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Official UEFA Euro 2016 Thread

Russia's hard right hand turn into an isolated autocratic, effectively fascist state the last decade is definitely not going to make it fun.

Sucks too, because Russia is truly wonderful in many ways and could be a great place if it was run even halfway competently.

has it ever been run halfway competently?
 
Seriously vad, can Russia be governed effectively and reasonably? Generations of Czars, as well as some well-meaning and enlightened advisers, and more recently some dubious commissars have been motivated by the notion of harnessing Russia's enormous natural and human resources more effectively, efficiently and successfully. Yet, it never seems to quite work. As Marc Raeff, who was once the dean of Russian historians at Columbia University, observed: Russia is the land of unfinished reforms. Over and over again reforms, usually western, are imported into Russia but are never entirely implemented. Then, if they survive, they live on in Russia in some sort of distorted or even grotesque form. The native obstacles to change always manage to thwart their entirely successful application in the end.
 
Putin runs the country quite competently we just don't agree with his governance
 
Putin runs the country quite competently we just don't agree with his governance
That's a complete illusion he loves to project. Russia is an absolute powder keg that Putin is desperately keeping a lid on as he jumps from one mess to another.

It's an amazing accomplishment that he's kept it from blowing up this long, but Russia is a goddamn mess right now.
 
Russia was a huge mess before he got in power. Keeping a lid on an enternal power keg is effective governance in this case.
 
Why are Zlatan's teammates such shit ? !

 
MO'N has this Ireland side playing very well. Everybody is sticking to their task and as a collective unit they are just a well-tuned machine out there.
 
Seriously vad, can Russia be governed effectively and reasonably? Generations of Czars, as well as some well-meaning and enlightened advisers, and more recently some dubious commissars have been motivated by the notion of harnessing Russia's enormous natural and human resources more effectively, efficiently and successfully. Yet, it never seems to quite work. As Marc Raeff, who was once the dean of Russian historians at Columbia University, observed: Russia is the land of unfinished reforms. Over and over again reforms, usually western, are imported into Russia but are never entirely implemented. Then, if they survive, they live on in Russia in some sort of distorted or even grotesque form. The native obstacles to change always manage to thwart their entirely successful application in the end.

This is a really interesting question probably not appropriate for this thread - but the question of anyone's ability to properly govern Russia as it currently exists is a quite interesting one. It's incredibly massive on a scale that no other country even begins to approximate (Russia is the largest country in the world and the size of #2 and #3 combined). It's a country with a very small population for it's size which has direct borders with Europe to the west and China to the east and direct sea access to Iran. It spans 11 time zones, effectively meaning that one end of the country is completely opposite in the day to the other - and the territority in between is some of the most inhospitable on the planet earth. Before modern telecommunication there's no question that governing a land empire of that size effectively was basically impossible - and even now it's an extraordinarily large task (to this day Vladivostok operates as something of a wildly independent town far removed from Moscow's control due to it's location and time differences - it's Mos Eisley in many ways, a den of scum and villainy).

Those things being said - the vast majority of the Russian population lives in 2 giant metro areas (Moscow and St. Petersburg) and the country is a virtual treasure trove of natural resources. Sometimes it feels that Russian governments get lost in the challenge of managing the extremities of the country and never properly focusing on just administering the 2 major metros and the 8-10 smaller cities that form the backbone of the country and most of the population. Being willing to step back and devolve several smaller territories that were captured by the Empire at various times but are not ethnically Russian and giving them more self governance would remove massive hotspots from the country. So many Russian governments get caught up in projecting this image of power and strength instead of trying to step back and smartly solve problems, and just continually piss away money and resources into the most absurd local conflicts.
 
Italy is about to play - vadtoy is PUMPED.

Also ... Darmian at winger, so they can double up on De Bruyne. Italy going back to their roots ... 0-0 is good, 1-0 is better, anything else is a fucking disaster. This game is going to be a fucking rockfight.
 
Candreva and Darmian are just flying everywhere out on the pitch. I can't see either one lasting the full 90 minutes at this rate.
 
Whoa, was that Bonucci to Giaccherini?!? Assist for my defender and a goal for my midfielder.
 
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