Euro '96 |
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Sharpshooter
Alan Kernaghan Joined: 20 May 2010 Status: Offline Points: 140 |
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Bulgaria vs Spain on ITV Hub now. Its annoying they don't have a time clock, I thought by 1996 all broadcasted matches had one by then.
Huge number of empty seats at Elland Road. Edited by Sharpshooter - 12 May 2020 at 1:19pm |
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ConorMac77
Ray Houghton Joined: 22 Apr 2015 Location: Newry Status: Offline Points: 3691 |
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All the tv stations had the timer on the screen from 94 World Cup so not sure why its not being displayed this time. Remember watching it live that day and Jack Charlton in the studio just before ko saying 'where is everyone?'. Very poor attendances at nearly all the games apart from Wembley. Couldn't believe it myself.
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The nation holds it's breath...YES, WE'RE THERE!!!
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Het-field
Roy Keane By Appointment to His Majesty The King Joined: 08 Mar 2016 Status: Online Points: 10700 |
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I’ve actually done some digging as I cant find a pricing schedule for tickets. I went through EBay and it looks like tickets increased in £10 increments. You could attend for as low as £15, but a lot of tickets on sale seem to be between £25-£45, which in 1996 would have been reasonably steep. I recall with Rugby World Cup ‘99 tickets were steep enough, and only encouraged full houses in some games, and Ireland’s games against Romania and USA were relatively poorly attended. Worse still was only 3,000 showed up for the remarkable USA v Romania game at Lansdowne Road.
I feel that the 90s was a time when block booking and complacency amongst organisers encouraged high ticket prices.
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Sharpshooter
Alan Kernaghan Joined: 20 May 2010 Status: Offline Points: 140 |
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I personally think a lot of people in the UK just aren't interested in watching much foreign or non English football.
The fact La Liga, arguably the biggest league in the world along with the Premier League, struggles to secure broadcasting rights here, and even when they manage to, the viewing figures are utterly abysmal. Sky Sports had to give it up for a reason. Most matches were barely getting 50k viewers. England v Tunisia got 17m viewers in the UK, whereas game of the tournament France v Argentina gets 6.5m. Where are the those other 10 million people? Are there people literally who just watch England and nothing else? I don't expect France v Argentina to get the same ratings but its a big drop off. The last free-to-air Champions League Final on ITV, Barcelona v Juventus in 2015, got 4 million viewers. Just barely beating Casualty on BBC 1 at the same time. Terrible. Same crap goes with tennis outside Wimbledon.
Edited by Sharpshooter - 12 May 2020 at 3:39pm |
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Terzino
500 Club la la la Joined: 06 Apr 2016 Status: Offline Points: 665 |
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Wasn't a very good tournament overall. As far as I remember, most of the knockout games were poor and nobody, apart from England and the Czechs, played attacking football. The Euros during this era was probably too small. It could have done with more teams and more variety. The German team that won wasn't great. They were definitely in decline then, and it wasn't until 2006 that they turned the corner. They played Sammer as a sweeper and also had a destroyer in midfield. Nobody probably remembers him now. When they think of the tournament, it will be Poborsky or Gascoigne, but Dieter Eilts was the most effective player that summer. So that probably sums it up, a midfield destroyer, not a playmaker was the player of the tournament. And if England was Brit-pop, then the Czechs were the rockers. Poborsky had ridiculous hair, and they were the biggest drinkers. And, expecting to be knocked out early, one of their players, Smicer, had arranged his wedding for during the tournament. So he left England for a day and got married, before returning! The Golden Goal was also introduced. It was a completely unnecessary Americanisation of the sport, designed to make things more exciting. Apart from the England - Germany Semi, it was a damp squib. It just made teams more fearful. And when a Golden Goal came in the Final, it was an anti-climax. The Czechs really didn't deserve to lose that way. The song for the Euros was Football Coming Home but, as has been mentioned, most people in England didn't turn up in any kind of numbers to watch the matches. Even the England rugby song "Swing low, sweet chariot" was sung at Wembley. So the regular football fan didn't even get to the England games! or so it seemed. And 30 years later they must still be kicking themselves. The tournament was there for them to win. They even took the lead in the Semi-Final. Losing to a non-vintage German team, when everything was going their way, was an absolute bottle job. But we drew nil all away to Liechtenstein and the wheels totally fell off. Two 3-1 defeats to Austria were some of the most bizarre results we've ever had. The Charlton era petered out with a lifeless play-off defeat to Holland in Anfield. When McCarthy took over his first competitive game was away to Liechtenstein. We we four nil up after like 20 minutes! Crazy to think that we threw qualification away because of Liechtenstein!
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Sharpshooter
Alan Kernaghan Joined: 20 May 2010 Status: Offline Points: 140 |
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I disagree, I prefered the 16 team tournament, the expansion to 24 teams didn't improve the overall quality as we saw in 2016.
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pre Madonna
Robbie Keane I am MALDING Joined: 30 Nov 2014 Location: Trumpton Status: Offline Points: 44659 |
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Of course there are a large number of people who just watch England and nothing else! What an odd thing to say! World Cups, and to a lesser extent European Championships, get people who would rarely watch football at all get interested in their national team. If every single person who watched David O'Leary's penalty was an avid football fan there wouldn't be a ticket to be had for Lansdowne Road! I would say that around 6.5 million people would be a fair estimate of the number of people in England that have any interest in football. You could include Wales in that. In Scotland it would be slightly higher, per capita, I would imagine. All that considered, 6.5 million is a very reasonable return. To those with a more passing interest, international football, particularly the World Cup, trumps club/franchise football. An English based team or two in the final of the CL would have doubled that figure, possibly, but I do think a lot of the attraction of European club finals has gone outside of those with a firm interest in the game and even within that. I know I would rather watch Casualty myself these days!
Edited by pre Madonna - 12 May 2020 at 4:53pm |
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pre Madonna
Robbie Keane I am MALDING Joined: 30 Nov 2014 Location: Trumpton Status: Offline Points: 44659 |
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Too small? I'm still not sure about a 16 team Euros, nevermind 24! No doubt we will soon have a 64 team Euros with other teams invited to make up the numbers, with the latter stages played in Saudi Arabia.
I still think 8 is fine for a continental competition, although the entertainment of Euro 2000 and 2008, in particular, put up a strong argument for 16.
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Het-field
Roy Keane By Appointment to His Majesty The King Joined: 08 Mar 2016 Status: Online Points: 10700 |
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16 teams is the right number, without diluting the quality. In 92, the likes of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania, and Ourselves were left behind, and Denmark would have been. Add to that the decent Czech team of the time, and the Welsh team with the likes of Rush, Saunders, Hughes and Giggs, and you would have had an exceptionally competitive tournament with little filler.
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Denis Irwin
Robbie Keane Stay Home & watch Lethal Weapon Joined: 03 Feb 2008 Location: Ath Cliath Status: Online Points: 37956 |
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Probably the last tournament where you had players appear to come from nowhere and sign for big clubs afterwards
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Eamonn Dunphy:"I'll tell you who wrote it, Rod Liddle, he's the guy who ran away and left his wife for a young one".
Bill O'Herlihy: Ah ye can't be saying that now Eamonn |
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pre Madonna
Robbie Keane I am MALDING Joined: 30 Nov 2014 Location: Trumpton Status: Offline Points: 44659 |
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I would argue that a continental tournament only needs the very best. It isn't like a World Cup. The top 8 is plenty and guarantees that there will be no filler. The likes of Spain, Italy, Portugal, Romania and ourselves were left behind because we weren't good enough.
We were probably at our peak then, but we couldn't put England away when it mattered and threw it away against Poland. Denmark were incredibly fortunate and in many ways it was a shame as that Yugoslavia side were fantastic. Euro 84, 88 and '92 were all better tournaments that '96 or '04. By contrast, '00 and '08 were excellent, but more games doesn't necessarily mean a better or fairer tournament.
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Jackal
Liam Brady Joined: 14 Sep 2019 Status: Offline Points: 1364 |
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This was the tournament when England fans abandoned the Union Flag in favour of the St George's Flag.
Edited by Jackal - 12 May 2020 at 6:05pm |
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irishmufc
Robbie Keane I love Vulvas Joined: 09 Aug 2011 Location: Dublin Status: Offline Points: 25100 |
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Sheringham is probably one of the few English players that wasn't overrated and maybe a bit underrated tbh. He had the pace of a snail but he was an excellent link player.One of the best I've seen. His attacking awareness, intelligence and positioning was brilliant. I think most strikers would love playing off him (apart from Andy Cole mind)
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Wings? They're only the band The Beatles could have been.
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Shedite
Jack Charlton Joined: 09 Dec 2011 Status: Offline Points: 9823 |
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Just looking through it, don't remember a lot of it:
- Czechs and Germany played in the group as well as the final. - Italy out in group stage. - Czechs needed an 88th minute goal in the last group game to get out of the group. - 4 shootouts from 6 game sin QF/SF |
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Devrozex
Jack Charlton Joined: 23 Oct 2010 Location: Dublin Status: Offline Points: 7676 |
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Agreed. Euro 2000 was probably the best football tournament in my lifetime in terms of entertainment/quality.
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Het-field
Roy Keane By Appointment to His Majesty The King Joined: 08 Mar 2016 Status: Online Points: 10700 |
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But Europe is a large continent that holds a lot of good teams. I don’t think teams missing out by a point or on goal difference was sufficient a gap to say “not good enough”, when you are only qualifying seven teams. I can agree that moving it to its current format dilutes it a lot. But I don’t think it could be a certainty that having Italy or Czechslovakia at Euro ‘92 would not have improved it.
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pre Madonna
Robbie Keane I am MALDING Joined: 30 Nov 2014 Location: Trumpton Status: Offline Points: 44659 |
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I'm playing devil's advocate as I broadly agree, it was more my dismay that people can think 24 is acceptable for any reason other than money.
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Het-field
Roy Keane By Appointment to His Majesty The King Joined: 08 Mar 2016 Status: Online Points: 10700 |
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I think as Irish fans we might be a little more biased towards the 24 team Euros, as it improves our chances. Especially as we would probably fancy our chances against most 3rd places teams over two legs, unless a first or second seed underperformed. 24 teams has to diminish the quality as you have to trawl far and wide to fill the spots. And being frank, we are only currently in the play offs by falling into them thanks to logistics.
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