Arcticterntalk.org

What do we know after 2 days of EURO 2016? There are some bad barbers, bad referees and superb goals.

1. We have not seen the winner of EURO 2016. Opening games can be notoriously unpredictable but none of the teams so far seem to have the ability to go and win. A few decent goals, Bale and Payet as examples, but the overall play has in many games been a little scrappy.
2. The refereeing is poor. Any number of poor decisions have been made, mostly failure to give penalties or free kicks. The value of the official behind the goal is zero. In the Wales V Slovakia game the official was 2 yards away and missed an elbow to the upper shoulder from Skrtel. Albania can feel aggrieved not to have had at least one penalty in their game. 
3. The riots/disturbances seem to be initiated by Russian and French “ultras” ( whatever they are, I prefer the term psychopath). There are clear unbiased reports of fans sitting drinking peacefully and being attacked by groups of men in balaclavas, clearly premeditated. The reports are that the French police seem not to  be effective and are ignoring a lot of violence.
4. There are some truly ridiculous hairstyles, and in the main the perpetrators of bad hair should be spending more time on football practice and less time in the barbers chair. Slovakia are the winners of the bad hairstyle Euro 2016 currently. The worst one? Easy. Kuco from Slovakia.
5. There have been a fair amount of hard/dangerous tackles. Many of these in the Albania v Switzerland game.  The first serious injury awaits, and referees have been poor in recognising the dangerous from the simply bad tackles. A  number of two footed tackles have gone seemingly unseen and certainly unpunished.
6. The best team performance? Another easy one. Wales. A real team reminding me of Leicester City. The sum of the parts are greater than the individual components. 
7. Fans are determined to enjoy themselves whatever. 
8. Street Art now recognises football. Thierry Henry. Just superb.
9. England are going to give their fans a rollercoaster ride. They played well but did they really look like a great side? Not really. Maybe quarter-final material, and maybe not.