RandoEFC

All of the Portugal and Turkey backers progressed yesterday. I have everyone's picks for Gameweek Two apart from @Bluewolf and @Dan. If you don't manage to make a pick before the first GW2 match starts this afternoon then you can still pick from the remaining games.

The eternal problem in modern football. Generally people or companies who have enough money to buy or sponsor a football club aren't going to be in the Robin Hood mould. Obviously there's still a line to be drawn between ruthless Tory businessmen and human rights abusing state owners but overall there's not really any winners.

Didn't have these two teams down to produce one of the games of the tournament so far .

Gameweek Two starts tomorrow so here's the state of play. @nudge and @Stan are out after Belgium flopped against Slovakia. @Viva la FCB, @Michael, @Pyfish, @Lucas, @MUFC, @Tommy, @CaaC (John), @...Dan, @Redcanuck, @Rick, @The Palace Fan have all qualified for Gameweek Two having backed either Germany, Italy or Netherlands. See the next set of fixtures below and make your next picks. @6666, @RandoEFC, @Bluewolf, @Dan, @Rucksackfranzose backed either Portugal or Turkey and therefore are yet to discover their fate. All are welcome to make their Gameweek Two picks now though in case you get through. Gameweek Two fixtures: Germany vs Hungary Scotland vs Switzerland Croatia vs Albania Spain vs Italy Slovenia vs Serbia Denmark vs England Poland vs Austria Netherlands vs France Slovakia vs Ukraine Belgium vs Romania Georgia vs Czechia Turkiye vs Portugal My pick for Gameweek Two is Croatia.

Classic Belgium this.

What's the back story on this one. Sounds like something similar with Wolves? I saw someone on Twitter saying both teams have signed deals with illegal betting companies. Today I saw people making clearly "lawyered" posts apologising for things they'd said about them so sounds like they've been quite aggressive in trying to control the narrative. The sooner they ban gambling sponsors from football, the better.

Not saying that Alexander-Arnold played badly but tactically, I didn't think it was a roaring success either. I'm going to have to wash my mouth out after saying it, but Alexander-Arnold has been managed by one of the most qualified, decorated managers of this era at Liverpool who has worked with him day in and day out for years. Klopp has always laughed it off when people have suggested the lad can be transformed into a midfield player. He never played him there (to my knowledge). It's always been something punted by casual fans on social media who don't really know anything, or those pundits who may be former professionals but know more about drinking and gambling addictions than they do about tactics. Southgate thinks he knows better though and just "tries it out" in an opening group stage match at a major tournament. Gallagher, Mainoo and Wharton are all inexperienced but at least know the position off by heart. He's put Alexander-Arnold in there like a FIFA manager who's only thinking about the 60 yard switches he's going to ping around the pitch and not worrying about the finer points of playing as a holding midfielder, especially alongside a Declan Rice who likes to roam from his position. Just my opinion but it's pretty amateurish for me. If England succeed at this tournament it will be out of the sheer quality they can put on the pitch and in spite of the manager. England's only real excuse was being handicapped by the lack of overlap on the left which you can't blame Trippier for. Otherwise not an emphatic performance by any means. A win is a won though.

Didn't post any of my bet builders in here today and all three won . One at reduced odds as Weghorst didn't start but still. Clear proof that any bet I post in thus forum is instantly cursed, as evidenced by my performance in Dan's tipping game this year.

There's reverting to type and then there's this from England. Fair enough they got the lead at half time but I thought they were carried away in the first half. Fist pumping the crowd and stuff. It's the first group game. You have to pace yourself emotionally.

After 15 minutes . Albania had the worst attack of any qualifier through qualifying and one of the best defences. No sign at all of the cagey early group matches you usually get in these tournaments.

One card short. Ruined by the match being over as a contest at half-time. The next one will determine whether or not I continue to embarrass myself by posting a bet builder for each game .

Half the problem is that nobody can actually explain whether the PSR rules are designed to stop teams from "doing a City" or to stop them from spending beyond their means and going into administration etc. Two very different problems with two very different sets of reasons behind why you'd want to prevent them.

I put quite a lot of bets on but never more than £2 or £2.50. I do it for fun so find it more enjoyable to have small bets on a load of games that I can then keep an eye on than I do putting a tenner on a long shot just in case I can win a few hundred quid. If I was actually any good at it and made a profit then I might invest more into it but I'm yet to find any approach that is even remotely profitable. I've probably lost about £100 since August but I don't lose sleep over it because I find it fun trying to spot good bets and it's kept me occupied for many hours in that time.

Winner here. I know nobody here cares about Evensish bets but I find it more enjoyable trying to win these consistently as well as spanking the odd stake on a long shot that'll never come in . Hungary and Switzerland saw a lot of goals throughout qualifying. A lot of people I've heard had this pegged as a potential 0-0 but I thought goals were underpriced based on the stats. A quick look through their stats on footystats.org had offsides and cards standing out as well. Not much stands out on Spain/Croatia's stats except things that contradict each other (e.g. Spain score a lot but Croatia don't concede many). Going with Spain corners, Spain shots and a couple of second half cards.

Probably the first Everton player I can actually remember seeing play that's passed away. Seemed a great guy. RIP.

Really didn't see 5+ goals in a tournament opener. Vastly underestimated the awfulness of Scotland . Got this one on for the next match.

Goalkeeper should do better for me.

I think we need to raise £20m-30m to avoid a points penalty. Some of our fans think we should just keep Branthwaite and take a 4-6 point penalty because he's worth that hit. That's how highly rated he is. Not a great way to run a football club though lol.

Jinxed it didn't I. Looks like the Roma owner is the front runner now so welcome back to multi-club bollocks city. In transfer news, Man Utd have a deal in principle in place with Branthwaite's representatives. They've made an initial offer of something around £40m which is barely over half of Everton's valuation. Man Utd will try to get Branthwaite on the cheap knowing that we're under pressure with PSR to sell someone by June 30th. However, Onana, who would be missed a lot less by Everton, is attracting interest and is valued at £50m. A Champions League club has apparently made a first enquiry. Either Arsenal, PSG or Bayern. Ideally for us we'll sell Onana, clear the PSR bar, and keep Branthwaite for another season before cashing in.

I didn't put on any outright bets but I put this for tonight's game.

Friday 14th June, 2024 Group A Germany 3-0 Scotland, 20.00 Saturday 15th June, 2024 Group A Hungary 2-2 Switzerland, 14.00 Group B Spain 3-0 Croatia, 17.00 Italy 1-1 Albania, 20.00 Sunday 16th June, 2024 Group C Slovenia 2-1 Denmark, 17.00 Serbia 2-2 England, 20.00 Group D Poland 2-1 Netherlands, 14.00 Monday 17th June, 2024 Group E Romania 1-1 Ukraine, 14.00 Belgium 2-1 Slovakia, 17.00 Group D Austria 2-4 France, 20.00 Tuesday 18th June, 2024 Turkey 3-0 Georgia, 14.00 Portugal 3-0 Czech Republic, 20.00

Group A Germany, Hungary, Switzerland Group B Spain, Italy, Croatia Group C England, Slovenia, Denmark Group D France, Netherlands, Poland Group E Belgium, Ukraine, Slovakia Group F Portugal, Turkey, Czech Republic Top goal scorer Mbappe Winner France

A last tag for anyone else who wants in. Euro 2024 starts tomorrow! @Michael @Storts @...Dan @Rick @Whiskey @DeadLinesman @MUFC

I am really frustrated with Starmer to be honest. I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he took the safe, centrist route up against Johnson who was actually electorally popular and might have clawed back ground in a campaign. Ever since Liz Truss and increasingly so in the past year under Sunak, it's been abundantly clear that the next government would be a Labour majority unless something absolutely incredible happened. There are projections coming out that they could win 450+ seats here and yet he's still so scared of coming out with a policy that he'll get slated for that he didn't even answer straightforward questions at that last debate. There's always been two explanations behind his cautious policies and taking up of positions. One is that he just is a massive centrist who only campaigned for Corbyn's manifesto in 2017 and 2019 because that was the party line. The other explanation is that he's actually quite left-wing but he's toned it down strategically so that the right-wing press and Tories don't have much to attack him over. I've believed the latter but it's hard to keep that up now. I think he could come out and back communism in it's purest form tomorrow and still wake up on July 6th with a comfortable majority. The political space is there now for him to take some bold positions and actually try to make the country meaningfully better for the majority of people. I get the excuse that there's a lot less money to play with now compared to three years ago since Truss destroyed the economy but there's definitely things Labour could do now to support public services, the environment and tackle poverty that they've so far refused to back out loud. You can't blame anyone for coming to the conclusion that he's actually quite happy to sit in the centre (some would say even to the right of centre to be honest) and just be in power for the sake of it rather than using a fleeting window of non-Tory government to tackle all of the problems caused by their conservatism and austerity. I'll give him a chance when he's in power. He'll be better overall than the Tories have been but I'm not very optimistic that we'll be able to hail him for more than that.

Results - Canadian Grand Prix A bit of a "same-y" and low-scoring weekend but let's dig into it. Mercedes threw a major spanner in the works this weekend by being actually good, with nobody's McLaren or Ferrari picks for non-Verstappen pole able to overcome George Russell on Saturday. The Bonus Question was also a blowout in qualifying with not a single person backing Lance Stroll to make it as far as Q3, so 0/10 across the board from Saturday. In the race, a double retirement on an absolute flop of a weekend for Ferrari destroyed nearly everyone's podium predictions. @RandoEFC, @DeadLinesman and @Stan were hit worst by Ferrari's joke of a weekend after they put both Leclerc and Sainz in their top three. A number of people can also consider themselves rather unlucky not to get anything from Oscar Piastri, who featured in the top four for the majority of the race but ended up just outside the non-Verstappen top three. Everyone picked up at least 2 points for putting Lando Norris in their top three, but the big winners were @Tommy and @Whiskey who put him in 1st place after Verstappen was removed from the results. The prediction of the weekend goes to @MUFC, though, who is rewarded with 5 extra points for putting Hamilton in 3rd, the only person to react to Mercedes' impressive pace in FP3 by predicting some Mercedes success. This week's random driver was Max Verstappen, and @Stan, @Tommy, @nudge, @Whiskey, @The Palace Fan, @Coma, @DeadLinesman and @OrangeKhrush all correctly played it safe by predicting the Dutchman to win the race and pick up 5 points apiece. @RandoEFC and @MUFC miss out here after having far too much faith in F1's recent ability to see someone else win for a change. The end result here is that all but 3 competitors score 7 points. Here's what it does to the table. As we approach the season's midpoint, @RandoEFC's worst weekend of the season sees his lead slashed from 7 to 2 points ahead of @OrangeKhrush. With the rest of the field largely cancelling each other out, @Tommy is the only one who gains a position in the Drivers' standings as this week's joint-highest scorer, jumping to joint 4th ahead of @The Palace Fan. I have amended the Constructors' standings so that every week where one driver has failed to predict, the Team has been awarded some extra points, equal to 1 point less than the lowest score that week. This hasn't affected the positions but has closed the gaps a bit to make it more fair. In some cases this "insurance" score was as little as 1 point! This is the best way I have to keep the Constructors' championship somewhat competitive in the event of a no-show without rewarding the team an equal or higher score than what someone who actually predicted scored! Anyway, there is no change in the standings after Canada. Most notably, McLaren's first single-digit haul of the season sees their lead reduced from 17 points to 12 points at the top.