heywoodu

What exactly is wrong with Khodjaev's performance? Sure it's a PR, but looking at the past years (including bigger events) it's not that insane at all

Is this another one of those things where some federation thinks that people who find a sport uninteresting, will suddenly watch said sport when it gets shorter? And also, surely they're not throwing around the whole format of the sport literally one and a half months before the Olympics and this is for after that?

It does get a 0-10 win today though

I went for 2-1 (for Italy), nice and edgy

Jesus, some security official didn't do much of a good job, half a bomb exploded in the Turkish area.

Lesson 1: don't put a knife in your own wheels

But then why even have a VAR and not just let the referee watch a replay? The whole system can go so much quicker and more efficient.

Good thing they didn't give a penalty to Turkey after 40 minutes or so for some nonsense trip and Italy a few minutes later for some Italian shooting the ball against a Turkish arm. That'd have set an annoying precendence for the whole tournament. At least I didn't see the referee go to a screen, instead he just listened to the VAR it seems. Finally some improvement in football's incredibly botched VAR system?

Insigne with this tournament's first "Is he going for the goal, or is he trying to hit the corner flag?".

Clear 1-0 for Italy in the anthems, as per (mostly) usual

I can never again hear this song without remembering an airshow I was at and where Frecce Tricolori performed as well, the final long tone of Pavarotti singing was timed so absolutely perfectly with their final flyby, I still get goosebumbs all over just by thinking about it Basically like this

William Tell I wonder if every host country will have a little opening ceremony for their first match

You know how it goes. They separate Hungary and Slovakia in the draw and BOOOM, Hungary vs Slovakia final and we all die.

Oh wait, forgot about that part but yeah you're probably right

Now I really want to see Hungary - Slovakia. A parked bus against a brick wall, let's see what happens

Well if this wasn't possible, I'd just have waited a week or two for the dates to fit better

Me? I'm not setting any foot in Amsterdam at all unless I really need to

How on earth is it not a huge step backwards to present homosexuality, a rather natural thing which really doesn't hurt anyone other than people who are victims of homophobes, as something that should be hidden far away? It really is perfectly fine to go "you're a guy, and you're in love with this person, cool...but that's also a guy, so no, too bad" (which laws like these basically imply)? That has nothing to do with moral superiority (puh..lease), and all with allowing people to live their lives in ways that doesn't hurt anyone (hence why pedophiles and such shouldn't even be anywhere near this discussion, because they do, in fact, hurt others).

I should have phrased it differently I guess, more like 'a country's laws being set back in time so far in one move'. And especially connecting it with that anti-pedophile bill is extremely nasty, not only as a political 'trick' but also because it gives the awful signal that basically gay people and pedophiles should be seen the same.

Wow, it's rare (and sad) to see a country take such a huge step back in time

1. Which two teams will reach the final – and who will win? The Netherlands and Belgium, with the Netherlands winning, haha! 2. Who will win the Golden Boot? Quincy Promes, followed by his arrest and jail sentence for stabbing his cousin - a trial everyone's waiting for to see what happens. 3. Who will be the surprise team of the tournament? Any team that's not mentioned in this question, how on earth can you expect a certain team to be the surprise...that team wouldn't be a surprise anymore then! 4. Who will be the breakthrough player of the tournament? Jurriën Timber, never heard of him before so I guess it can't go wrong. 5. How far will your national team get? The canals of Amsterdam in celebration of the win. 6. What are you most looking forward to, on or off the pitch? The Tokyo and then Beijing Olympics 7. What are you most concerned about, on or off the pitch? The possibility of a knife being anywhere close to Quincy Promes, which could have negative effects on the health of people surrounding him.

That's basically the same here as well though, in terms of sports-related talk shows on TV football beats everything else by a billion miles It just feels like there was a ton more general excitement in years past. Maybe it's just personal, it could be that in 2010 and 2014 (when I had no job or school or any obligations) I had more time to see everything that was going on, while before that I was at school and so at school it was the talk of the day. Then we missed 2016 and 2018 (meaning not much excitement) and now I have a job. Or maybe it's just that people will get more excited once it started

Out of curiousity, how is this tournament 'living' in your countries yet (mostly asking to people from qualified countries, of course? I feel like here on TV we have a few commercials here and there, and a program left or right, but....it doesn't feel very alive yet Same for me personally, I know it starts today, but it basically just feels like a bunch of Champions League matches in a short time or something instead of a real tournament, thanks to this 'great' idea of spreading it around all over the continent.

Right, out of nowhere, suddenly a combination appeared with the first one on 4 July (morning, easily in time before F1) and the second on 8 August (midway afternoon, when all sports at the Olympics is finished and only the closing ceremony I don't care about is going on), what an opportunity Took it right away, of course.

I don't know how you do it @MHSN but big props for somehow being able to make sense of this qualifying process and answering everyone's (including mine) billion questions about it