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On June 27 2024 07:14 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I mean, Belgium and France are where they are because they couldn't win their groups. Spain is really the only team to impress so far. Arguably Austria has played better football than 4 of those teams, the Switzerland/Italy matchup is pretty good, and England and Netherlands should still have the ability to go toe to toe with the rest if they have a peak performance. I do agree that the top half is better but if you base yourself on 'name recognition/squad potential' then they have 5 of the top 8 vs 3 of the top 8, if you base yourself on tournament performance so far then it has the top 1 and everybody else is kinda meh.
I have very little confidence left that we're going to play a good game this euro's. Same with England. Our coaches seem to be competing for worst coach of the tournament.
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So predictions round two:
Italy will make it against Switzerland but not in a glorious way
Germany will pwn Denmark hard
England is going to win with a late goal, playing abysmal but "hey at least we beat mighty Slowakia"
Spain will beat Georgia but it will be the best game like 3:2 or so
France vs Belgium -> penalty shootout where at least 3 guys will miss
Portugal wins easy, Slovenia trying whatever they can but its not much
Romania upset win against Nederlands
Austria will beat Turkey but it wont be a 6:1 again
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Northern Ireland27227 Posts
On June 27 2024 16:02 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2024 07:14 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I mean, Belgium and France are where they are because they couldn't win their groups. Spain is really the only team to impress so far. Arguably Austria has played better football than 4 of those teams, the Switzerland/Italy matchup is pretty good, and England and Netherlands should still have the ability to go toe to toe with the rest if they have a peak performance. I do agree that the top half is better but if you base yourself on 'name recognition/squad potential' then they have 5 of the top 8 vs 3 of the top 8, if you base yourself on tournament performance so far then it has the top 1 and everybody else is kinda meh. I have very little confidence left that we're going to play a good game this euro's. Same with England. Our coaches seem to be competing for worst coach of the tournament.
Is it that bad?
I mean youse Dutch aren’t exactly scrubs but I wouldn’t say it’s one of those stacked squads that’s being squandered either.
I mean schedule wise it happened to be quite a lot of the Dutch games I missed so maybe it was diabolical so far! Curious as I’m not especially familiar with many Dutch-based players or various dudes who could be glaring omissions
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Northern Ireland27227 Posts
On June 27 2024 16:15 gTank wrote:
So predictions round two:
Italy will make it against Switzerland but not in a glorious way
Germany will pwn Denmark hard
England is going to win with a late goal, playing abysmal but "hey at least we beat mighty Slowakia"
Spain will beat Georgia but it will be the best game like 3:2 or so
France vs Belgium -> penalty shootout where at least 3 guys will miss
Portugal wins easy, Slovenia trying whatever they can but its not much
Romania upset win against Nederlands
Austria will beat Turkey but it wont be a 6:1 again
Mine:
- Italy will need to rely on penalties but will get through the Swiss
- Germany will beat Denmark reasonably comfortably on the balance of play, but it’ll be tight
- England will smack Slovakia as Foden’s apparent likely absence will see Southgate stumble upon a more cohesive lineup. Only for them to return to being dire in the next stage when he returns (no hate on Foden who’s fantastic, it’s a balance thing
- Spain will beat Georgia 1-0, but it’ll be one of those absolute batterings of a 1-0, a la they gave to Italy
- France will labour but Mbappe will carry them to a 2-goal victory
- Portugal win reasonably comfortably with Ronaldo somehow not scoring after Oblak puts in a titanic performance
- The Netherlands will squeak through in extra time when Wout Weghorst puts one in with his arse
- Two of the most attractive teams thus far, and the real dark horses in Austria and Turkey somehow contrive to make what looks like the most fun tie in this round be the worst game so far in the tournament despite stiff competition
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On June 27 2024 15:03 MJG wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2024 23:49 FlaShFTW wrote:On June 26 2024 20:45 Jockmcplop wrote:On June 26 2024 20:34 WombaT wrote:On June 26 2024 17:20 Jockmcplop wrote:On June 26 2024 17:16 sharkie wrote:
No. The team is "clown"... England has a sick golden generation and doing nothing with it England has had 5 golden generations in the last 5 generations. We never seem to have team without glaring weaknesses. There's good attacking talent in this squad but the midfield and defence are sorely lacking in balance. Southgate has become a weakness too. It seems to me he's just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks this time. The midfield is a tricky one, both Mainoo and Wharton feel like they could bring that balance, albeit they’re slightly different players but it’s possibly a year or two too early for them. Or at least it’s a risk to make them fundamental components. Nor do they have some wily veteran with the characteristics you’d want to balance the midfield that you can bring in for one last hurrah On the flipside, Rice and Bellingham are top notch in their positions, you don’t really need another top notch player, just somebody good that complements them and frees them to play to their strengths. But aye, one is getting that impression that Southgate is somewhat trial and erroring it. At previous tournaments you could still point out limitations in players/coach, but you could sorta identity the overall plan. This time around you’ve perhaps got more talent to play with, but the plan is difficult to discern. Its the passing that gets me. We have all these quality players who play for top sides but the passing is so weak. That's got to be a midfield problem surely. We just don't seem to ever be able to pick out that decisive pass through the lines. Trippier is the worst for this. The guy just can't ever see a pass, so he ends up going back to the CBs 99% of the time. Its so boring. The passing is for sure horrendous. I'm so tired of seeing Kane run back to his CBs from a striker position only for his first touch to basically put the ball halfway between him and the passing player where he has to try extra hard to make sure the opponent doesn't scoop the ball up. Same goes for the fullbacks who feel invisible. On June 26 2024 17:10 MJG wrote:
Only in England could the national team win their group without losing a game, whilst only conceding a single goal from a 25-yard strike, and still have the majority of "fans" calling for the manager to be sacked mid-tournament. The team would probably play with a lot more confidence if they weren't getting booed for winning their group. Slovenia beat Portugal coming into the tournament. They're not pushovers.
Clown "fans" and clown media. A team with this much firepower needs to do something with the firepower. They've had a total of 29 shots so far. 5/12/12. That's some horrendous offense from a team with Kane, Foden, Palmer, Saka, Bellingham. There's no way you watch these games and think "yeah, this team is good enough to win the Euros or WC." And it's the same issue time and time again that doesn't get looked at or fixed. That's why the fans want Southgate sacked, because he simply isn't changing anything. He's not addressing the issues. He "experimented" with a single do-nothing change of Gallagher for Trent, who got fucking pulled anyways for Mainoo at halftime. Then, when he finally brings Trent back on for all of about 10 minutes at the end and Gordon for 5, the team actually looked cohesive and attacking. But by all means MJG, if you're just going to be satisfied with picking up 0-0 or 1-1 draws all the time with this team on paper, then feel free to be satisfied. I never said I was satisfied, but there's a difference between expressing dissatisfaction and the kind of vitriol that gets levelled at the England team every time they fail to meet expectations. Not just in this tournament, but in every tournament I can remember watching going back to the early 90s. I'm quite tired of it and wanted to vent a little.
Well, we have been shitting on our squad and management (and rightfully so IMO) for 8 years in a row and it helped :D
You can do it, too!
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Turkey was shit yesterday, they really did not manage the game well and did not impress in possession either imo. Maybe the Georgia game was that good, but from what I've seen of Turkey I really cannot call them one of the more attractive teams or a dark horse.
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Agreed, Turkey as utter garbage against Portugal and also yesterday against 10 czechs they were not looking that great either. If no red card, Turkey would have lost 100%.
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Painful to get eliminated this way  But we should not be at the EURO in the old format in a first place, so kinda...fair? And getting demolished 3-0 in the first match was the biggest puzzle piece
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Northern Ireland27227 Posts
On June 27 2024 15:03 MJG wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2024 23:49 FlaShFTW wrote:On June 26 2024 20:45 Jockmcplop wrote:On June 26 2024 20:34 WombaT wrote:On June 26 2024 17:20 Jockmcplop wrote:On June 26 2024 17:16 sharkie wrote:
No. The team is "clown"... England has a sick golden generation and doing nothing with it England has had 5 golden generations in the last 5 generations. We never seem to have team without glaring weaknesses. There's good attacking talent in this squad but the midfield and defence are sorely lacking in balance. Southgate has become a weakness too. It seems to me he's just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks this time. The midfield is a tricky one, both Mainoo and Wharton feel like they could bring that balance, albeit they’re slightly different players but it’s possibly a year or two too early for them. Or at least it’s a risk to make them fundamental components. Nor do they have some wily veteran with the characteristics you’d want to balance the midfield that you can bring in for one last hurrah On the flipside, Rice and Bellingham are top notch in their positions, you don’t really need another top notch player, just somebody good that complements them and frees them to play to their strengths. But aye, one is getting that impression that Southgate is somewhat trial and erroring it. At previous tournaments you could still point out limitations in players/coach, but you could sorta identity the overall plan. This time around you’ve perhaps got more talent to play with, but the plan is difficult to discern. Its the passing that gets me. We have all these quality players who play for top sides but the passing is so weak. That's got to be a midfield problem surely. We just don't seem to ever be able to pick out that decisive pass through the lines. Trippier is the worst for this. The guy just can't ever see a pass, so he ends up going back to the CBs 99% of the time. Its so boring. The passing is for sure horrendous. I'm so tired of seeing Kane run back to his CBs from a striker position only for his first touch to basically put the ball halfway between him and the passing player where he has to try extra hard to make sure the opponent doesn't scoop the ball up. Same goes for the fullbacks who feel invisible. On June 26 2024 17:10 MJG wrote:
Only in England could the national team win their group without losing a game, whilst only conceding a single goal from a 25-yard strike, and still have the majority of "fans" calling for the manager to be sacked mid-tournament. The team would probably play with a lot more confidence if they weren't getting booed for winning their group. Slovenia beat Portugal coming into the tournament. They're not pushovers.
Clown "fans" and clown media. A team with this much firepower needs to do something with the firepower. They've had a total of 29 shots so far. 5/12/12. That's some horrendous offense from a team with Kane, Foden, Palmer, Saka, Bellingham. There's no way you watch these games and think "yeah, this team is good enough to win the Euros or WC." And it's the same issue time and time again that doesn't get looked at or fixed. That's why the fans want Southgate sacked, because he simply isn't changing anything. He's not addressing the issues. He "experimented" with a single do-nothing change of Gallagher for Trent, who got fucking pulled anyways for Mainoo at halftime. Then, when he finally brings Trent back on for all of about 10 minutes at the end and Gordon for 5, the team actually looked cohesive and attacking. But by all means MJG, if you're just going to be satisfied with picking up 0-0 or 1-1 draws all the time with this team on paper, then feel free to be satisfied. I never said I was satisfied, but there's a difference between expressing dissatisfaction and the kind of vitriol that gets levelled at the England team every time they fail to meet expectations. Not just in this tournament, but in every tournament I can remember watching going back to the early 90s. I'm quite tired of it and wanted to vent a little.
Agreed, especially as a lot of the vitriol comes from relatively casual fans who get engaged more just for the big international summer tournaments and don’t know anything about the game.
Or the people who slaughter a manager for doing what they themselves advocate for. ‘Oh Southgate’s too negative and cautious’, and then when he deviates from his general template and tbf picks a pretty daring squad and a more adventurous team they then moan about the balance.
Like the SC2 fans who go ‘oh why didn’t x mix it up and cheese?’ when they lose a macro game, and when a cheese fails go ‘oh why didn’t they just play their standard macro game, that’s their strong suit?’ Profoundly irritating
Although as I said I don’t think it’s anything particularly unique to the English
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Northern Ireland27227 Posts
On June 27 2024 19:11 Dav1oN wrote:Painful to get eliminated this way But we should not be at the EURO in the old format in a first place, so kinda...fair? And getting demolished 3-0 in the first match was the biggest puzzle piece
Yeah I dunno wtf happened there, really gave you too big a mountain to climb.
I do really like the squad, especially Sudakov, although to be fair there’s many a player I like the look of in an international tournament who doesn’t quite hit the heights in the club game. There’s just that little bit extra freedom, it’s a little less structured so marauding mavericks can really shine. Jorge Valdivia of Chile being one such player who had a good career but never really got established in top level European football.
Most of your core is under 30 too so I think you can have a good cycle for the next World Cup + Euros all being well
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Norway28873 Posts
How about a power rank of teams so far - only looking at performance so far in the tournament.
For me, something like:
1: Spain (distant)
2: Germany (they at least had one very good game. Drew against Switzerland, but had 18-4 in shots that game.)
3: Portugal (won the first two, looked pretty good. Poor final game but that was after swapping almost the entire starting lineup. And even though they lost vs Georgia, they had 21-7 in shots, 11-1 in corners and 68-32 possession that game.)
4: Austria (Won the toughest or second toughest group. But they lost to France, and in that particular game, France looked better than them.
5: France (Big disappointment. But they've only conceded one goal - a penalty, and their by far biggest offensive threat was out for one match. I can still totally picture them as winners.)
6: England (Another big disappointment, but kinda the same story here. Won their group, only conceded one goal. I can't picture them dominating against Italy, but I can picture them playing an even game against Spain)
After this it gets very tough. Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy follow, but I dunno the order. Italy probably more on potential/name recognition than performance so far. Romania Slovakia Slovenia Georgia Turkey and Denmark have been very meh - not necessarily disappointing (Georgia and Romania have performed better than I expected them to), but I picture all 6 of them losing next round, Romania imo has the best chance of those 6. Georgia had an absolutely heroic effort vs Portugal but this is still a game where a) the result lies and b) where it was meaningless for Portugal. Georgia got fourth in their euro qualification group with 2-2-4 stats (which featured Spain, Scotland, Norway and Cyprus, and they lost 1-7 on home field against Spain. This was less than a year ago and the team is mostly the same - this is the ro16 game with the highest potential for a blowout victory imo.
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Mostly agree with your PR, though I see Engerland below the mentioned Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy purely because they looked so incredible harmless. The other teams at least showed somewhat potenial for short amounts
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The PR looks good, though one change: France only beat Austria because of an own goal and enormous time wasting after that (and dont let me get started on the refereeing....)
They were not looking great against either Nederlands nor Poland but what is in their favour is: They played the same shit when they won the WC back then in 2018 too so you will never know.
I would put Netherlands before England, or maybe swap out france with Nederlands.
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Northern Ireland27227 Posts
On June 27 2024 20:14 Harris1st wrote:
Mostly agree with your PR, though I see Engerland below the mentioned Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy purely because they looked so incredible harmless. The other teams at least showed somewhat potenial for short amounts
I think some of the worst StarCraft I’ve ever played was against guys a league or two below me, and absolutely the best I ever played was against Luolis of this parish in the prestigious Team Liquid Live Report Starleague. Being a mere high Diamond Protoss versus high Master Terran in this showdown, partly aided by me having a stylistic love for PvT that had me be a 70/30 player in that matchup at my level and able to way outperform my MMR.
For us who still hold seemingly hopeless hope for England, I think this tortuous analogy is the hope. That England step up versus more formidable opponents, and that the different challenge of maybe not dominating possession will suit them
Although for England enjoyers I did ultimately lose so there is that
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On June 27 2024 16:16 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2024 16:02 RvB wrote:On June 27 2024 07:14 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I mean, Belgium and France are where they are because they couldn't win their groups. Spain is really the only team to impress so far. Arguably Austria has played better football than 4 of those teams, the Switzerland/Italy matchup is pretty good, and England and Netherlands should still have the ability to go toe to toe with the rest if they have a peak performance. I do agree that the top half is better but if you base yourself on 'name recognition/squad potential' then they have 5 of the top 8 vs 3 of the top 8, if you base yourself on tournament performance so far then it has the top 1 and everybody else is kinda meh. I have very little confidence left that we're going to play a good game this euro's. Same with England. Our coaches seem to be competing for worst coach of the tournament. Is it that bad? I mean youse Dutch aren’t exactly scrubs but I wouldn’t say it’s one of those stacked squads that’s being squandered either. I mean schedule wise it happened to be quite a lot of the Dutch games I missed so maybe it was diabolical so far! Curious as I’m not especially familiar with many Dutch-based players or various dudes who could be glaring omissions
We're not stacked like France or England but it's still a good squad. Against France we were lucky that they missed two 100% opportunities. And we should not be outclassed by Austria like that.
We conceded three goals with a defense of Ake, Van Dijk, De Vrij, and Geertruida. Of those only Geertruida is not a top class defender but why even use him when you have Dumfries and Frimpong on the bench.
In the midfield we have a real problem because Frenkie and Koopmeiners are injured, but he keeps bringing in Wijnaldum who has not played a good game since he played for Liverpool and now plays in Saudi Arabia. He has been invisible in every game he's played. Yet Gravenberch has not played a minute yet and Xavi Simons is played out of position.
Then on the offense he keeps playing Depay as a 9 but it does not work. He loses the ball too much and does not defend. It leaves us incredibly vulnarable. Depay is a good technical player (he showed as much with the goal against Austria), but he can't keep the ball in the team. And it's not like we don't have alternatives here as well: Depay, Gakpo, Malen, Weghorst, Zirkzee.
Koemans problem is that he plays favourites and blames everyone but himself when it goes poorly. For instance, Veerman played very poorly against Austria. So when a journalist asked why that is his response was that he did not know and the journalist should ask Veerman himself. Yet, when it was pointed out that Depay played poorly the first two games his response was that he had full confidence in him. Playing with Wijnaldum is another example. Koeman can be a good coach when the circumstances are right but when it starts going poorly he becomes terrible. Seen the same thing at Barcelona, Valencia, and Everton.
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How did Koeman get the job btw? I only remember his horrible club performances
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That would be another interesting PR:
Placement "on paper" and placement on actual performance.
Engerland #1 / #9
France #2 / #5
Portugal #3 / #3
Spain #4 / #1
Germany #5 / #2
Netherlands #6 / #6
Italy #7 / #7
Belgium #8 / 8#
Austria #9 / #4
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Northern Ireland27227 Posts
On June 27 2024 20:52 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2024 16:16 WombaT wrote:On June 27 2024 16:02 RvB wrote:On June 27 2024 07:14 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I mean, Belgium and France are where they are because they couldn't win their groups. Spain is really the only team to impress so far. Arguably Austria has played better football than 4 of those teams, the Switzerland/Italy matchup is pretty good, and England and Netherlands should still have the ability to go toe to toe with the rest if they have a peak performance. I do agree that the top half is better but if you base yourself on 'name recognition/squad potential' then they have 5 of the top 8 vs 3 of the top 8, if you base yourself on tournament performance so far then it has the top 1 and everybody else is kinda meh. I have very little confidence left that we're going to play a good game this euro's. Same with England. Our coaches seem to be competing for worst coach of the tournament. Is it that bad? I mean youse Dutch aren’t exactly scrubs but I wouldn’t say it’s one of those stacked squads that’s being squandered either. I mean schedule wise it happened to be quite a lot of the Dutch games I missed so maybe it was diabolical so far! Curious as I’m not especially familiar with many Dutch-based players or various dudes who could be glaring omissions We're not stacked like France or England but it's still a good squad. Against France we were lucky that they missed two 100% opportunities. And we should not be outclassed by Austria like that. We conceded three goals with a defense of Ake, Van Dijk, De Vrij, and Geertruida. Of those only Geertruida is not a top class defender but why even use him when you have Dumfries and Frimpong on the bench. In the midfield we have a real problem because Frenkie and Koopmeiners are injured, but he keeps bringing in Wijnaldum who has not played a good game since he played for Liverpool and now plays in Saudi Arabia. He has been invisible in every game he's played. Yet Gravenberch has not played a minute yet and Xavi Simons is played out of position. Then on the offense he keeps playing Depay as a 9 but it does not work. He loses the ball too much and does not defend. It leaves us incredibly vulnarable. Depay is a good technical player (he showed as much with the goal against Austria), but he can't keep the ball in the team. And it's not like we don't have alternatives here as well: Depay, Gakpo, Malen, Weghorst, Zirkzee. Koemans problem is that he plays favourites and blames everyone but himself when it goes poorly. For instance, Veerman played very poorly against Austria. So when a journalist asked why that is his response was that he did not know and the journalist should ask Veerman himself. Yet, when it was pointed out that Depay played poorly the first two games his response was that he had full confidence in him. Playing with Wijnaldum is another example. Koeman can be a good coach when the circumstances are right but when it starts going poorly he becomes terrible. Seen the same thing at Barcelona, Valencia, and Everton.
Cheers for the summary, informative stuff!
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What the fuck how did Mexico lose to Venezuela?
How the mighty have fallen
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On June 27 2024 21:08 sharkie wrote:
How did Koeman get the job btw? I only remember his horrible club performances
He's a mixed bag. He did well at Feyenoord and Southampton. Before he went to Barcelona he also did well at the national team. We had not qualified for the previous euro and world cup and he qualified while performing in the nation's league. So when he was available again after Barcelona he was a logical choice considering we almost never take foreign coaches. It's just that he's a limited coach and at the moment his flaws are on full display.
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EPT
