Euro 2012......

[QPRDave]

Isle can I ask were you at the WC when that picture of Beckham with the giant QPR flag in the background was taken, Japan & S Korea I think, and was that you or your group that
flew the flag ?

[bushcelt1]

Just booked a single flight to Donetsk which set me back £250 on the day before our first game and will take it from there I guess

well done. are all your group games in poland? what do ya reckon on the group your in?

[IsleworthRanger]

well done. are all your group games in poland? what do ya reckon on the group your in?

All the games are in Ukraine mate

Group is pretty good I reckon but this is England and all that

[IsleworthRanger]

Isle can I ask were you at the WC when that picture of Beckham with the giant QPR flag in the background was taken, Japan & S Korea I think, and was that you or your group that
flew the flag ?

Not my flag mate but I know the fella who took it

[QPRDave]

Just remembered it was a fantastic picture, and he ain't made his mind up yet so could be fate. Good luck out there anyway I always look for any Rs flags.

[bushcelt1]

All the games are in Ukraine mate

Group is pretty good I reckon but this is England and all that

well good enough to get through that group-sounds like its harder to travel in the ukraine tho. would you risk doing a game or two in the groups,coming home and heading back out for later game/games? game could be on in dublin-will ya travel over?

[yugohoop]

As a Croat im just glad we face Ireland first as i don't think they will be the easiest team to beat and a slow start is what I'll be hoping for from them. Not an easy group for anyone!

[Ads1985]

Unfortunately for me after booking our tickets when the initial draw took place, I have tickets for England vs France, England vs Sweden and Netherlands vs Germany. Really wish I had Group A tickets...

[bushcelt1]

As a Croat im just glad we face Ireland first as i don't think they will be the easiest team to beat and a slow start is what I'll be hoping for from them. Not an easy group for anyone!

a very hard game to decide but were the underdogs for every game in this group. can see you suprising a few mate. a manager not afraid to look at youth!!!! very tough for ireland but it won't be for the want of trying!!!
best of luck geezer

[silvercue]

the euros on the whole are a lot tougher than the world cup, when you look at it every group is tough, and every single team there can get a result on their day.

Totally right. Euros have less teams and average standard is way higher. Getting out of gorups is hard in Euros.

Not saying its harder to win, but the average game is harder.

Makes me laugh how many people seem to not want to watch England because they have played badly...what happened to support through thick and thin? Are you going to stop supporting QPR when we start playing badly?

[IsleworthRanger]

well good enough to get through that group-sounds like its harder to travel in the ukraine tho. would you risk doing a game or two in the groups,coming home and heading back out for later game/games? game could be on in dublin-will ya travel over?

Will stay in Ukraine for the group games then come home for a couple of days I think then go back over for the 1/4 and semi final if we get that far and probally a day or two day trip to the Final

Would love to see England in Dublin but still cannot see that happening for a few years yet

[bushcelt1]

Will stay in Ukraine for the group games then come home for a couple of days I think then go back over for the 1/4 and semi final if we get that far and probally a day or two day trip to the Final

Would love to see England in Dublin but still cannot see that happening for a few years yet

meet for a pint in april.

[Olly]

Around 3,000 employees from more than 50 countries work at the secluded complex, with every door, every room, every laboratory, hiding a new secret.

“This is the Robi-leg,” Harold Koeger says, pointing at the contraption next to him. Koeger is a senior researcher at the company, and for the last two years he and his colleagues have been working on Adidas’s latest new football, the Tango 12, which will be used at the European Championships next summer.

It is, they claim, the most extensively tested ball in history, and a significant part of that testing has been done in this very laboratory, with the help of a strange-looking robotic leg.

The Robi-Leg is more or less exactly what it sounds like – a robotic leg with a football boot on it, wired up to a series of computers and sensors, that simulates the impact of a human foot on a football at speeds of up to 100mph.

Around 20 yards away is a regular-sized football goal. Koeger places the ball on a metal tee, makes a few adjustments to the computer simulation, and then pushes a few buttons on his hand-held console. “This should go into the middle of the goal, just below the crossbar,” he says.

The leg whirrs into action. In a fraction of a second it spins round, striking the ball cleanly, and sending it flying into the goal exactly where Koeger had predicted, just below the crossbar.

“Now with rain,” he says, giving the ball and the boot a good dousing with a spray-can of water. Whirr. Smack. A ripple of net. Koeger beams at his audience with the giddy joy of a child playing with a favourite toy.

The Robi-Leg is part of a wider testing strategy by adidas, which is desperate to avoid another PR disaster on the scale of that which took place during the last World Cup in South Africa, when its last football, the Jabulani came in for intense criticism.

Officially, the company maintains that the ball was a perfectly good one. Indeed, at a technical level, the 2012 ball is largely similar. Privately, however, they have listened to the criticism, and redoubled their testing efforts.

Adidas took the ball around the world – to cold countries and hot, to park players and international stars, to boggy mud-baths and artificial turf pitches – in an attempt to seek feedback.

Often they would arrange to have a new ball tossed into a training session without the players being aware of it. The result, they now say, is a football that has the near-universal approval of footballers everywhere.

Particular attention was paid to what Matthias Mecking, the director of football hardware and footwear, calls “the moment of truth”.

This is the time when a player first feels a new ball in his hands, the imprint of the texture on his fingers, its heft in his palm. “This first moment of truth determines to a large extent whether the player will like the ball,” he says. “All the players we interviewed confirmed that this was the best ball they had ever played with.”

All footballs need to strike a balance between close control and spin. A “grippy” surface encourages tight close control with the ball on the ground. Xavi loves a grippy ball.

But make it too grippy, and the ball is more liable to misbehave in the air, as it did during the World Cup. Adidas believes the new ball represents a decent compromise between the two.

“These changes have not been done for the sake of innovation of for the sake of throwing something new on the market,” Mecking says.

“We wanted to increase the feeling for goalkeepers. But a skilful player who wants to get the ball to wobble can do that. We believe we are coming pretty close to the perfect ball.”

With consignments of the ball already being shipped to all the participating nations, now is the time for players and a sceptical public to have their say.

Let's hope so.

[Ric-Roc]

Its a ball!

[bushcelt1]

Its a ball!

PFFFTTT. YOU NOT HEARD