A French man in Portugal : England-France [R]

I was at the France-England game in Lisbon yesterday. A good game and a perfect outcome.
Before the game most of the English supporters has been drinking since the early morning and many of them were found lying in the streets around the stadium – A classic. French supporters stood and listened respectfully to the British anthem whereas (almost) all England supporters booed the French anthem - Another classic. Before the kick off, the English around me in the stadium (for some reason I was in the “enemy territory”) were chanting “Zidane is a ********” - How classy ! Before talking about the game itself let me just tell you that after the game ended when we were quietly celebrating in the streets of Lisbon, all the non French supporters that we met (Portuguese, Spanish, Swedes, Danes, Croats…) were all singing “allez la France and vive Zidane” when they saw us. You wonder why.
Now the game : It was an attack VS defence game in which for the most part France attacking game was useless and England defensive game was very effective. Sol Campbell was a rock (the best player on the pitch for 90 minutes) and King was more that a decent substitute for Terry. France was very good for 25 minutes and than the became uninspired and desperately looking for a solution that they did not find. England did the best of the one single occasion they had : a well taken set piece and very good header from Lampart. Well done. Fully deserved. The second half was more or less the same with another English occasion created by an excellent run from Rooney and ending with a deserved penalty. Fabulous Fab stopped it (a few days ago, in the English press, Barthez was quoted as the number 1 reason why France would failed at the Euro – how perspicacious !) Still I was not confident at all that France would equalise let alone win the game. And then came magic Zizou (God save Zizou) and with a little help from Steve Gerrard we finally won this game. It was more than relief. It was unbelievable. I truly felt sorry for the English fans (not the one I described earlier on, the true ones) since England had played very well for most of the game. On the French side Henry was disappointing – He needs to realize that he won’t be playing against Bolton or Liverpool during this tournament and he must raise his game. I am sure he will. Viera was excellent and so were Pires, Silvestre and Thuram. All the others (Zizou included) must do much better if they want to have a chance against the big teams (Italy, Rep Tcheque, Holland). I think England and France will qualify from what I have seen from the other game yesterday. But both teams need to improve significantly otherwise they will face a cruel disappointment.
I am now looking forward to the game against Croatia on Thursday.

 

Re: A French man in Portugal : England-France

You must not have seen many games because they do it all the times -Wembley 99 being an example but if you ask Germans amongst others, I am sure they will have many other examples

 

Re: A French man in Portugal : England-France

ZZ10
You sad war dodging French git....I'm sure you took great pleasure in those feeble words...why try and paint a bad bad picture of the English abroad?

Why? because this is true. Why should we hide the truth?
We are being told by the British media that the worst hooligans have been retained home in England. Good news. It does not change the fact that many of those who managed to travel behave like animals (except that animals don't get drunk at 9.00 AM). Singing 'Rule Britania' or 'God save the queen' is perfect. Behaving like poor thugs is pathetic. At the airport on my way back on Monday there were dozens of english "supporters" still wearing their England jersey from the previous night (what a nice smell) sleeping on the floor of the airport. It gives a fantastic impression of England I can tell you.