Euro 96 | Vital Football

Euro 96

danvilla2

danvilla2

I’m not an expert
Euro 96 kicks off tomorrow on ITV Hub and ITV 4, those of us old enough which I’m sure is the majority then erase all memories for any spoiler alerts for the purposes of a good thread. If you are too young to remember this tournament, it’s the best in my living memory without question so get into it - puts the supposed recent World Cup “success” to shame.

Villa player in the squad by the name of Gareth Southgate, let’s hope he impresses and doesn’t embarrass himself in front on the nation.

First game England v Switzerland 6.15pm

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My daughter was 12 when Euro 96 kicked off, she hated football by the end of the tournament she was a football fan and still is.
 
Looking forward to watching the Bulgaria games, Stoichkov was a brilliant player and had an excellent tournament, pretty much his last great displays before age getting to him.

Sorry to say but looking forward to seeing Germany, had some cracking players like Klinsmann, Ziege, Moller and Sammer.

Portugal and Czech had exciting teams and you can see young Figo and Nedved, among others. Czech vs Russia was a classic game.
 
Big game tonight. Let’s hope we can get an early goal, get one of the strikers in the scoresheet like Shearer, then keep it tight at the back.
 
I was an England fan for Euro 96, loved that tournament, so many memories.

I think I watched every game, or at least every game I could, the games at Villa Park were so exciting, it looked so different covered in orange for the Dutch games.

I'm going to have to watch a load of this.
 
Stephen Jay Hawkings said:
I was an England fan for Euro 96, loved that tournament, so many memories.

I think I watched every game, or at least every game I could, the games at Villa Park were so exciting, it looked so different covered in orange for the Dutch games.

I'm going to have to watch a load of this.
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Only fair, we supported you lot in 94 😉

Must’ve been that Irish Villa connection in the early and mid 90’s that did it.
 
I watched the 94 league cup final the other week, and now watching this - it amazes me how far football has come technically during that time. Shearer controls the ball well, McManaman has some good stepovers but only Gazza has a touch that would make it in today’s game. The balls, boots and pitches were different which all add to the effect but naturally he’s the best player out there.
 
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I don't think the technique is better tbh just athletically a completely different ball game.

Today's football has no where near the amount creative geniuses and flair players of the 90s. Defending was also far better in those days, today defenders can't defend half as well.
 
What's quite interesting to me is that the tournament is a lot worse than I remembered. Obviously lots of drama and atmosphere for the England games but a lot of these group games are so poorly observed, with a tiny turnout and almost no atmosphere (Romania vs Bulgaria had like 12k people watching at St James Park).

The knockout stages were pretty shite as well thinking about it, lots of penalty shootouts, hardly any goals.
 
Pangloss said:
I don't think the technique is better tbh just athletically a completely different ball game.

Today's football has no where near the amount creative geniuses and flair players of the 90s. Defending was also far better in those days, today defenders can't defend half as well.
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I think the absolute power of the big 5 leagues have killed off a lot of the type of flair players you're talking about.

Someone like Hagi for example would never have played in his home country for the amount of time he did these days. When he signed for Real Madrid he'd played first team football in Romania for 3 different clubs over a decade or so.

Nowadays he'd have been shuttled into someones academy in one of the big leagues and if he was lucky he'd have been loaned out a few times to play. Its all seemingly geared towards players who are very good athletically and technically but perhaps lack a bit of personality or spark about them.
 
JW1985 said:
I think the absolute power of the big 5 leagues have killed off a lot of the type of flair players you're talking about.

Someone like Hagi for example would never have played in his home country for the amount of time he did these days. When he signed for Real Madrid he'd played first team football in Romania for 3 different clubs over a decade or so.

Nowadays he'd have been shuttled into someones academy in one of the big leagues and if he was lucky he'd have been loaned out a few times to play. Its all seemingly geared towards players who are very good athletically and technically but perhaps lack a bit of personality or spark about them.
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This is a great point to be honest and especially true of Eastern Europe.

Fabulous players like Stoichkov, Popescu, Hagi, Dragan Stojkovic, Suker, Savicevic, Pancev etc had fantastic careers in their home countries before moving to Europe. Geopolitical relations of course played a part here but did lead to unique talents emerging of the like we do not see these days.
 
Pangloss said:
What's quite interesting to me is that the tournament is a lot worse than I remembered. Obviously lots of drama and atmosphere for the England games but a lot of these group games are so poorly observed, with a tiny turnout and almost no atmosphere (Romania vs Bulgaria had like 12k people watching at St James Park).

The knockout stages were pretty shite as well thinking about it, lots of penalty shootouts, hardly any goals.
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I noticed that there were empty seats at Old Trafford for Germany vs Czechs in the groups.

I was surprised, perhaps working hours weren’t as flexible or wasn’t it as socially acceptable back then to flex hours to nip out to a 2pm game on a Tuesday.

With 30k seats going to sponsors such as MasterCard, Heineken etc there would be no danger of that these days. I had mates with tickets to the other end of Europe like Bucharest to watch random Euro games this summer.
 
danvilla2 said:
I noticed that there were empty seats at Old Trafford for Germany vs Czechs in the groups.

I was surprised, perhaps working hours weren’t as flexible or wasn’t it as socially acceptable back then to flex hours to nip out to a 2pm game on a Tuesday.

With 30k seats going to sponsors such as MasterCard, Heineken etc there would be no danger of that these days. I had mates with tickets to the other end of Europe like Bucharest to watch random Euro games this summer.
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Plenty of cheap flights to Bucharest and it’s only 3 hours away. Baku would be the other end of Europe, not sure how it even qualifies as part of Europe.
 
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