The Irish were frickin tremendous, gave everything and against them dirty grease balls too, cracking goal

They were only playing a reserve team. France will put them back in their box.

its the passion. beats skill every time.

ask the welsh.

i see the welsh have got the Northern Irish now.

Will all that passion take over or will it all cancell each other out.

You can only beat who they put in front of you and there isn`t a dago`s by that they would beat anyone playing like that, bit like the Welsh, passion and heart make up for lack of skills, tenacity rules ko!

The most remarkable story is Iceland, surely a nation of 330,000 getting through is out passioning the Irish and the Welsh put together. I'd love to see Northern Ireland beat Wales on Saturday it will be a different sort of game for Wales as they'll be the team with the onus to attack playing against a team who sit in and just defend.

But as for the Icelanders I mean FFS Armann Bjornnsson used to get a game for them and they have just came second in the group!!

It means more to the smaller nations, they don`t have the quality of players or the choice of player like the England, Spain and France nations, they play in the lesser leagues around the globe, except for the odd 1 or 2.
When do you see the big team players cry when they win, that outburst of pride and passion, after flogging themselves for 90 minutes?, you don`t, because they have everything they need in the world from earning 250,000 a week!

I don`t expect people like the colonel to understand passion, he can`t be arsed getting off the sofa to support his local team, never mind his country, maybe pushing passion fruit up his arse may help

To show passion do you have to call people dagos and grease balls? Couldn't you just settle for getting a small erection when you see a picture of a dragon? You need to calm yourself down with a nice glass of warm milk.

On the Colonel's point, Wales v N Ireland will become a giant passion ball that generates its own energy by sucking in passion from all the other nations. Then it will roll it off into the Atlantic to become a new continent.

Finally, Icelandic passion doesn't count because they are vikings which is cheating.

I thought ROI deserved the win but, as has been said, Italy did not appear in the remotest bit interested. Nothing they could have done would alter the fact that they have to play Spain in the next round so you might as well relax.

It seems ridiculous that teams who haven't really been that impressive at the tournament have now got a cushy draw to look forward too. If 24 teams really is here to stay, and it's unlikely UEFA will backtrack, then I think they need to have a rethink about the next stage of the competition. Some teams have advanced despite not really meriting it. I'm particularly irked about Portugal's qualification. They finished on the same number of points as Albania and Turkey and whist, yes, they didn't lose a game and had a better goal difference, Albania and Turkey actually won a match. Surely this should take precedence over simply not getting beat?

The new rules also encourage the scenes towards the end of the Hungary v Portugal game where they both agreed to just pass the ball about for the last ten minutes, ridiculous, although it was funny as fuck when Iceland scored in injury time. I wonder if Portugal actually preferred to play England rather than Croatia? Guess we'll never know. I'm glad we've dodged Ronaldo, as it looks like he's just clicked into gear.

The Irish could not of been as lucky as they have. Looked poor all tournament, apart from a brief spell against the swedes. Then they play a reserve team against players hardly heard of to get through and still struggle to break them down against a team who had no intention of even attacking. France will beat then easily. I'm not convinced we will even beat Iceland. We seem to lack ideas in the final third, and no doubt they will grab a goal.

How much passion is needed in a footy game? Our missus is quite passionate and I wouldn't want to watch any footy players do some of the things she does.

It's just a tired cliche, you don't get to be a high level professional footballer without being a winner.

Teams are just as fit and organised as each other, the lesser teams have been cagey and hard to play against. It lends itself to tighter games even between big nations and lesser ones. Of the these home nations that apparently have 'more passion' than England Wales played pretty poorly in two out of three games, Northern Ireland were really awful first game and albeit against the World Champions a goalkeeping performance away from a 5 nil defeat and Republic were utterly dreadful in one of the games average in the other and then bumped into a team who's media think have the worst squad in the countries history who had nothing to play for who had made eight changes. Fortunately the format sees 16 of 24 teams progress.

Don't get me wrong I'm pleased they all got through its good for the tournament but let's not talk tripe about these teams caring more and having more 'passion' England have still been the most impressive team of all the home nations we've only lacked that last pass and finish at times. We didn't look like we lacked passion when battered Wales for 45 minutes and went absolutely mental when we got the winner.

I`m not surprise you can`t differenciate between going mental(through relief we scored) because the onus was on them to win, better players etc and the outburst through the giving of everything at the final whistle that you achieved above what was expected.
Together stronger.

Are you and the Colonel Siamese twins?

Yes because I never disagree with The Colonel

Where was Republic of Ireland's passion against Belgium? They were absolutely bobbins. I just think results in football matches have more to do with discipline and organisation when you are a so called lesser team, hardly a ridicluous comment. Passion from the players anyway can have a more detrimental effect at times on a football field. Even the lesser teams have top coaches and backroom teams and all the players are as fit as the bigger names they are playing against, it helps close the gap and you get tighter games.

The England game on Monday will be tough, not because Iceland's players want to win more it's because they will men behind the ball and afford very little time and space.

I think England's problem about passion at the moment is down to Hodgson and lets be honest he has as much personality and drive as a @ucking turkey waiting for Xmas.

What ever you say about Ireland you can only beat what you are up against,however when you look at their Management team of O'Neill and Keane their passion was so evident last night no wonder the players give it all they've got.

England don't have a problem with passion they have a problem with picking there best team and system and being more clinical in the final third.

I think I've seen the word passion mentioned about 900 times in the past week.

901 I think you'll find

I personally have a passion just for the word passion.

Well you'll go far in the tournament. I can see you beating one of the big boys.

Elvis' old band should be flown out to Nice and deployed as England's secret weapon.

What? The attractions?