kimmich,

hola

We just beat Galatasaray 5-2 in a friendly. And they started training on the same day as us apparently, so we should be on the same fitness level. And we switched the complete team in the 2nd half. This all looked very promising.

I use warm water unless it's hot out and then I use cold water

Thanks @Stan for running as always. That was a crazy tourne to predict as it turned out. congrats @Michael well played!

If trophies aren't a measure of success then I'm in the wrong game. If England want to be considered a top team, who have made genuine progress, then they need to be measured by the metrics the top teams are. One trophy in our history is shit. Roberto Martinez gets absolute barrels for what he did (well didn't do) at Belgium - a historically mediocre team due to them having a very gifted generation of players coming through at the time. I'd argue he had it fairly harsh in some ways. Why do England not get held to these standards? We have a similar situation and frankly, are a bigger country, it's a bigger deal here. Why do Belgium get panned, but England don't?

Tap On. Wash with soap. Get crevices. Out. The temp of the water gets a bit irrelevant unless you've got some serious grime from working with oil or anything like that.

Maybe if you chant USA USA USA hard enough hypoxia prevents secondary motor functions.

Congrats on the win @Michael Edit: And thanke for running this, of course @Stan

Perhaps should have been clearer, my bad - no-one predicted Musiala to be top scorer in their predictions. Some did predict Havertz so they'd get the points (he was joint-2nd top goalscorer in the tournament).

Congratulations @Viva la FCB, a worthy winner.

“Gareth Southgate is a genius” actually came out of that pillock Lee Dixon’s mouth during the commentary.

I don’t watch a lot of football on the tele but from what I’ve seen, the best team overall won and certainly the best team on the night, won. England had their moments and tried to counter and for a short while, they looked as though they might take them to extra time, but ultimately England’s “moments” were not that long and you always felt like Spain could go up a gear. Jordan Pickford and Marc Guehi probably kept the scoreline respectable, at times and allowed England to stay in the game and I do feel a bit for Guehi getting caught the wrong side of Oyazarbal. As for Pickford, I’ll get tonnes of abuse from Evertonians on here I suspect but, he should be playing for a bigger club than Everton. He should be playing for a side in the Champions League. He’s criminally underrated and still gets a load of stick from people but his shot stopping is excellent and his destruction is usually very good. Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham are spent. They were three games ago but carrying an injury and playing nearly 70 games a piece in under twelve months is going to do that to you, I suppose. As for England, they’re in a good place. As much as they’ve not been aesthetically pleasing, many England sides over the years go out to Slovakia, they don’t equalise in the dying embers, they probably don’t beat Switzerland and they don’t come from behind against Netherlands either. They probably also lose that game tonight by three or four. There’s a change in mentality and application at International level, overseen by Southgate and he doesn’t get the credit he deserves. The problem with England is a warped expectation of them that they need to win a trophy. It’s not club football, lads. Trophies are hard to come by because they’re not a never ending cycle of trophies week after week for year after year, international tournaments are every two years and as such, they’re incredibly hard to win. I think people also demand to be entertained with England, too. Maybe because they care less than their club or they’re just out in a pub/overcharged in a bar/whatever but winning isn’t enough, they must be entertained in doing so and England need to be a reincarnation of Barcelona circa 2010. Sacking Southgate would be a ludicrous move.

I assume the people who were very upset about the "it might have been staged knowing Trump" conspiracy theory will be equally upset about this sentence.

I still can't get over that the crowd were chanting USA immediatly after an assassination attempt.

Its clinically proven that as long as you wash your hands with soap and then water at any reasonable temperature it doesn’t really matter.

Thomas Müller has retired from NT after 14 years- Manuel Neuer is the last WC 14 winner still available, now!

We're in an era where "OMG I love a crime documentary" is a widely held character trait for the basic, white UK person aged between 18-35 and as such, plenty of these people think they therefore have the education and ability to "solve" crimes and there's plenty of stuff on social media around this case and plenty of rumours and allegations being passed off as genuine by these people based off of anonymous Facebook comments. People are searching for controversy and micro-analysing every little thing on this "case". I also think people want news stories to be "more interesting" or put better, more dramatic than they sometimes are. Not everything is a Harlan Coben Netflix drama but these people try and make it such. Take that Nicola Bulley case last year, there was plenty of rumours and allegations around that and all it ended up being was a woman drowning in a body of water, rather than some of the suggestions online. I feel like this is similar. There's some wild theories about this out there.