Machado

32 and it's still November.... He might break Messi's record.

Is Musk the most powerful man in the planet at this point? Not sure what his end goal is but there's something eerie about him. Having government influence in the world's most powerful country, owning Neuralink, SpaceX, Twitter, and being the world's richest man is a crazy combination of agency in many fronts.

He is the real deal. If Man United don't get their shit together with Amorim, I would be very worried about the future of that club. He took this Sporting Lisbon team who had not won the league for 20 years and won two of them, leaving them on their way to win a third. It's safe to say he is their best manager ever. Bizarre we didn't give him a job! Benfica fan since he was born and won 10 titles for us as a player.

I'll try.

Totally deserved to be honest. Easily the best side of the tournament.

Crazy stat. Both club and international.

This has to be one of the best if not the best road to the final of any Euros. Beating Croatia, Italy, Germany and France, all very relevant sides in recent years, is no mean feat.

I thought Foden was going to be one of the players of the tournament. Best player in the Premier League last season for me and top 5 worldwide. Pep tax might be real.

England will win it. Written since Slovakia.

Deschamps not getting away with the type of football France were playing is a victory for football.

Only myself and @Pep Talk predicted England to win in the "pick the winner" thread, which is surprising to me. England should win one or two tournaments with some of these players, in the next 6 to 8 years that is, even if Southgate seems to be trying really hard to stop them.

Individually we are as good as any in the tournament. We were better than France last night... I don't think anyone is claiming that to be the case. If you watched the games, surely you saw Ronaldo was struggling to look like a professional footballer. All we're asking is to play 11 vs 11. Not quite a few times, just once. Why were we lucky? You could say that or you could give us credit for not missing any tournament while other major nations did. Portugal have been sailing through most qualifiers this century. I would say we were unlucky in some games that almost ended up costing us.

"Portugal v France: a galactic battle lost in the black hole of one man's ego This Euro 2024 clash could have been an all-time great quarter-final, and instead a part of it was stolen Even his absence feels like a kind of presence. The cameras continue to seek him out. The fans in the stands in their replica Manchester United tops screech a little louder, scowl a little harder. The less he does, the important he becomes. The more he disappears into this game, the heavier it feels, like a black hole sucking everything into its vortex. And ultimately Portugal too. The sabotage is complete. One of the most talented squads ever assembled at this level of football disappears into that self same black hole, a Vegas-era Elvis act ultimately notable only for its ability to make us gawp and keep gawping. It's too awful to watch. It's too awful not to watch. The clock ticks into its third hour, the second quarter-final suspended like a sentence that can never end, and yet with the knowledge of exactly how it ends. Meanwhile, Gonçalo Ramos and Diogo Jota sit on the bench. This was not a bad game of football. No game with this many spellbindingly brilliant players on the pitch can ever be truly tedious. Indeed, the talent is a kind of protagonist in its own right. It was a game that felt – for better and worse – like a final, every action and decision dancing on the cusp of instant disaster. Football with maximum context: every pass and tackle freighted with meaning and intent, every shot on goal like a death. Some of the finishing is truly awful. Some of the defending is gladiatorial. Early in the game Randal Kolo Muani picks up the ball just outside the area and Pepe just puts him into a taxi, bundles him aside like a vengeful father. Pepe will end the game with 152 touches, more than anyone else on the pitch. Pepe will sprint stride for stride with the substitute Marcus Thuram – a man to whom he is giving 15 years and 90 minutes in the legs – and put the ball out for a corner. Pepe will block a shot from Kylian Mbappé and celebrate it like an Olympic gold medal. Rúben Dias will make a crucial block on Kolo Muani as he goes through on goal. Nuno Mendes will slide in on Mbappé just as the great man is about to pull the trigger. At the other end Eduardo Camavinga will make a brilliant sprawling tackle on a rushing Rafael Leão, a fraction of a second before he shoots from a tight angle. William Saliba will just be quietly brilliant. This is not the stuff of highlights reels and social media gold-dust. But it is, in its own way, the very highest form of footballing heroism. The temptation is to point at this French side, with their semi-final berth and their zero goals from open play, and to remark sardonically that Didier Deschamps has finally managed to create a team perfectly in his own image. This is, of course, unfair. Deschamps was ruthlessly selfless as a player, his every action oriented towards the collective. France, on the other hand, have the feel of a team being held together by success alone. Get enough talent in there, and maybe the teamwork takes care of itself. No wonder they finally seemed to free up when penalties arrived: a series of simple individual battles, a test of personal skill, no tactics, no complications. And yet even Deschamps has the presence to withdraw Mbappé in the 106th minute when it becomes clear that it's not going to be his night. He was outrun by João Cancelo, couldn't convert any of his five shots, and if Mbappé can't sprint and can't shoot, then frankly all you really have left is a man in a mask pointing into spaces. He sees out the closing minutes sat on the bench, an ice pack pressed to his nose. But at least France know how to function without their captain. Portugal, by contrast, are still wedded to theirs, the chain-wrapped anvil that will eventually bring them all down. There is little point giving him anything to chase, or playing any pass to him longer than about 20 yards. If he peels to the left wing in the 53rd minute, he won't make it back into the centre until the 55th. He misses terribly from close range. He claims another free-kick from an impossible angle, and somehow manages to hit all three players in the wall. In a way, it's hard not to feel resentful of him: resentful of the way this grand, galaxy-sized occasion is ultimately reduced to a function of one man's ego. This could have been an all-time great quarter-final, and instead a part of it was stolen: stolen ball possession, stolen attention, stolen minutes from better players who actually deserve to be there, rather than a pure anachronism trotting out simply because no one has the clout to tell him not to. Théo Hernandez scores the winning penalty, and immediately the Portuguese players instinctively flood towards the heartbroken João Félix, the only man to miss his penalty, and gather him in their arms. Mendes runs to him. João Palhinha runs to him. Nelson Semedo runs to him. Pepe sets aside his own sadness – this may well have been his last game – and runs to him. There is still a team here, and the only sadness is that we never got to see it. One man does not run to Félix. Instead he walks in the other direction, off on his own, pursued only by the prurient gaze of the camera. It's Cristiano Ronaldo." https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/jul/05/portugal-v-france-a-galaxy-sized-occasion-sucked-into-the-black-hole-of-one-mans-ego

I was about to say, the level Pepe showed in this tournament at 41 is not to be forgotten. He was better than Ronaldo today, as he always was for the national team. If we were to do an average rating of every player that ever played for Portugal, all tournaments considered, we would find Pepe was far better than Ronaldo, and probably top 2/3 all time. Ridiculously consistent since 2008. Maybe felt he had more to prove since he's born in Brazil, and he certainly did prove it. Ronaldo in 200+ games got us out of trouble in a handful of them, at best. 3 goals in 21 knock-out matches, frankly a pathetic record. Scored a lot of goals against minnows which tell a lie about his true impact.

He refuses to accept it's over for him. Surrounded by yes man, no one in his family to tell him enough is enough, cries on the pitch every other game. All very sad to see. Portugal show a lot of incompetence playing against teams who sit deep. We played one open game, against Turkey, and that brought the best out of us. I think the game against France goes to pens again.