No riots or anything. Despite what Sol Campbell and the incredibly biased Panorama team would've lead you to believe, there has been precious little trouble at all really.

No riots or anything. Despite what Sol Campbell and the incredibly biased Panorama team would've lead you to believe, there has been precious little trouble at all really.

Yep you can't really judge a country based on a small minority. I'm sure a Panorama type documentary could easily be made about the London riots ahead of the Olympics and yet we'd argue that isn't representative of England as a whole

 

Luckily we're already through to the quarter finals, but the media have hindered us in terms of supporters out in Ukraine

What I don't like is the stance about goal line technology. Where were UEFA and Blatter saying goal line technology was a necessity after Lampard's goal in 2010? Despite the goal being offside the officials missed it, so the goal would have stood, and now it's the crime of the century. I know why we're hated across FIFA and UEFA but it is just so hypocritical. I'm not a massive fan of the England football team, but it is moments like this that makes me really want England to win just to see people's faces!

Typical of Blatter to want goal line technology after England benefit from it, but surely it won't come into action in Champions League and the Euro's ? Platini is still against the idea and it'd seem odd to use it in some games and not others

Yep you can't really judge a country based on a small minority. I'm sure a Panorama type documentary could easily be made about the London riots ahead of the Olympics and yet we'd argue that isn't representative of England as a whole

 

Luckily we're already through to the quarter finals, but the media have hindered us in terms of supporters out in Ukraine

That's what I was saying at the time, you could easily make a 1 hour programme about how awful English fans are and how you wouldn't want to enter a British stadium if you tried hard enough, completely ridiculous, and they were outraged in Poland and Ukraine at just how unrepresentitive it was, acknowledging that there is a problem but it isn't bad at all. Reports have been overwhelmingly positive from people over there, even those that aren't white have said they've had no trouble, locals have been friendly and welcoming and interested in England, the English and the Premier League. After the Irish got knocked out the front page of the paper (not sure whether it was local or national) was a picture of Irish fans saying "We'll miss you Ireland". The fact that Sweden had 3 times as many fans as us there shows how much it put people here off, given our population is 5 times the size of theirs.

Typical of Blatter to want goal line technology after England benefit from it, but surely it won't come into action in Champions League and the Euro's ? Platini is still against the idea and it'd seem odd to use it in some games and not others

Platini has always been far more of an opponent to than Blatter, and I think some of the stick has been unjustified. A huge buffoon he may be, but he's at least always been open to the idea, if not actually wanting it himself, which is why there are tests being done at the beginning of July to see whether any of them are fully reliable and they'll be used if so.

^Yes old 'step ladder' may be obstinate, completely corrupt, sexist, homophobic.. er, I've forgotten what I was going to say.

Platini has always been far more of an opponent to than Blatter, and I think some of the stick has been unjustified. A huge buffoon he may be, but he's at least always been open to the idea, if not actually wanting it himself, which is why there are tests being done at the beginning of July to see whether any of them are fully reliable and they'll be used if so.

It's been tested a few times so far. However, the real test will be when something like the Ukraine "goal" happens, i.e. does it get the really close decisions correct? Realistically it can only be tested in matches of little or no consequence (the Hampshire Cup final and an England friendly). After all, if it was being tested on Tuesday, the Ukrainians would have been demanding to know whether the technology thought it was a goal.

 

The way the offside element of the Ukraine "goal" has been ignored really is ridiculous. After all, if replays had shown that Lampard was offside against Germany then I'm sure most of us would have accepted that the goal shouldn't have been given. We might have said it was disallowed for the wrong reason but at least the ultimate decision would have been correct - as it was on Tuesday.