Hello and welcome to the Tifo football podcast.

I'm Joe Devine and I'm now joined by Seb Stafford Bloor.

Hello Joe Devine.

Hello, how are you?

Very well, thank you.

That was an exciting second half of football, wasn't it?

Alex Stewart.

Yeah, it certainly picked up from a very boring first half.

Yeah, it was.

The sort of change between first and second half was very extreme, wasn't it? Yeah, I felt like I was wading through quicksand to start with, and then suddenly things happened.

I was actually annoyed by how boring it was.

Incandescent.

I felt I couldn't get to grips with the first game of the day, which was Netherlands versus Czech Republic. We'll talk about that a little bit later on in today's podcast. Second one I had big hopes for, because it was the big draw of the round of 16, apart from England, Germany. And it really started, I mean, we'll talk about it, we'll talk about it, but there's only been one game that's been a big game that's really kind of taken off, hasn't it? France, Germany. Oh, I like Germany and Portugal. Germany, Portugal, 4-2. That was pretty good. Yeah, but it was still... It didn't grab me in the same way. Six goals didn't grab you. Goals are overrated. You know what the problem was in that game? The, the tactical

inaptitude was too obvious. So Alex spotted it immediately and then was bored.

All of us liked different things.

Laman flaws. If we all liked the same things, Joe, life would be very boring.

That's true. But there is one thing that everyone here likes. And that's The Athletic. That was seamless. Thank you. That's The Athletic. If you visit Theathletic.com forward slash Tifo, you'll find that there'll be a fantastic deal there waiting for you to check it out. And I can't remember what it is right now, but it's one of two things, and they're both very good. So there we go. Get 30 days free at the moment, I think. Is it? Yes, it is. Okay, fine. You can get a 30-day free trial if you visit theathletic.com forward slash Tifo, and I hope if you do that, you'll enjoy reading something I very much enjoyed reading this morning, which was Michael Cox on the head of the England-German game, talking about how England could match Germany up in a 343, Alex.

Yes, that was interesting.

Do you know what?

I also thought it was really interesting.

What's that now?

Was James Horncastle's piece on Italy set piece specialist?

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