I told my husband that I thought England would win so long as they didn?t get complacent at the end of the game. But I?m sure the England v France experience helped with that. I think England plays a lot better when everyone ? players, fans and commentators ? stop being arrogant about out chances. We?re much better as a defiant underdog.

I?m trying to decide whether Mercury?s opposition to the Sun in the national chart is a good thing or not. The English 1066 chart has the Sun at 9.55 Capricorn on the Midheaven, the 1801 UK chart has the Sun at 10.11 Capricorn on the IC (I like the way the Sun dropped to the bottom of the chart as we lost influence as a dominating power). I?d give Mercury to England anyway since Portugal are at home and therefore we?ll be seen as the ?invaders?.

I don't like the way this chart is so evenly balanced. If it were two opponents in a court case I'd advise an out-of-court settlement. What do others think? It doesn?t help that Mercury and Jupiter are applying to sextile and there is mutual reception by exaltation. I?m reading this as we can?t expect either team to dominate entirely; they?ll bring the best performances out of each other.

I'm not very good at this you know

There?s a lot of contradictory factors but I?ve decided to put my money on a victory for England. Based mainly on the fact that Mercury (who I?m assigning to England) is sextile to the north node in the 5th house of sport and that falls in the first house of the 1066 chart and makes a trine to the 1066 Sun on the Midheaven. If I?m wrong I?ll mourn with my country and give up analysing football charts

Phew, this is stressful!

Deb wrote: I think England plays a lot better when everyone ? players, fans and commentators ? stop being arrogant about out chances. We?re much better as a defiant underdog.

For sure. An inflated sence of self importance never helps.

Deb wrote: The English 1066 chart has the Sun at 9.55 Capricorn on the Midheaven, the 1801 UK chart has the Sun at 10.11 Capricorn on the IC

Is the 1801 chart still important considering that Ireland have sort of left. Perhaps 1707 would be a better UK Chart? Although not sure that will help here. Is there a more recent chart for England than 1066? As an aside 1066 also affected Scotland considerably.

Deb wrote: I don't like the way this chart is so evenly balanced. If it were two opponents in a court case I'd advise an out-of-court settlement. What do others think? It doesn?t help that Mercury and Jupiter are applying to sextile and there is mutual reception by exaltation. I?m reading this as we can?t expect either team to dominate entirely; they?ll bring the best performances out of each other.

Perhaps this is one when mood of the nation in London and/or Lisbon the day after will be a better way of measuring who wins.

Deb wrote: I'm not very good at this you know

Too modest. Perhaps you could play for England :-). You are getting lots of practise so must be getting better all the time.

Deb wrote:There?s a lot of contradictory factors but I?ve decided to put my money on a victory for England. Based mainly on the fact that Mercury (who I?m assigning to England) is sextile to the north node in the 5th house of sport and that falls in the first house of the 1066 chart and makes a trine to the 1066 Sun on the Midheaven. If I?m wrong I?ll mourn with my country and give up analysing football charts

Phew, this is stressful!

I think England will win as well. Silver goal or penalties though.

I think I might go for a France v Sweden final though (although France v England perhaps?). Anything in the charts so far to suggest either of those?

Hi guys, been away for a couple of days. Didn't look at the chart for the Monday game - just sat back and watched the goals going in! Congrats to Deb and Neil re their "lively match" and "lots of goals" predictions

I don't think there is any merit in assigning the 'favourites' to the ascendant. Apart from the fact that it's often hard to decide who the favourites are, I'm not sure where the idea came from. Does anyone know who introduced that idea?

Not sure but I think it was probably John Frawley. It's logical, in the sense that it's the favoured, home position. The away team or underdogs are the challengers. I don't "decide" on a favourite - I take the bookies' odds, which are based on form + where the money is going. If there isn't a clear-cut favourite, then I look at symbolism.

Since the Moon signifies 'the masses', I hope it's not pointing to crowd trouble, though it seems to be a difficult night with tensions running high.

Problems re ticket allocation possibly?

There?s a lot of contradictory factors but I?ve decided to put my money on a victory for England.

Literally?

I wouldn't normally touch a chart with a void Moon (ok I know it's within orbs of Mars and Sun but....). However, since it's an important game I'm forging on regardless. I agree that England will win. Jupiter in detriment, Mercury in its own face plus its M/R with the Moon. I'm going for 2-1, using the planets crossing angles method. I abandoned this method a long time ago because it was so unreliable, but you never know....

Interesting that Mercury hits the Desc at EXACTLY 9.30!!! Another last-minute goal? Wondering if so many receptions could mean own goals? Re the Moon making aspects after it has changed sign - no goals until the 2nd half, i.e. after the teams have changed ends? Just a few thoughts.

I?ve never been very comfortable with the idea of giving the ascendant to the favourites. Even going by betting odds, this isn?t always an objective thing to do and sometimes there is such a very slim margin between the two teams as to make it meaningless. And I find the term ?favourites? to be open to interpretation. Are people voting for their favourite that they want to win or for whom they think will win? This might not really matter but I just find this way of doing it too open.
I tried to find out what Lilly might have said by looking at his war charts but the only ones I could find were horaries involving a querent, which naturally he gives to the first house while giving the opposition the a 7th house. Having said this, I don?t have any other suggestion of how to determine who gets the ascendant in these situations. I?ve seen it said that the home team always gets the ascendant but sometimes both teams are away from home.
Lilly does talk about ?castle besiegement? though, which is quite interesting. (CA p379) Bonatti also talks about this and Bernadette Brady and Lee Lehman have done some research on how this might be used in sporting events. However, the following method only works for a final where one of the teams is defending their Cup. For example, if France won the Cup last time (sorry, I?m not up on European football) and they are in the final this time, they will be defending the cup that they hold. Therefore, a ?castle besiegement? chart can be used. The defenders of the cup would get the 4th house (the castle) while the team attempting to take it from them would get the 1st. This seems very clear cut to me and avoids any confusion. Unfortunately, this method doesn?t work for normal games. This particular method only works where the game or games being played involve a team that is the holder of the trophy and is defending the title. Bernadette wrote her paper on the Ashes cricket series between England and Australia. She was going to write a paper on how the ?battle chart? might be used for ordinary games. I have been looking for this paper but haven?t been able to find it on the web. I presume she would still be looking at the rules of Bonatti but I don?t have access to my books at the moment so can?t check what this might involve. I?m very new to this so don?t know a lot about it so if anyone has an understanding of this I would be very interested.
With my rather limited knowledge I am going to go with Mercury to win the game too but I'd like the right to fall back on the aforementioned Deborah Houlding method of interpretation and wait until after the game to decide just which team Mercury is.

Sue wrote: However, the following method only works for a final where one of the teams is defending their Cup. For example, if France won the Cup last time (sorry, I?m not up on European football) and they are in the final this time, they will be defending the cup that they hold. Therefore, a ?castle besiegement? chart can be used. The defenders of the cup would get the 4th house (the castle) while the team attempting to take it from them would get the 1st.

France won last time.

Thanks for that Neil. So if France is in the final this time, and it's my understanding that this is a distinct possibility, then it will be possible to use the 'castle besiegement' chart for the final game.

I checked to see what Bonatti might have to say about war charts and he gives the ascendant to the party starting the war. I seem to recall that some astrologers give the ascendant to the team that kicks off at the beginning of the game. This could be interpreted as 'starting the war.' So in the current chart, where Mercury seems to be the stronger, we could hope that England doesn't kick off tonight (or tomorrow morning if you're in my part of the world).

Can anyone remember who kicked off in the England v Croatia match?

We wuz robbed!!

Would the medical saying "the operation was a succes but the patient died" apply to this match?

We saw the start - England took first kick - but then there was a lot of trouble in this area and we got called out on a local community 'emergency', so all of us missed the rest of the game. I won't go into details but it was football related, involved brick-throwing, and we've been dealing with the police and local councillors all night because our back window got smashed. The police are overwhelmed with trouble in this area - it all started soon after the match started but got much worse after England lost, and is apparently is now (2:00am) getting very out of hand.

I know that the match was so close that it went into a second round of penalties, but that's all I know. I'd really appreciate any feedback on how the game responded to the symbolism in the chart (or not). I was a bit concerned when I saw England take the first kick and realised Portugal was playing in red (Moon sextile Mars). I don't even know what the score was.