Michael*

Pity we couldn't wangle a round of 16 game against Spain, could have been the first match ever to have a negative amount of attempts on goal.

Remarkable how comically poor Portugal looked at the back and how stubborn Santos was in doing the square root of bugger all to change it. Schoolboy stuff from Semedo too, allowing Gosens acres of space out wide. The way he and Kimmich were marauding down the wings, it was almost like watching Gasperini's Atalanta at times.

Ripsnorting game between Germany and Portugal, albeit neither side would appear to be in serious danger of failing to reach the knockouts. Odd to think that the Germans are almost being looked at as outsiders for this tournament, which to my mind only makes them more dangerous. I wouldn't be surprised now if they topped the group by beating Hungary, as France and Portugal play out a "convenient" draw in Budapest. Fernandes looks spent, Solskjaer has run him into the ground for United this season and it looks like he has nothing left in the tank. Portuguese fans must be narked.

Weirdly, she keeps trying to attribute her past online behaviour to some kind of desperate attempt to appear funny and cool, but Stodden was referring to private messages. That's not playing to a crowd, that's straight-up harrassment of someone she clearly had a strong dislike for, and she seems unable to grasp how awful that is.

France in 2018 looked conservative and stodgy, they only seemed to sparkle when they were counter attacking but I suppose you'd have to say that's the Deschamps way. I seem to remember the side he captained in 1998 being similarly cautious. Fully expecting more of the same this summer, but still very much fancy them to win it all. A draw against Hungary might even be good luck, it was for Portugal last time.

On paper a five point haul sounds alright, the potential drawback being that anything less than a group win would send England away from Wembley until the semis (not that we're likely to make it that far, of course). Southgate is certainly no Sir Bobby or El Tel, he strikes me as being far too risk-averse to play the long game and regardless of team selection, one can't expect them to snap instantly out of the "safety first" mindset.

Captain Kane, as Matterface called him in the early going, should be demoted to private for going AWOL.

With a bit more composure in front of goal, Scotland would almost certainly have helped themselves to three points there. Not quite sure how Southgate pulled it off, but England managed to isolate the forward line, concede the midfield and look vulnerable to the counter, and all at the same time which certainly takes some doing. England-Czech Republic is a game that has 0-0 written all over it in enormous spread-bet baiting letters.

Four points taken against Spain and Slovakia is a bit of a result, should be more than enough to reach the knockouts from a rather tight group. Alexander Isak looks as if he could become a real star.

Belgium are shaky at the back but superb going forward, the build-up for the winner against Denmark was sensational. Lukaku looks twice the player with De Bruyne for company. Can't really see this Dutch side surviving for long against the big boys. Watching Depay urgently asking for the ball, then either miscontrolling and losing it or making a hopeful pass to no-one, one can't help wondering if Messi is happy about him joining the ranks at Barca. I'm not sure I would be.

I'm not convinced that VS as a concept makes any more or less sense now than it did a decade ago, I just think the image is old and the business model and marketing have gotten stale. Force of habit and ubiquity kept it alive for a while, but shopping has become a different experience in recent years and rival brands have shown more willingness to match the demands of their customers. At this point, there's probably more chance of the rebrand hurting the image of those associated with it than changing the company's credibility. Time will tell on that though of course. I am concerned about how Leonardo DiCaprio will source his girlfriends now, however.

@Daylight @robb @Pictrek Topics merged. I've been trying to work out whether she goes by Elizabeth or Elizaveta primarily, but the search results were a bit inconclusive. It's easily changed though so let me know if need be.

Ukraine were pretty decent against Holland and again in the first half today. A draw with Austria in the next game should see both teams qualify from the group, so it may be best not to expect any fireworks from that one.

I'd say so, I think Spielberg phoned it in and relied far too much on unsightly CGI for the action set-pieces. People will say it aged badly, but there couldn't have been a point at which LaBeouf swinging through trees with cartoon monkeys ever looked good. Really, there was a general lack of thrill about the whole thing. Still, I'd consider Mangold as perhaps having the right sensibility to take the series back to its roots. The original, Raiders-style tone, without the cartoonish nature of Crystal Skulls or possibly even the lighter goofiness of Last Crusade.

Or perhaps it's simply an attempt to pivot from an image that was past its sell-by date and no longer as profitable. The previous leadership spent far too long trying to sell to a narrow band of appeal despite being well into the land of diminishing returns, tried moving towards the mainstream and got usurped on the high end by more exclusive brands.

Really like the look of this Italian side, a good mix of technical ball players and the kind of defensive grit one tends to associate with them. There's always at least one team that peaks far too soon, but I get the impression from the overall strength of their squad that they could go quite far.

Good game for the neutrals and hats off to the BBC for the "non-Robbie Savage" red button audio option. Worth the licence fee on its own, that. Looks like there's life in the old guard after all. I thought Wales were fortunate to get a point from the Switzerland game, but they were excellent tonight and thoroughly deserved the win. Turkey don't seem to have turned up to the tournament, a side fancied by many are surely now about to fall at the first hurdle.

I know Disney and Lucasfilm have been pretty big proponents of de-ageing technology in recent years, but factoring the vast difference in quality between Captain Marvel's Nick Fury and The Mandalorian's Luke Skywalker, it feels like this could go either way. I suppose we won't find out until next summer if any of it is a good idea or not. Mainly, what I find encouraging is that James Mangold is directing and that Lucas isn't there to run the story into the ground, like he did on Crystal Skulls. Spielberg also did a dreadful job, although to be fair, his heart probably wasn't in it.

Yeah, putting two and two together from looking at the recent on-set photos, it would appear that the film will be utilising de-ageing technology to make Ford look younger in some of the scenes. Not a huge fan of that personally, but I guess we'll see how it goes.

@k_dub

Hot Anjelica Huston?

Some boy, that Cristiano.

Always strange how some players can get passed around Europe's top clubs, seemingly without being particularly good for many of them. It's like once they get there nobody bothers to question their continued presence despite not offering very much. That being said, I always get the feeling that it must be awkward to drop Morata, possessing as he does that curious habit of grabbing the occasional important goal, even in games where he appears to disrupt the play. The alternative would of course be Moreno, the form striker, but he too managed to miss a pretty straightforward one towards the end.

Imagining the reaction if England's first game had been a goalless draw with Sweden at Wembley, I'd surmise that this may not go down too well in Spain, although Cesc Fabregas seemed pretty philosophical about it afterwards. In fairness this looks like a somewhat callow Spanish side, Sweden on the other hand were exactly what you'd expect. Tough, organised and determined with a very handy-looking striker in Isak.