Croatia with 2 away golas already and it's not HT yet. Hiddink's team is going down.

Ireland 1-0 up away.

3-0 Croatia.

Bye-bye, Turkey.

After the first half of Croatia - Turkey, I started watching Ukraine - Germany and it turn out to be a great decision . Some great golas and a surprising 3-1 to Ukraine at HT.

Sheva almsot scored the fourth

To say I'm surprised by the result of Turkey-Croatia would be an understatement. the Croatians must have played a great game because the Turks are not really pushovers especially with a great coach the helm. congrats to them and our one and only Croatian boardmember

Also good result for Italy so far. it's nice to see my favorite NT getting better and better (though slowly) with each game after those horrible WC performances.

Huh? I'm pretty sure there is another one (or was another one). Can't recall the name. Fillipo, plus one.

Hm, who? don't remember!

Ended 3-3. Nice comeback by Germany, both teams had chances to scre the winner.

So seems like Portugal - Bosnia is the only game still will be worth watching on Wednesday.

Lavezzi scored for Argentina in a WCQ at home against Bolivia. Finished 1-1.

Bolivia beat them 6-1 two years ago, so this is actually an improvement

Surely not in Argentina though!

It was 1-1 in Argentina just this summer in the Copa.

Just noticed they lost to Venezuela as well.

3 games, 1 win. Unfortunately they'll still qualify because not enough of the other teams are going to be consistant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvHHyBFHLQ0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT6EwgjH1NA

Suarez just scored 4 goals against Chile.

Did anyone watch Italy,how did Abate do?(my receiver was down ;( )

126 and counting - Real Madrid's Iker Casillas to equal Andoni Zubizarreta's all-time Spain caps record at Wembley

What a legend.

Dull first half. Spain had more posession but done nothing with it. Our only plan seems to be give it to Theo and win a free kick.

England win free kick. Bent wins header, hit the post and Lampard's there for a tap in!

Well done England. Regulars like Terry, Gerrard, Ferdinand and Rooney not playing and we beat Spain.

Took them 89 minutes to have their 2nd shot on target. Says it all really, if you don't hit the target you'll never win.

Thanks I think the victory was deserved.

Yes, that result undid the last 3 or 4 years of Spanish achievement.

I am now convinced Iniesta, Fabregas, Villa and Silva will take up basket weaving.

Where did I say that? God forbid anyone is positive about England.

I dunno, it just seemed like your comment was representative of Spain as a whole, rather than in one game.

England were defensively robust and had a good game, but to take anything meaninfully positive from that friendly seems naive.

As the people saying before in the build-up these friendlies are always lose-lose in the main.

- if you win, it's just a friendly, no one cares, the opposition didn't care etc.
- if you lose or draw it's game over, 'look at those clowns in England believing they actually have a good side hahaha'.

Least it's a way for the FA to pay back Wembley, because there is absolutely no other meaningful reason to have 2 international friendlies at this stage.

Fail to see how it's naive.

It was actually the perfect way a friendly can play out, in my opinion. We had alot of first team regulars out with the likes of Terry, Ferdinand/Cahill, Gerrard, Young and Rooney which allowed us to use a friendly for what they are essentially for - fringe players.

Lampard gets alot of stick and people saying he shouldn't be in the side, but was superb and deservedly the match-winner. Scott Parker was brilliant. Lescott and Jagielka were a very good partnership, even Glenn Johnson did well defensively. Jones wasn't spectacular but did a job and Milner worked very hard in chasing the ball down. Bent had little service, but about his only touch of the game resulted in an England goal.

Don't see how you can't take positives from it. Our fringe players did a job against the best team in World football. People can say they didn't care or didn't try or whatever. If they didn't care, you wouldn't have Cesc and Silva whining in the media about it. My comment about their lack of shots on target wasn't even aimed at them, more to put accross just how superb we were defensively.


I think some are meaningful if you use them the right way. More often than not we just put out our best XI and its pointless. Get an injury and you're fucked because you don't really know who can step in at International level. Now we can be confident that we have a decent squad of (mostly young) players who are capable of coming in and doing a job.

Otherwise I agree yeah, lose/lose.

Scotland beat Cyprus on Friday. 2 great goals but that is literally the only thing I can take from the game.

You're right, friendlies are lose lose. They really have no meaning at all and you can't 'win' one.

What I mean is, it's naive to take ANYTHING from a friendly. If you lose, you lost, big deal, it's only a friendly. Ditto winning. Friendlies have no value, not even in experimentation because it's not a competitive game. It's like having a training ground match and trying different things. That's fine on the training game, but it translating to a serious match is a different roll of bog paper.



I didn't hear anyone moaning about it, but I'll take your word for it - mainly because if any professional footballer didn't complain about losing they are in the wrong job. No one likes to lose, not even at a friendly game of tiddlywinks.

So then by definition it is competitive. Wanting to win and being annoyed when you lose is exactly that, competitive. Sure it's not a meaningful game because nothing is riding on it, but that didn't stop Spain rolling out their best XI.

The result isn't important. But the mental boost this will give them team is HUGE. As for experimantation, I disagree completely, fringe players being able to compete with the best team is the World has a tonne of value.

Look, when you disagree with me it can mean only one thing: You are wrong.

Have a nice day

Italy's line-up vs Uruguay: Buffon; Maggio, Chiellini, Ranocchia, Balzaretti; Pirlo; De Rossi, Marchisio; Montolivo; Osvaldo, Balotelli.

New uniform:

Can we say fugly from the front, and gorgeous from the back? I'm talking about the player shirts, not GK, of course.

Gorgeous from the back? Those numbers are looking like a computer virus. And why is Prandelli holding a shirt like he's a player?

Don't know the answer to your second question, but hey, I'm a technology guy. Viruses aren't that bad once you get to know them. But jokes aside, I find it a nice touch, always good to see differnet styles of player numbers, use of unique fonts, and all that. A single style is so 90s. Not that it's a bad thing, but a little variety please.

But the front texture looks absolutely hideous. Why do they have to try these new hanky pankies?!

Hmh, funny - it seems like I find most of the new uniforms dislikeable: Germany, Spain, Italy,...

Really like the GK shirt. Not so much the players.

Truth be told, I don't like them very much too. At least compared to the classic ones. I mean, nothing tops Brazil and Italy 2002 for me. They can try as many nifty (in their view) effects they want, but it usually is the case of adding too much flavor to spoil the dish itself. Not just the NT ones, the club ones are more miss than hit now-a-days.

I mean, the only two good things in the above player uniforms are the perfect shade of blue and techy font.

Do not understand why they can't keep shirts simple. This England shirt is one of my favourite all-time shirts and it's about as basic as you can get.

I don't like Italy's one either.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/14/asia/2011/1...ng-stunning-win



My country(lebanon) won today against South Korea which got us closer to achieving a historic breakthrough to the world cup qualifiers.Btw,we have the lowest budget for a national team .
Also,South Korea got into round 16 in the last world cup.Just braggin xD...I don't get to do that much ;p

Congrats, man. By the way, disagree about the budget thingy, I think my country has the lowest budget for the football team. Most of the time it is in the red, ie zero. All hail corrupt governance! But I do hope you guys qualify, should be great, and a good turn for the NT. I'd prefer you guys much over the likes of Tunisia, and friends.

Barry, 1-0. Time to get this awful record over with.

Sweden's shirts are awesome, by the way.

Carson, Walker, Cahill, Barry, Milner, Downing, Sturridge and Bent on for England at the moment. All played (or still play, in DBs case) for Villa at some point.

Germany 3-0 Holland

Spain are currently losing 2-0 to Costa Rica...

Costa Rica are gonna win the Euros!

Ended 2-2. Portugal beat Bosnia for the last place at the Euro. Argentina avoided trouble by beating Colombia 2-1 away.

Euro 2012 pots




Spain, Germany, Portugal, France?

Gee, Pot 2 really is the "Pot of Death". Never thought I'd get to say this, but there you go!

Further shows how meaningless friendlies are. You can't help but be pleased to win anything, of course, but ultimately there is zero to take from them.

They are just a glorified training ground exercise.