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Euro 2012 |OT| of England? You're having Olaff
- Thread starter caramac
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Wind's Howling
Member
I swear that if the Belgium defenders could also play for Holland we would be champion with ease.
Wind's Howling
Member
Vermaelen as left-back, Vertonghen as central-back, Heitinga as central-back and Van der Wiel as right-back.
Alderweireld is not even ready for the next step.
Unless you are Russian I really doubt you have anything to worry about.
Edit: Holy shit at that 'document'. I've only managed the first 2,5 mins (up to where we border with Austria and somehow Yugoslavia is still alive and kicking in 2012) and already I see that they already had a conclusion before they started even filming it. I see no purpose of it, other than to vilify Poland because whatever.
Edit2: Ok, I've tried to watch another 2 minutes and this is just too painful to watch, sorry. I laughed when the first subtitles were already wrong though.
fixed
You should really watch. I'm Polish and this is hard for me as well, but it's the truth. Anti-semitism still is a problem in Poland.
I'm not saying it isn't, but this is taking a problem that, while isn't completely marginal, isn't also as huge as they were suggesting and blowing it completely out of proportions, tabloid style. I've always considered BBC to be a reliable TV outlet.
And don't get me even started on the "risking returning home in coffins". SERIOUSLY!? This is shameful, disgraceful, and hypocritical.
Besides, while Cracow (the city where English national team will be staying) isn't amongst the safest cities in Poland, one of it's running plagues is tourists from London regularly coming for weekend and then acting like they are out of any jurisdiction's reach. Because hell, Poland?
Finally, about the hypocritical part. Seems kind of weird considering how London is hosting Olympics this year. The city that experienced widespread riots going on for several days in the middle of the summer, that actually brought some casualties with them.
Yeah, I might have partially picked the last one straight off YT top rated comments on that 'documentary', but I consider it quite a fair point.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
What a bunch of bollocks. The London riots last summer were not racially motivated, there was no targeting of Asian/Black/Jewish people by White neo-nazi gangs. There was indiscriminate violence, for sure, but violence targeted at a certain group of people because of their skin colour is a lot worse. Not only that, but after three days the riots ended and plans are in place to break out tear gas and water canons if rioters come out this summer, I have yet to see any serious plan aimed at breaking racist neo-nazi gangs in Ukraine or Poland and your attitude is why.
Pointing at problems in other countries to defend problems at home is not a real defence. England has its problems with football hooligans, but by and large the police, FA, Football League and Premier League have stamped them out at football grounds and made going to matches much safer for families and minorities. The same cannot be said for Poland or Ukraine. Now we only see football hooligans outside pubs having fights with each other, they don't tend to bother regular fans and while there are some exceptions the problem is under control.
One of the many reasons why I love living in North America, or at least in Canada. I have yet to hear anything like this for any of our sports teams. Yes, there was the Vancouver riot of the Stanley Cup loss, but other than that... meh. I don't think we've had any racially-motivated fights, riots, or any of that bullshit ever since I came here 12 years ago.
Why can't people just learn to get a long... shit.
Why can't people just learn to get a long... shit.
I'm not trying to justify any of that. It is despicable, yes. There ARE attempts made at culling the incidents, but it's by no way an easy process and you should know it well.
Again, at the first part, this is a tricky one. Yes, the riots weren't mainly racially charged (though in places they probably at least partially devolved into that). But my point was that the social unrest of such a scale that had been unseen in Poland for decades (and even then they were due to socialist regime). And racially/ethnically charged violence is HIGHLY sparse and is often confined to matches between clubs (and is mostly exclusive to hate speech, though there are these shameful incidents where hooligans will hate on newcomers of a different race).
Leading to my final point, that is highly distorted image of polish reality and has nothing to do with how Euro will actually look like. Again, I'm not trying to justify anything, but I don't believe anything major might actually happened.
My main beef is with Campbell's statement about coffins, which is absolutely disgraceful, fear mongering, and unfounded.
Edit: Ok, I'm watching the second part of the documentary and it is definitely chilling...
zomgbbqftw
Banned
What you say may very well be true, but the fact that, today, in 2012 racism exists within football grounds in Poland (and Ukraine) is extremely troubling, and I believe Sol Campbell when he says that if I were to travel to England matches (or Netherlands matches as it turns out this time) there is a fairly good chance that I would be flown back to London in a coffin. If the Euro championships were held in one of England, Spain, Portugal or Italy I would be absolutely confident that this would not happen and that I would come back in one piece having enjoyed my time in any of these nations.
As a non-minority maybe you just don't see how troubling this video is. As a minority I do. I wouldn't go to the Euro championships, even if England looked like the favourites to win. Neither country would be welcoming to people of my skin colour (as was seen in the doc) and I honestly don't want or need that kind of hassle.
UEFA were wrong to award this tournament to Ukraine and Poland before ensuring that racism in the sport has been fully stamped out and now they will pay for it. If a single racially motivated crime takes place it will be very painful for UEFA and for the sport.
Supporting
Being it biased or not that shit is not acceptable. Uefa chose the wrong nations to host these.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Who is "us"
fascists? anti-semites? white supremacists?
Poland. It was before I've watched the whole documentary I'll agree the scenes from Ukraine are pretty chilling. The ones from Poland are somewhat taken out of context (you want to show what matches look like in Poland so you choose two of the five or so most heated football rivalries in the country YES GOOD IDEA). A huge majority of matches is perfectly safe, as usual it's the vocal minority that's stirring everything up. Besides that, there are many efforts made to curb it as far as it is possible (e.g. in my hometown there is a "fans card" system that enables the police to quickly identify and arrest suspects). But as with a hydra, even if you strike down a head, countless others will appear in it's place.
Once again, while this doesn't make it right in no way possible, you could probably go to any country around Europe and easily make a similar documentary. THIS DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT, but I'd consider this a hypocrisy.
Then again, Ukraine is completely different sort of a beast. It's an absolutely different situation there, the police is highly corrupt, there is often no action taken to cull the derogatory activities. Admittedly, the decision to give them hosts, together with us, was made when they seemed to be on a good path. Well, too bad.
I just don't want Poland to be thrown into the same bag as Ukraine in this case. If anything, it's only infrastructure that's not ready to host Euro 2012. We as a society are ready, and this being done to us, complete with the "coffin" comment by Campbell is just painful and serves no purpose at all. I can't speak for the Ukraine, but I believe besides a completely random factors thrown it, Poland is ready to host Euro 2012 right now.
Broder Salsa
Banned
You really can't.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Yeah, you really can't. I would say the Old Firm is the only one in Britain which shows anything near as violent and motivated as those filmed in the documentary. On the rare occasion that we have a Chelsea vs Millwall game there will be some scuffles, but it is always, always kept out of the stadium and away from regular fans. There is no way you would ever walk into an English stadium and see that kind of violence between fans without a response from the police.
The "everyone does it" defence doesn't work here, maybe the rest of Eastern Europe is the same, but Western Europe does not have a problem with violence in football stadia so it is wrong to say it.
What about Italy, aren't things quite bad over there sometimes?
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Lazio.
Meus Renaissance
Member
Can't we get an admin to give us flags under our usernames like we had for the WC?
criesofthepast
Member
Not happening unfortunately. Kabouter has one for himself. He's just rubbing it in I think. ಠ_ಠ
We have an imagine to maintain, as a free spending superpower bent on world domination.
After all we sent our navy on a relief mission to Africa and they stopped half way for a luxury vacation in a 5 star resort in cabo verde islands
Ronaldo is paying for his own daily mani-pedi this tournament. So that's a huge saver.
Wind's Howling
Member
We ready!
C. Ronaldo's hair reminds me of There's Something About Mary. Ugh....
This BBC material is everything I hate about modern journalism: there is a strong thesis behind it and it does everything to prove it, not even trying to look on the issue from any other perspective. Are images seen in the document real? Yes, they are. But then again, probably even using footage from the very same matches, another document of a similar length could be made, only this time showing happy families enjoying top-class football on shiny new stadiums in great atmosphere, all that commented off-screen by a couple of black, jewish and asian players that do not by any means feel threatened living and playing in Poland. Both documents would be shit though, because showing only one side of the coin is not really journalism but propaganda.
So are there really racist outbreaks on polish stadiums? Yes, they are. Is entire polish football community racist then? No, it isn't, and the last couple of years have seen a major crackdown on football hools, including arrests, jail, fees, stadium bans and more. Did some polish hools throw bananas and racist remarks at some of the players? Yes, they did. Did anyone actually "come back home in his coffin" because of football rivalry? No, nobody did and I didn't even hear about anyone being injured because of that in years. So, if I go to a Euro 2012 match in Poland will I seat next to one of those bald-headed roid mutants shouting anti-semitic slogans I've seen on BBC? Maybe, but he will be there with his wife and two kids eating popcorn and singing polish anthem, because league football is worlds apart from international football, because most of his hooligan friends didn't even get the tickets for the tournament, because Ultras communities boycotted Euro for one reason or the other, because police, government, UEFA and normal Poles will do everything to make the tournament as safe and fun as possible for everyone. Let me say that one more time: problems of polish league football depicted by BBC do not by any means translate to an international events like Euro 2012 and while images shown there are true, they only depict 10% of the whole picture.
So are there really racist outbreaks on polish stadiums? Yes, they are. Is entire polish football community racist then? No, it isn't, and the last couple of years have seen a major crackdown on football hools, including arrests, jail, fees, stadium bans and more. Did some polish hools throw bananas and racist remarks at some of the players? Yes, they did. Did anyone actually "come back home in his coffin" because of football rivalry? No, nobody did and I didn't even hear about anyone being injured because of that in years. So, if I go to a Euro 2012 match in Poland will I seat next to one of those bald-headed roid mutants shouting anti-semitic slogans I've seen on BBC? Maybe, but he will be there with his wife and two kids eating popcorn and singing polish anthem, because league football is worlds apart from international football, because most of his hooligan friends didn't even get the tickets for the tournament, because Ultras communities boycotted Euro for one reason or the other, because police, government, UEFA and normal Poles will do everything to make the tournament as safe and fun as possible for everyone. Let me say that one more time: problems of polish league football depicted by BBC do not by any means translate to an international events like Euro 2012 and while images shown there are true, they only depict 10% of the whole picture.
Any amount of racism is too much. Polish football, and generally Eastern European football is mired with racism and xenophobia.
If those attitudes show up, even if marginally during a match, the media frenzy and the amount of coverage it will receive will only embarrass the host nations and mark them for many years to come.
To be honest, i´ve never witness such a climate of fear and condemnation surrounding a European tournament. I went to a lot of matches in Euro 2004 in Portugal, even the English fans were amazing. I went to all of Portugal´s matches in Euro 2000 as well, and the politeness and openness of the Dutch and Belgian fans... amazing.
We do recognize racism is a problem in polish football and because of that alone you can expect both government and normal citizens to go an extra mile to make everyone who comes here for Euro safe and welcome. As I said, in the last couple of years a huge progress have been made in that field and I expect Euro to be a kind of breakthrough, afterall it's the first such major event held in Poland. For most of us it's a point of honour and I bet most fans will come back feeling the same way you felt about Dutch and Belgians.
I hope so. Sadly due to having just bought a house last year, i won´t be able to go to Portugal´s games, also... Hotel prices are insane from what i´ve researched.
These tournament´s and events are always a boost to development and national pride, i remember the lisbon world expo and then euro 2004, they did a lot of good for the country but also a lot of bad.
We spent money we didn´t have to build those stadiums and infrastructures, and now we are left with empty stadiums and huge debts to pay.
I hope so. Sadly due to having just bought a house last year, i won´t be able to go to Portugal´s games, also... Hotel prices are insane from what i´ve researched.
These tournament´s and events are always a boost to development and national pride, i remember the lisbon world expo and then euro 2004, they did a lot of good for the country but also a lot of bad.
We spent money we didn´t have to build those stadiums and infrastructures, and now we are left with empty stadiums and huge debts to pay.
Funnily enough, Poles are having the very same discussion right now. While noone doubts infrastucture investments, there is a huge buzz around the stadiums and some are second-guessing whether it was necessary to invest in them as much as we did. This also partly explains sometimes even hysteric reactions for documents such as the BBC one, it would really brake some spirits here if West boycotted this tournament and all that work went to nothing.
intheinbetween
Member
my body is ready
tonight we have our last friendly match against South Korea, let's see if they take it seriously
tonight we have our last friendly match against South Korea, let's see if they take it seriously
Gummifaust
Member
Aren't Vuvuzelas forbidden for the Euros?
systemfehler
Member
Sadly another country which did learn nothing from their history. UEFA should never had put Poland and Ukraine in the spotlight by giving them the EURO. It is way too soon for that as long as Legia Warsaw "supporters" can be openly racist and violent without repercussions. Put your hand up like that in an Austrian stadium and you are banned and get fined.
At least Poland only built 4 stadiums (+4 in Ukraine) while Portugal built 10 with the false justification that it was a UEFA demand (lie) with the truth being that everyone with power wanted a stadium in their city because of tourism and new infrastructure for free. 8 years later only 6 of the 10 stadiums are being well kept and used (even that is a stretch because I'm considering the Coimbra stadium as one of them), while the other 4 are not used (Algarve and Leiria) or are used by a 3rd division club (Bessa) or have an average of less than 1000 per game (Aveiro). All of this built with Portuguese taxpayers money...the same that are now paying the price for their public debt.
It's actually the hardest group EVER. (based on Fifa rankings from 1990 onwards)
And I'm afraid we (the Dutch) will have to leave the tournament after the group-phase.
NED - DEN 1-1
NED - GER 1-3
NED - POR 0-2
And he's the police chief, I believe.
God, what a mistake putting the tournament there. I hope the racist a-holes atleast don't have the money to get in.
ThaneKrios
Banned
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