Two thirds into the tournament, and still a team missing

Avoiding EURO 2016: A self-experiment — Day Twenty

Incredibly, today I have learned nothing new about the EURO 2016! Nada, nothing, zilch! Perhaps it is a day off, as I figured yesterday?

Therefore, let’s summarise what I have picked up about the tournament so far. The new points, since the sum-up twelve days ago, are in italics.

• It is held in France
• France, Romania, Switzerland and Albania must have played in the same group
• Switzerland scored against Albania
• Albania beat Romania and fans celebrated in the streets of Albania until 2 am
• Albania came third but this did not suffice to reach the knock-out stage
• Iceland, Portugal, Austria and Hungary must have been in the same group
• Iceland drew 1:1 against Portugal (and Ronaldo was angry at reporters)
• From this group, only Austria did not reach the knock-out stage
• Poland, Northern Ireland, Germany and Ukraine must have played in the same group 
• Poland beat Northern Ireland by 1:0 (and Lewandowski was angry at his team mates)
• Germany beat Northern Ireland too, apparently by a few more goals
• Wales played against Russia
• Italy beat Sweden 1:0 at the group stage
• Turkey were in there somewhere too
• Sweden was eliminated at the group stage (and Zlatan was angry at the referees)
• Italy beat Spain in the eighth-finals
• Belgium beat Hungary in the eighth-finals
• Germany beat Slovakia in the eighth-finals 
• France beat Ireland 2:1 in the eighth-finals after Ireland had been up 1:0 on a penalty
• Iceland beat England in the eighth-finals
• Everybody loves the Icelandic Vikings — even the English 
• Poland plays Portugal in the quarter-finals
• Germany plays Italy in the quarter-finals
• Iceland, France and Belgium have also reached the quarter-finals

Now, this may seem like a lot of information picked up by someone who actively tries not to follow the tournament. But when you think of it, it adds up to very few facts:

1. As little as four exact results
2. Angry primadonna players
3. And not even all of the eight teams still fighting for the Henri Delaunay Cup…

Goliath usually wins

Avoiding EURO 2016: A self-experiment — Day Seventeen

‘Mom! Ireland has a penalty!’. Half a minute later: ‘They scored!’

It is not easy to not follow a football match when a kid in the house is watching it. Even if it’s a friend’s kid and the television is in another room. It turned out Ireland played France and ended up losing 1:2. Another favourite is through. Boring.

And judging from the reactions from the same gathering’s Croatian representative when someone mentioned Portugal, maybe the team with the chequered jerseys (are they even in this tournament?) lost against the Iberians, but I’m not sure about that one. If so, it just confirms that all the favourites go through in the end.

I hope it is not the case for the other two matches that I happened to see or hear are taking place today or tomorrow: Belgium vs Hungary and England vs Iceland. After Thursday’s referendum, not even the English seem to support their (part of what is still a) country against the refreshingly unconventional Vikings.

I once read that England has only lost two wars ever. One of them was when King Canute the Great of Denmark took over much of Britain. The other might have been when Allan the Tiny did the same some 900 years later:

The Union that does not want to be part of a Union

Avoiding EURO 2016: A self-experiment — Day Fifteen

Today does not call for a blogpost about football, after 51.9% of the UK voters chose to leave the European Union of peace.

So I will make it short and try to link the two. Which is easy: Now there is a real chance that, after almost a decade and a half, it will be justified for more than mere historical reasons that the UK has so many ‘national’ teams.

Because the United Kingdom will soon not be one. It is a now a far from unrealistic scenario that within a pretty near future, Scotland and perhaps even Northern Ireland will actually leave the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, just as the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. Wales, surprisingly, did vote to leave the EU …and the beautiful hilly country will probably keep its ‘national’ team.

The only thing I did pick up about the European Championship today was in my team’s newsletter where it says that our two players Jonas Hector and Dusan Svento will play against each other in the eighth-finals.

So now I know that Slovakia is through to the knock.out stage and that they will face Germany.

A duel between two countries that are both among the 28 members (soon 27, then 29 or a few more) of the European Union of peace.

Those snippets that make it harder

Avoiding EURO 2016: A self-experiment — Day Twelve

The local cinema chain is running a promotional campaign, which is a classical example of a lost main message. It advertises ‘EURO 2016 from 10 June to 10 July — 6 € per ticket at your second visit’. It is evident to read the advert as if the cinemas actually project the European Championship matches on their big screens.

But they don’t. It is just a way to attract a few visitors over the summer and not lose them completely to the televised matches. By making them watch films during the tournament at a (very slightly) reduced rate. Not exactly clear.

What is clear is that Albania beat Romania. I do not know by how much but my Albanian connection told me there were celebrations in the streets until 2 am.

I also overheard a Pole explaining to a non-Pole that ‘we need a 0:0 against Ukraine’. Sigh. This is one of my pet peeves in football as a sport: A team can actually get a point without scoring a goal …provided that the opponent does not score either. And yet, football is allegedly about scoring goals, or at least attractive football is.

Now how is that for a competitive sport? Yes, I know. In other sports it may be similar. But a goalless draw hardly ever happens in ice hockey, for example. I recall such result a few years back in a European top league, and they said it was the first time in many years it had happened — and when it does happen, the match goes into extra time, sudden death or if necessary penalty shoot-out (pardon me if the terms are not correct) until one of the teams does score and ultimately wins. Not to speak of handball where goalless draws never occur.

In the Soviet football league there was no point for a goalless draw. Even if my own favourite team would suffer greatly from such rule, I think it a more than fair one. In fact I even once suggested that scored goals should be the first criterion to ranking teams in the league table. The counter comments I received in that forum were rather amusing. Football fans are, like most other religious people, rather conservative.

Anyway, the fact that biało-czerwoni had to go for at least 0:0 against Ukraine proves that the latter team is in the tournament, which I was not certain about (see yesterday’s post). In what must then be the same group, apparently Germany thrashed Northern Ireland who is probably out then, as I know for a fact they lost 0:1 against Poland earlier in EURO 2016.

So even if I try not to actively follow the tournament, the snippets of information I capture anyway start coming together to what is at least a bigger picture of how things are going and how teams are doing.

Which, admitted, makes it a bigger challenge not to actively follow.

How many out of twenty-four?

Avoiding EURO 2016: A self-experiment — Day Eleven

Time for a self-test. Yesterday when chatting to a couple of friends who had read my blog, I realised that since the number of teams in the European Championship is for the first time 24, there are eighth-finals after the group stage, as opposed to quarter-finals since 1996 I think, and before that even just semi-finals.

This also means that in four of the six groups, number three out of the four teams qualifies for the knock-out stage. I always found this a stupid rule: ‘the four best number threes’. It was invented by FIFA in the 1986 World Cup. Already four years before, the World Cup had been upgraded from 16 to 24 (and nowadays even 32!) teams.

As the system of having the two top teams of each of the six groups advance to the next round, and then play in four groups with three teams in each did not work well, eighth-finals were introduced from 1986, meaning that the ‘best’ four of the six teams finishing third in their respective groups also got a ticket to this round.

Anyway, back to the self-test: Do I actually remember which 24 teams qualified for EURO 2016? Let us see: Poland, Germany, France, Northern Ireland, England, Wales, Russia, Romania, Albania, Iceland, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, Sweden, Turkey, Switzerland and Portugal I know for sure.

That’s 18 already. Spain must be in there as well, and I’m pretty sure that Germany had to play against Ukraine. Oh, and Belgium is in there too of course, as everybody’s (not so) hidden favourite.

So we’re at 21. Which ones can the remaining three be? Croatia would be a good bet. I do know that The Netherlands are not in. But who else is? Greece? Might be. Czechia perhaps? I don’t think so but I’m not sure. Ireland could be though, as I saw a link to some young lads in green jerseys with pints in one hand and garbage bags in the other:




I love that green country and their people! And it seems they are among the 24! Good!

Doire ― That's one way to handle that

'The official BBC regulations for news broadcasts is that the city should be referred to as Londonderry during the initial reference, and Derry subsequently.'

from the Wikipedia article on the Derry-Londonderry name dispute

Why did they show up then?

Football provides us with the most amazing stories:

'Bon Accord were a football team from Aberdeen, Scotland who suffered the worst defeat in any British senior football match, losing 36-0 to Arbroath on September 12, 1885 in a first round match of the Scottish Cup. […] Bon Accord were in reality a cricket team, Orion Cricket Club, who were mistakenly invited to enter the Scottish Cup instead of Orion FC, an Aberdeen football club. […] On September 3, 1887, Arbroath were again drawn in the same competition against Orion — this time the football club rather than the cricket club were correctly invited. The result on this occasion was 20-0 in favour of Arbroath.'

from a Wikipedia article,
which contains quite a few other funny details…

Incidentally, I think I found a new favourite (name among) Scottish football club(s) — Clachnacuddin sounds even nicer than Dunfermline (though I just found out that the classic rock band Nazareth actually comes from there).
Well, I'm off to Inverness on Saturday!

Cairdeas ― Freundschaft ― Friendship

'Is maith an scáthán súil charad.'


'Der beste Spiegel ist das Auge eines Freundes.'
Gälisches Sprichwort

'The best mirror is a friend's eye.'
Gaelic proverb