Last international tournament you enjoyed

[Harry Squatter]

With England almost certain to qualify on wednesday barring a monumental cock up, it is now apparent that next year will be a ridiculous media fest of overblown stories and minor incidents culminating in another inquest of our national game when England lose on pens. I have felt this way since the world cup in Japan and haven't really enjoyed many World Cup/Euros because of the media hype.

 

I enjoyed Euro 96 until all the middle class glory hunters jumped on the bandwagon. I enjoyed the World Cup in America, mainly because I was a neutral and could just watch the games without being bothered who won.

 

Are international tournaments over hyped & boring or have you genuinely enjoyed any recently?

[SamiHyypia]

USA 94 was very good.................

[Thants]

Euro 96. Didnt watch the final though as I was on a barge. The Torres goal was very good the last world cup and the argie goal but on the whole the games were ruined by the refs.

I wont be bothered this summer.

[Stefan]

USA 94, it helped that I'm from Sweden and we came third. I don't follow the swedish team these days though.

[Hazel Motes]

WC94, for same reasons as Steffe

[Harry Squatter]

Euro 96. Didnt watch the final though as I was on a barge. The Torres goal was very good the last world cup and the argie goal but on the whole the games were ruined by the refs.

I wont be bothered this summer.

 

Thats another reason why I hate the world cup/euros - the refs, they get new "directives" a month before the competition starts, they are then under pressure from the FIFA observers and end up booking everyone and even show 3 yellow cards in one game. Remember the ref who sent off the wrong Nigerian player who had nothing to do with the incident? Can't remember which World Cup it was in though.

[Unrighteous]

U-19s in Canada.

 

Lovely.

[Ian Sea]

I enjoy all World Cups or European Championships. I'm not bothered how England do and I do like the tournaments themselves, it's great being able to watch football every day during the summer. I love the days were there are a few games on and you can sit in the pub watching them with a nice beer and a few mates.

[23 Carra Gold]

Euro 88 the dutch were class

 

W cup 94

 

Euro 96

[Glen C]

Both Euro96 and Euro2000 I thoroughly enjoyed as all the teams just seemed to go for it and attack. Euro96 was great as I was glad england did so well and we beat the scots along the way which was an added bonus. Euro2000 was great because even though england did crap there was some amazing football on display and even the italians were attacking hard.

[fivetimes]

I enjoy all World Cups or European Championships. I'm not bothered how England do and I do like the tournaments themselves, it's great being able to watch football every day during the summer. I love the days were there are a few games on and you can sit in the pub watching them with a nice beer and a few mates.

 

Yep, spot on that.

 

A group of us went the world cup last year and had one of the best hols we have had. We stayed in cologne away from all the england fans and had a great time with Trinidad, portugal, sweden and german fans.

[Newport]

Gotta be WC 98 when we beat Brazil. Denmark also played fantastic football that year with both of the Laudrups in the team.

[Section_31]

Euro 96 I absolutely loved. Especially when England tonked Holland 4-1.

 

Gazza, Shearer and Mcmanaman were in imperious form and the likes of Zidane were just starting to come to the fore.

 

Berger and teh Czechs were quality too. I liked Euro 98 but to a lesser extent, everything since has been absolute dross, and I mean dross!

[stmichael]

i thought euro 2000 was a good tournament, not for england obviously, but in general the standard was very high. zidane was in his pomp and that french team was just awesome.

 

i also remember spain beating yugoslavia in an absolute cracker when they came from 3-2 down with two minutes to go to win 4-3. motson literally lost his voice (which isn't a bad thing afterall).

 

however the most memorable moment was abel xavier almost assaulting the referee afetr conceding the golden goal penalty that put portugal out in the semi finals.

[robslappa]

I enjoy all of them. The best part of four weeks - wall to wall football. It's great.

 

There's some shite games, but when you get a game like Mexico v Argentina last year it makes it all worth while.

[moxter]

Loved France 98. Some amazing players, amazing football, classic games. Brazil 3-2 Holland I'll always remember.

 

World Cup 2002 was shite, if only because it was very hard to get excited by watching South Korea and Turkey in the semis.

 

Euro 96 was a classic from start to finish. I'll always remember Euro 92, because it was the first one I properly followed, and trying to work out why Denmark weren;t in the newpaper glossy supplements...what a team as wel. Schmiechel, the Laudrups, Jensen and co (can someone who'd have been a bit older than me at the time tell me if Molby played? I don't remember). Fantastic.

 

Euro 2004 was pants. Can;t even remember who won. Euro 2000, great final.

 

The last world cup was decent, you didn't know who was going to win it. I thought Germany were a dead cert, played great football, but the final will just be one of those 'where were you when...' games. It'll go down in folklore forever.

 

In short: all of 'em...

[DJLJ]

Euro 96 was a classic from start to finish. I'll always remember Euro 92, because it was the first one I properly followed, and trying to work out why Denmark weren;t in the newpaper glossy supplements...what a team as wel. Schmiechel, the Laudrups, Jensen and co (can someone who'd have been a bit older than me at the time tell me if Molby played? I don't remember). Fantastic.

 

Mølby didn't play.

My memories of Euro 96 involved being escorted from Manchester piccadilly by machine gun wielding police, it was just after the bombing in down town Manc. All clothes ripped out etc. Very welcome to Manc Land, yours truly, the bastard IRA.

[El Rojo]

The quality of the football varies, but the excitement of the occasion never diminishes for me.

 

The late matches at USA '94 were pretty great because of the 1am kick off time here.

 

That Greek side that won the last Euros were the least inspirational champions I've ever seen in any football competition. The Czechs messed up badly by not winning that tournament, though like so many others on these boards I had 10 euro on Milan at 50/1 to be top scorer, which softened the blow.

[redfromtubebar]

I thought Euro 2000 was the best tournament footballing wise.

 

It had one of the strangest game I've ever seen when Holland played Italy in the semis. I think the italians were down to ten men very early on and somehow managed to hold out to penalties against a very good, dominant dutch side who were also one of the host nations. I say strange because Holland missed two penalties in normal time and missed some unbelievable chances to finish Italy off. Then then went on to miss 3 out of 4 in the shoot out including one from Jaap Stam which almost cleared the stadium roof.

[Paul]

Italia '90.

[Red '84]

i talk about this quite a bit with a mate of mine. the big difference these days is when it comes to star quality, invariably at the last few tournaments, a lot of the big players have disappointed at the majors, maybe its that there playing too many games, maybe its that they dont give a shit anymore, i dont know but everyone here is mentioning usa 94 and when ya think back to it , it was magic, we had baggio bang on form for italy, romario and bebeto for brazil, hagi for romania, stoichkov for bulgaria, brolin, kenneth anderson and ravelli for sweden, luis enrique emerging for spain, redondo, batigol and even maradona the mad bastard, even though the argies flopped after he was sent packing, not forgetting amokachi for nigeria!

 

these were big players who performed on the biggest stage and sadly thats missing these days.

 

on a side note, i loved was it letchkovs? (baldy lad) diving header for bulgaria in that tournament. where are the diving headers now ffs.

[Ted]

I enjoyed watching The Argies in 06, also Spain in their first few games. But over the years i've lost a lot of enthusiasm for the big tournemants. France '98 was the last tourny I enjoyed watching as a whole, especially for Michael Owen.

[bigmacbrownie]

I enjoy all the international tournaments. You've got the best players in the world on display and even the crap sides up their games and make it really entertaining.

[stmichael]

i thought euro 2004 was shite apart from the holland-czech republic game which was one of the best games of international football i've ever seen.

[Ted]

i thought euro 2004 was shite apart from the holland-czech republic game which was one of the best games of international football i've ever seen.

 

Sweden v Denmark was funny though.