The Official Euro 2016 Thread

[From the Bunker]

Johnny Giles last hurrah.

Yeah, great Irish football man - Legend!

But it was time to go!

[mrdeeds]

Was time to go but got bit of dust in my eyes there.

[thebigfella]

Great team performance by Portugal. Wouldn't have happened with Ronaldo on the pitch.

Ok mystic meg

France thought they just had to show up.... Portugal have played crap bar one game and to be honest haven't really been troubled at the back...

Ronaldo has achieved a serious amount of trophies in his career, only one missing from all the main ones about

Goal scorer would not have come on if Ronaldo stayed on. Ronaldo doing a John Terry.

Ronaldo did start the game and was captain?

[laoislad]

Was time to go but got bit of dust in my eyes there.

Yeah me too, or maybe it was a moth.

[From the Bunker]

Was time to go but got bit of dust in my eyes there.

Absolutely, eyes were watery! He is a legend and you are always sad when a legend moves aside!

[Capt Pat]

Who is going to replace Giles? Sadlier? Jim Beglin?

[mrdeeds]

I like Hamann. Maybe get Kilbane from TV3 for Irelanf games. But I'd say Sadlier at the top table now.

[SHEEDY]

No they don't. Ronaldo is nowhere near as good as Maradona was.

nowhere near as good??? ronaldo imo is 1 of the best players to have ever played the game. in my lifetime id have maradona no.1 and messi and ronaldo as a close 2nd.

[Wildweasel74]

What age are half you lads? don't ever compare Ronaldo to Maradona, like i said previously hes not even the best Ronaldo!!
Maradona was something else, in an era where defenders could and did cut u in two, best player i ever saw (didn't see Pele, etc) and he was way ahead of Zidane and Messi

[Tony Baloney]

Granted not every team in La Liga are all that hot but Ronaldo has a 1.22 goal per game average. That's f**king astonishing in any era. He may not have the skills of Maradona or Zidane nut he left United and re-tooled himself as a goal - scoring machine. On that basis he sits at the top table.

[An Watcher]

I laugh at the comparisons between Maradona and ronaldo.
Come back to me when ronaldo wins the world cup with a fair enough but not great side. When he wins the biggest title in Europe (Serie A was huge back in the day) with a decent side.  Guessing napoli would be on a par with athletico maybe? Finally, scored the greatest goal I ever seen.

Ronaldo is a great player but absolutely not in diegos league

[Jell 0 Biafra]

Has a team ever before won a major tournament by only winning one game?!

You're not counting ET wins as wins?

[J70]

No they don't. Ronaldo is nowhere near as good as Maradona was.

I'm stunned!

I agree completely with The Stallion.

[J70]

Granted not every team in La Liga are all that hot but Ronaldo has a 1.22 goal per game average. That's f**king astonishing in any era. He may not have the skills of Maradona or Zidane nut he left United and re-tooled himself as a goal - scoring machine. On that basis he sits at the top table.

Ronaldo is an all time great, but he is not even the best of his own era.

And neither him nor Messi dominate a football pitch in the manner of Michael Jordan on a basketball court. Maradona did.

Won a World Cup almost single-handedly (christ, his personal highlights alone from just the 86 World Cup belong on any all time great soccer moments list - off the top of my head, the England goal, the Belgium goal, the pass to Burruchaga to win the final). Took a poor Argentina team to runners-up in 1990. And Ronaldo, the diving fairy, NEVER had to put up with a fraction of the dirt and thuggery that Maradona did on the pitch.

[J70]

And people often tend to play down or dismiss Pele these days, as relatively few lived through his career and he never left Brazil until late (ignoring that most players back then stayed in their own leagues, meaning there were no super leagues like La Liga or the Premier League or Serie A).

The thing that always sticks out for me, besides the famous examples of outrageous skill e.g. that goal he flicked up over the defender and volleyed home in the 58 World Cup; letting the ball through his legs to dummy and go around the keeper in 1970; the perfectly weighted lay-off to Carlos Alberto, was something I read years ago from Bobby Moore.

This was from some soccer annual I inherited from a cousin when it was already 15-20 years old, but Moore spoke about playing against Pele in that famous game in 1970 when Gordan Banks made the wonder save. He said Pele went to go past him and the ball seemed to richochet off Moore's leg, back into Pele's path. He thought "you jammy b**tard!". It was only after Pele did it another two or three times that Moore realized that Pele was intentionally playing the ball off Moore's legs and feet to get past him! I've never heard before or since of any player anywhere doing anything like that. How good was Pele, that he could do that to Bobby Moore, one of the greatest English center backs ever?

And also, Zagallo, the Brazil manager in 1970, talked about his value to the team by basically saying: "if you ask me who my best forward is, I'd have to say Pele; if you ask me who my best midfielder is, I'd have to say Pele; if you ask me who my best defender is, I'd have to say Pele; if you ask me who my best goalkeeper is, I'd probably have to say Pele".

That is about a player in what is widely recognized as the greatest international side ever assembled.

What does that say about how good a player was?