10 Reasons to be Positive after England Beat Ukraine 1-0

1) Top of the group. Many predicted England to crash out at the group stage, some said England would get 2nd. Few said England would top the group but they have with 7 points, fantastic!

2) Unbeaten through the group stage. Haven't done that in a Euros since Euro '96.

3) Momentum. 1 impressive draw against France then 2 victories, the England team are slowly picking up momentum.

4) First clean sheet. Good boost for the defence and Joe Hart, a lovely clean sheet to show for their efforts.

5) Rooney scored. Despite being an easy finish, that goal will give Rooney a confidence boost and a massive lift.

6) Extra day of rest. By topping the group, we have an extra day of rest, an extra day to give any wounds to heal and we can be fresher for the Quarter-Final.

7) It's Italy. We could have been playing the World Champions, instead it's Italy. Yes, they're a good team, but not as good as Spain.

8) The opposition are floundering. Spain struggled, Holland are out, France lost to Sweden, Italy haven't set the World on fire, Germany edged through. This tournament is open.

9) Team effort. So far, England haven't been about individuals, we've worked solidly as a team. Teams win trophies, you ask Greece.

10) Only 3 games. We're halfway to European glory, 3 games from the trophy...

Well, after reading that, what can I say..? Perhaps you might send it to The Sun who I am sure would be delighted to print it, probably with a free, giveaway St George's flag, bowler hat and "We're Gonna Reign In Ukraine" car sticker.

Yep... we're only 3 games from the trophy. That would be the hardest three games, then.

Rooney vs Ballotelli in the Quarter Final. What a match up that could be..!! My money is on Super Mario to score three goals, strip naked on the pitch at the final whistle, balance a supporters hat on his Winkle and shout "How's that for a hat trick".

Beep beep.... Mehhhhhh..

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Germany edged through? They won all 3 games!!

Yes England are looking solid, but that's where I would draw the line. What I have liked about this England team is the discipline and shape they maintain. This is why I was surprised Capello failed so miserably at the World Cup 2 years ago.

I think the burning question now is does Walcott start ahead of Milner? Most people I have been talking with feel he should and knowing it is only a winner takes all format I think he needs to start with an attacking team and maybe utilise Milner if England are in the lead. The Italian team isn't blessed with pace and I think maybe start Walcott and hit them from 1st minute. Though I may suspect he might wait until the second half and bring on the Ox and Walcott to pick the bones from a tiring opposition.

For me Germany are looking like the winners. They have the perfect blend in their squad. Spain were always looking like second best when Villa was ruled out. I was surprised with Del Bosque's tactics in the Croatia game when taking his only striker off and bringing on midfielders. They still won which even baffled me further.

Yes the tournament is open, but Germany are likely opponents should England overcome Italy and at this moment in time I am not liking our chances!

Italy have only won one game, am I right?

EnglishReign wrote:Italy have only won one game, am I right?

Correct and that was against the weakest team in the Euros.

Italy always seem poor and certainly far from favourites but thats when they actually grind out victories and win trophies (world cup 1982 and 2006).
will be an interesting QF, personnaly think we will see a penalty session at the end

I think all the people who think Platini and UEFA are always against England, might want to ask why the officials didn't allow a legitimate Ukrainian goal in yesterday's match. I think this conspiracy theory can finally be kicked into touch.

One thing to burst you bubble

ITS ENGLAND!!!!

Italy are notorious slow starters.

Italy may be slow starters but the best football i have seen them play was against Spain. The other two matches they were poor. If they play England the way they played against Spain then England will struggle but i do believe that England has the team to beat Italy this time.

Italy are okay not great. I can see it being a boring match! England certainly have the goods to beat them. Ireland looked half-decent against Italy ffs!

Ireland really attacked Italy Thomond, seriously put them on the back foot. I would suggest that Roy Hodgson will look at that game in particular when deciding his appraoch.

We attacked in our own way alright. Long balls up that were effective. "Super Kevin" Doyle had a superb game, why Trap brought him off I don't know. He makes dafter decisions than Deccie Kidney!

billy to be fair though I think Italy were caught out and were expecting Ireland to roll over again which they did eventually

legendkillarV2 wrote:Germany edged through? They won all 3 games!!

But only by one goal margins. Right now I'd say anyone bar Greece and Czech Republic can win it at this point. Nobody jumps out as definite favourites to me.

lorus59 wrote:I think all the people who think Platini and UEFA are always against England, might want to ask why the officials didn't allow a legitimate Ukrainian goal in yesterday's match. I think this conspiracy theory can finally be kicked into touch.

Like the officials in the Germany v England match in 2010 and what Wenger says a lot.....

I didn't see it.

legendkillarV2 wrote:

lorus59 wrote:I think all the people who think Platini and UEFA are always against England, might want to ask why the officials didn't allow a legitimate Ukrainian goal in yesterday's match. I think this conspiracy theory can finally be kicked into touch.

Like the officials in the Germany v England match in 2010 and what Wenger says a lot.....

I didn't see it.

Well apparently neither did the guy standing 3feet away whose sole job was to watch if the ball goes over the line

MockingJay33 wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:Germany edged through? They won all 3 games!!

But only by one goal margins. Right now I'd say anyone bar Greece and Czech Republic can win it at this point. Nobody jumps out as definite favourites to me.

One goal margins win you games. I think they jump out as favourites to me. Beaten Holland and Portugal.

lorus59 wrote:I think all the people who think Platini and UEFA are always against England, might want to ask why the officials didn't allow a legitimate Ukrainian goal in yesterday's match. I think this conspiracy theory can finally be kicked into touch.

Which legitimate goal was that?
The one that should have been called offside earlier in the move?

MockingJay33 wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:Germany edged through? They won all 3 games!!

But only by one goal margins. Right now I'd say anyone bar Greece and Czech Republic can win it at this point. Nobody jumps out as definite favourites to me.

England beat lesser teams by 1 goal margins.

MockingJay33 wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:Germany edged through? They won all 3 games!!

But only by one goal margins. Right now I'd say anyone bar Greece and Czech Republic can win it at this point. Nobody jumps out as definite favourites to me.

Beating Denmark, Portugal and Holland by one goal margins is a lot more impressive than beating Ukraine and Sweden by one goal margins.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

lorus59 wrote:I think all the people who think Platini and UEFA are always against England, might want to ask why the officials didn't allow a legitimate Ukrainian goal in yesterday's match. I think this conspiracy theory can finally be kicked into touch.

Which legitimate goal was that?
The one that should have been called offside earlier in the move?

It wasnt though and the ball crossed the line

marty2086 wrote:billy to be fair though I think Italy were caught out and were expecting Ireland to roll over again which they did eventually

Caught out or not, they looked very open to an Irish side who are pretty pish to be honest. Italy have only really played well against Spain and that was when spain were not playing strikers. I honestly feel Carroll will cause the Italian defense nightmares and Rooney will nip in for 1 or 2.

marty2086 wrote:

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

lorus59 wrote:I think all the people who think Platini and UEFA are always against England, might want to ask why the officials didn't allow a legitimate Ukrainian goal in yesterday's match. I think this conspiracy theory can finally be kicked into touch.

Which legitimate goal was that?
The one that should have been called offside earlier in the move?

It wasnt though and the ball crossed the line

Like the goal. It wasn't.

marty2086 wrote:

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

lorus59 wrote:I think all the people who think Platini and UEFA are always against England, might want to ask why the officials didn't allow a legitimate Ukrainian goal in yesterday's match. I think this conspiracy theory can finally be kicked into touch.

Which legitimate goal was that?
The one that should have been called offside earlier in the move?

It wasnt though and the ball crossed the line

The (full) ball was mm over the line.
Milevskiy was a yard offside.

Who was more hard done by?

I think Ukraine since theres a guy whos meant to stand there and spot it but thats football for you

Loved the commentator though saying they went back over it and it was offside therefore it was JUSTICE!!!

marty2086 wrote:I think Ukraine since theres a guy whos meant to stand there and spot it but thats football for you

Loved the commentator though saying they went back over it and it was offside therefore it was JUSTICE!!!

Like the guy with the flag who is meant to spot offsides.

marty2086 wrote:

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

lorus59 wrote:I think all the people who think Platini and UEFA are always against England, might want to ask why the officials didn't allow a legitimate Ukrainian goal in yesterday's match. I think this conspiracy theory can finally be kicked into touch.

Which legitimate goal was that?
The one that should have been called offside earlier in the move?

It wasnt though and the ball crossed the line

So if it had been given England would have been unlucky. As it wasn't given, it was merely fair.

legendkillarV2 wrote:

marty2086 wrote:I think Ukraine since theres a guy whos meant to stand there and spot it but thats football for you

Loved the commentator though saying they went back over it and it was offside therefore it was JUSTICE!!!

Like the guy with the flag who is meant to spot offsides.

No hes got other jobs the extra official was added as an alternative to technology

marty2086 wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:

marty2086 wrote:I think Ukraine since theres a guy whos meant to stand there and spot it but thats football for you

Loved the commentator though saying they went back over it and it was offside therefore it was JUSTICE!!!

Like the guy with the flag who is meant to spot offsides.

No hes got other jobs the extra official was added as an alternative to technology

So a linesman is not there to give offsides?

Superb logic!

legendkillarV2 wrote:

marty2086 wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:

marty2086 wrote:I think Ukraine since theres a guy whos meant to stand there and spot it but thats football for you

Loved the commentator though saying they went back over it and it was offside therefore it was JUSTICE!!!

Like the guy with the flag who is meant to spot offsides.

No hes got other jobs the extra official was added as an alternative to technology

So a linesman is not there to give offsides?

Superb logic!

No the logic is the extra official stands still and looks across the line to spot the ball crossing it that is the one thing he has to do the assistant has to keep up with play so at times misses offsides if you need it further explained I can

marty2086 wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:

marty2086 wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:

marty2086 wrote:I think Ukraine since theres a guy whos meant to stand there and spot it but thats football for you

Loved the commentator though saying they went back over it and it was offside therefore it was JUSTICE!!!

Like the guy with the flag who is meant to spot offsides.

No hes got other jobs the extra official was added as an alternative to technology

So a linesman is not there to give offsides?

Superb logic!

No the logic is the extra official stands still and looks across the line to spot the ball crossing it that is the one thing he has to do the assistant has to keep up with play so at times misses offsides if you need it further explained I can

I'll explain it better. The linesman does not need to run the whole pitch. It is not tiring as you make out to be.

Trying to justify one mistake above another is quite bizarre. The linesman didn't give the offside he was in a position to do so and an official not giving a goal in the correct position are the same things. Hence if the linesman gave the correct decision, the line official wouldn't be in a position to have to call a 'goal'

Goal or no goal, England would've topped the group. I'll let them have it, there you go England 1 - 1 Ukraine. Thank you and goodnight.

Basically the only team that could be aggrieved would be England

If England get past Italy I think they have a great chance of making the final I really do. I still don't rate Walcott and I would keep starting Milner and using Walcott as a super sub. Its working so far, why change it.

Am I right in thinking this is the first time England have beaten the host/joint host of a major tournament on their patch?

[quote="legendkillarV2"]Am I right in thinking this is the first time England have beaten the host/joint host of a major tournament on their patch?[/quote

Commentators were talking about this last night, apparently the only other time was against Switzerland in the '54 World Cup!

Another landmark in what could be a historic week for the English

it's not quite true that the extra officials are there only to check the ball crossing the line, they're also there to rule on penalty area infringements if they see any. Of course an official was about a yard away from a bit of fairly obvious shirt tugging in the Spain-Croatia game and gave nothing there... Don't get the point of them TBH, the technology's there, let's use it!

I do feel sorry for Ukraine who didn't get the breaks yesterday and have performed pretty well all tournament (with the exception of a lousy ten minutes spell against France), but that's football.

I have yet to see these extra officials make any big calls on clear penalty area infringements which we frequently see on tv replays, often of clear shirt tugging and players being dragged down purposely off the ball, which are so clear on tv replay's you wonder what's the point of them being there.

Also, its impossible for them imo to see if the ball has crossed the line in such a split second. They only see it once and like the lines man and the ref, have a split second to make an enormous decision. As we saw with the replay's, it took less than a minute to get a replay up and running and see clearly that the ball has crossed the line. Anyway, how many times have we had this argument and now finally we will be seeing it implemented into the game.

[quote="Duty281"]

legendkillarV2 wrote:Am I right in thinking this is the first time England have beaten the host/joint host of a major tournament on their patch?[/quote

Commentators were talking about this last night, apparently the only other time was against Switzerland in the '54 World Cup!

Switzerland only existed as a country after 1963.

Switzerland was formed as a country in 1291 so not sure where you got that from. They also held the World cup in 1954 as the other poster quite rightly stated. I think you might mean that Switzerland joined the council of Europe in 1963, different thing completely.

Thought you might be interested how some Italians (my friends) are viewing the upcoming quarter final clash between Italy and England.

The general concensus is that the current Italian squad is very poor, and they tell me that they expect England to win.

However the experts' views on Rai (national broadcaster) say that England under Hodgson are much worse than 2010 under Cappello, and that they expect Italy to beat England.

I think you could argue either way, I fancy Italy to beat England, but I don't think it's a huge stretch of the imagination to think that England could beat Italy. Both sides have had better teams in the past, and are still relying on some of the stars of yesteryear (Gerrard, Pirlo, Terry, Buffon).

I wondered how long it would take for the conversation to drift into the realm of the controversial incident of the non-goal.

My take on this is that, the question of "Did-it-didn't-it-cross-the-line" will continue in football until such time as goal line technology is introduced and then, if it does it's job properly, then that issue will be resolved.

And then a whole new can of worms will be opened.

I'm going to start a new thread, on this very topic, with a specific scenario that should get some discussion going. It will be a more general type of subject, so not in the Euro 2012 section. Just football, generally. Check it out and let me know what you all think.

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I suspect the non-goal question would not be such a big issue if the reaction in 2010 had not been as overblown.

The argument that these things even themselves out would be more readily accepted if the English media (can't speak for the English public other than the mindless ramblings of the numpites that phone 606) had not thrown such a collective hissy fit about the Lampard non-goal. It shouldn't have been the main focus given the real issue was that Germany had just handed England's arse to them.

Offside or not, the attempts to justify the decision are more than a little hypocritical!