Group A :
Israel
Holland
Portugal
Belgium

Group B :
Italy
England
Serbia
Czech Republic

Four best teams going to Olimpics games.

Today games:

Netherlands 18:15 Israel

Portugal 20:45 Belgium


Czech Republic 18:15 England

Serbia 20:45 Italy

I'm watching Holland-Israel.

25' 1-0

MVB'll be keeeping his eyes open...current team is cr@p. Mainly coz none of them remember how to play the 4-3-3. Except maybe Robben.

Holland 1-0 Israel FT
Decent start for the hosts, I thought they were a little disappointing though.

Just looked at the line-ups for the Portugal - Belgium games.

I believe I've only heard of a couple of players from either side, they must play club football in their own country or something.

Antunes had better come on for Portugal at some point, I need to see the kid for myself.

I expected the Netherlands to trounce Israel in the first game; I was pleasantly surprised at how well the Israeli U21s played. There are some very good young players on the team. They could easily have gotten an equalizer.

The Portuguese U21s are...wow. A very strong team. A pretty good percentage of the starters are from Sporting (Nani, Moutinho, Veloso at least. I think a couple more?). I'm looking forward to seeing how they do.

misha...I know ur heartbroken...but any dutch bloke u saw, who could be good?

I need to place a call through to Marco...

Ryan Babel is good for the Netherlands, Jack.

Watching the Belgium-Portugal game now (0-0 in the 17th min). The Belgians look like they're trying to foul Nani out of the game.

Ahh yes..Babel the Ajax kid...actually I'd prefer it if we bagged Eto'o and then nailed this kid(on the transfer market...b4 all the dirty minds on the forum go bark! ).

So he's also a wing forward. Right footed kid who plays sublime on the left. Can be exactly like Henry, play outside on the left and cut in and bring players in.

Heck if MVB says, he's got the potential to be better than Henry, who the f@ck are we to argue??!!

I can bet you anything Babel has no future on the left hand side of the Dutch national team.

He only has Robin van Persie, Rafael van Der Vaart and Arjen Robben's superb left foot to contend with.

Well Marco mostly plays RVP on the right...coz he needs someone with brains on the wing forward role. You could see Robben and RVP carry that Dutch side....last WC

Robben gets injured pretty easily, so that's no issue. And as for Van der Vaart, he's like their number 10 isn't he?

He can play down the middle for them...Babel will get his chance...

Er. Robben, Van der Vaart and Van Persie are AMs, correct? Babel is a number 9. No conflict between him and them.

van Der Vaart and van Persie play in their respective positions because Robben has the left wing nailed down.

The World Cup showed this with van Persie on the right and van Der Vaart on the bench. How a player of his quality is on the bench is beyond me, even if you play him out of position, get him on the pitch!

Apart from Babel, Aissati can became a very good player. He played today only 40 min cuz of injury. He's small, fast ,has a very good technique and playing RAM or SS.

Portugal 0-0 Belgium HT
Portugal haven't been that impressive, but they've had their players kicked all over the place. Belgium are alot better than I thought, might make that group a little more interesting.

I don't think our U21 is strong. Have 4 or 5 good players, the others are average.

Strong teams: Italy, Holland + France and Spain, although the last 2 are not in the European.

0-0, bad match, bad result for us. We're not gonna make the semis.

Now, on Wednesday, we'll get r*ped by Holland.

I'm quietly confident England can finally win a trophy, our recent results shows we're very strong.

ENGLAND 1-0 GERMANY
Baines 77

GERMANY 0-2 ENGLAND
Walcott 84, 90

HOLLAND 0-1 ENGLAND
Hoyte 12

ENGLAND 2-2 SPAIN
Soldado 35
Marin 45
Nugent 49
Lita 79

ENGLAND 3-3 ITALY
Gianpaulo Pazzini 1, 53, 68
David Bentley 30
Wayne Routledge 52
Matt Derbyshire 58

ENGLAND 5-0 SLOVAKIA
Richardson (pen) 35
Reo-Coker 61
Taylor 77
Huddlestone 82
Lita 84

We've shown that against some of the top teams (Italy, Germany, Spain & Holland) That we're more than good enough to match them, or beat them.

How could I forget such an arrogant b*stards?

Yes. England is in the top-teams too. Much better than Portugal. You'll go to the Olympics, for sure.

Spain have a pretty solid U21 team, not sure if there in the championship though

Are they?

We'd better make it to the Olympics.

How does the tournement work?
Top 2 from each group go through (And qualify for the Olympics) and then it's just a knockout between those 4 for the winner?


No. Israel, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, England, Italy, Czech Republic and Serbia.

Why isn't France in it?
Did I miss anything?

They must not have qualified.

Damn, I won't get to see Gourcuff then
How come Nasri is in the senior squad and he isn't?

I don't think so. Holland ain't that strong


Israel eliminated them.

Y.

HT. England 0 - Czech Republic 0.

2 yellow cards for England (Nugent & Richardson).

Carson just made another outstanding save. Hopefully he leaves Liverpool, he has no future there.

First right decision the referee made all night, clear handball in the area.

England, as usual, miss the penalty ('87).

FT: 0-0.

We're going to really struggle to go through now.

Always the same good Ol'Ingurlund.

If we weren't so bad at penalties, we'd have won about 3 World Cups by now, easily.

they must take three pts or else all the pressure on them to get results against england and czechs.

lol ur not the only ones who have been screwed on penalties. our win against france was our first ever shoutout win at the WC. and we did lose a final on penalties

Losing penalty shoot-outs is fair enough. But NOBODY should ever miss a penalty, I don't see how you can not be accurate from 12 yards, f*ck even I can score penalties!

One max. Maybe in 1990. None of them was in the final.

Yeah. Just the 2 World Cups then. I forgot '96 was a Euro year.

Italy U21 - Serbia U21

Italy Line-up:

------------------- Curci -------------------

Raggi - Mantovani - Andreolli - Chiellini

----------------- Nocerino -----------------

------------ Aquilani -- Motolivo ---------

Rosina --------------------------- Palladino

------------------- Pazzini ------------------

The Azzurrini are playing in their white (away) kit. Hopefully it'll be lucky for them!

Goalkeeper change for Italy. Curci out (Muscle injury by the looks of things), Viviano in.

damn!

Maybe it's because they're opening games, maybe it's the very poor refereeing on show. But this tournement has been pretty awful as of yet, only 1 goal to show for in 300 minutes, let's hope it improves.

*hop* Rossi is warming up.

And....goal Milanovic in the 63rd min. Serbia 1 - Italy 0.

Serbia 1-0 Italy

huge blow

I think it's the worst possible news for England, if Serbia win I think we'll have to beat Italy, which I don't see us doing, or we're out.

Serbia 1-0 Italy FT
This is a very bad result. England - Italy on thursday is HUGE

well terrible result for italy but, hey if they wanna win the comp they'll have to beat teams like england and czechs. so you can't just count on the "easier" like serbia.

Curci is definitely the best goalie of the tournament. He's a great talent and I hope he will be available for the next matches! Too bad he's a Roma product, those lads come out faithful!

The other two I like from the Italian team are Montolivo and Pazzini. Both Fiorentina players. I guess most of you have already heard about Pazzini but Montolivo is something else... we should go for him, no doubt. He's so reminiscent of Pirlo and I'm almost certain that he's going to be his replacement in the Italy NT. I hope he'll replace him in Milan too!

From the other teams I like the following: (I LIKE THEIR FOOTBALL SKILLS!!!)
Portugal: Moutinho, the short one and Machado... the latter will hopefully play in one of the following games.
England: Leroy Lita. Not great but his name is cool!
Serbia. I think they have a very good team. Many of those youngsters will be in the Euro '08 if the senior team go through! Rukavina, Babović and ToÅ¡ić.
Israel: Ben Sahar is good but not that good. He's a Chelsea player isn't he? They know better than me of course...

Now get me Riccardo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like Moutinho too, dst. Even if he IS a Sporting player.

Fiorentina have a very good crop of young players -- Montolivo is one to watch.

The one Israeli player I really like, though he didn't show best form in the first game, is Toto Tamuz.

Be interesting to see what happens in today's big game: Portugal v. Netherlands part three. Hopefully NOT a record number of cards....