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On July 08 2024 22:06 KobraKay wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2024 18:19 gTank wrote:On July 08 2024 18:14 Harris1st wrote:
I hope Spain takes it all in a dominating fashion. How some teams who refuse to play football are still in this, is beyond me. Never forget EM highlights such as Greece back then or Portugal. Sometimes playing ugly and very boring can get you the win. Yeah we lost against greece in the final for 2004 where we were playing great and only got our revenge "doing a greece" in 2016. It was atrocious for us to see, i cannot imagine how it must have felt for others.
2004 was the time a bit of football enthusiasm died inside me. 2016 was close to that.
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France12886 Posts
This Euro was quite boring to watch, but somehow we are in semis now.
I still hope we advance and win the whole thing, no team seemed crazy strong though so I feel like all 4 teams left have a decent shot at winning
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Hm, I feel like the remaining 4 teams are quite different... Like if I had to make an alignment chart where:
lawful -> chaotic = look like they have a plan (and play according to it) -> look completely clueless or can't follow any gameplan
good -> evil = entertaining -> boring snoozefest
I would say:
Spain: lawful neutral
France: lawful evil
England: neutral evil
Netherlands: chaotic good
Since I value entertainment over everything, I guess I have to cheer for the Dutchies here. :D
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I can't be neutral, but I don't mind watching Spain at all either. A France - England final just sounds horrible if they continue to play the same way.
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On July 08 2024 22:06 KobraKay wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2024 18:19 gTank wrote:On July 08 2024 18:14 Harris1st wrote:
I hope Spain takes it all in a dominating fashion. How some teams who refuse to play football are still in this, is beyond me. Never forget EM highlights such as Greece back then or Portugal. Sometimes playing ugly and very boring can get you the win. Yeah we lost against greece in the final for 2004 where we were playing great and only got our revenge "doing a greece" in 2016. It was atrocious for us to see, i cannot imagine how it must have felt for others.
I never criticised Portugal for 2016 because of what happened in 2004
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On July 09 2024 00:11 mahrgell wrote:
Hm, I feel like the remaining 4 teams are quite different... Like if I had to make an alignment chart where:
lawful -> chaotic = look like they have a plan (and play according to it) -> look completely clueless or can't follow any gameplan
good -> evil = entertaining -> boring snoozefest
I would say:
Spain: lawful neutral
France: lawful evil
England: neutral evil
Netherlands: chaotic good
Since I value entertainment over everything, I guess I have to cheer for the Dutchies here. :D
Great classification and also 100% on all!
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United States10168 Posts
Southgateball is most definitely neutral evil, the most evil of all evil though.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51489 Posts
On July 08 2024 18:33 Harris1st wrote:
Hahaha Zwayer is gonna ref the game between Engerland and Netherland. Fingers crossed for some not given pen for Engerland
Yeah utter chaos appointment that, this guy regardless of being German has actual problems with Jude after he brought up the match fixing scandal in a Dortmund vs Bayern game!
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Northern Ireland25467 Posts
On July 08 2024 17:54 KobraKay wrote:
Ok I'll try my best to keep this simple :D
I'll preface this by saying that by my country's standards, I "dont like football" and that is because I dont wage war over my club or feel the need to watch it play when it is playing bad, and because I say that our national team plays way below the value of its pieces and sometimes I rather watch spain (or a few years ago Netherlands) play. To be fair, unlike my countryman Football ranks somewhat 4th on the list of sports i enjoy.
Ok so even on its golden days cronaldo was always 70/30 around here. 70% were all omg everyone needs to praise ronaldo regardless because he is our best ever player, you all are just jealous haters if you dont. while the other 30% were a mix of haters, people who do not enjoy his style and rather watch others (messi) or people who said he was more of a hindrance than helping the team, because others were afraid of not doing his thing and never be called back again. Discussion about cronaldo was not possible, you were either a ronaldete or a cronaldo hater.
Last world cup Fernando Santos did his best contribution ever to our NT, benching old cronaldo. People complained etc but the result was there, we played a lot better and the final result was not impacted by him being out. The 70% went down, but not by much it just became a less noisy majority. At this point, if not before, it was already pretty much accepted by everyone but the diehard ronaldetes, that cronaldo having first pickings on every free kick etc did not make sense, but for some reason it keeps happening. For this I blame the coaches.
Then came Martinez, instead of taking the hint, he tried to reform cronaldo, and at some point it did work to some extent. He was being an asset despite not scoring many goals and his stock went up again with the old 70% crowd, so support was there for him to be a starter in the Euro.
Then the euro started and more and more voices (even on commentators on TV which is unheard of before) started saying that Cronaldo is no longer the type of player that can play and start every game. but the crowd of the "omg he is our best ever" is back to being very noisy everywhere and there is always a very careful way in media to review cronaldo, apart from some signature commentary that are less concerned about the potential backlash. Even considering the amount of chances missed.
Now that we are out, cronaldo is kind of out of the conversation. People say we did our best but it was still our nightmare team to play against in France. So media quickly shifted to summer transfer window for the clubs, specially as the big clubs started their pre-season coincidently on the day after our elimination or very close to it.
Today is a lot easier to find someone agreeing that cronaldo makes the team worse because the others instead of actually playing are compeled to pass the ball to him out of fear of not beeing called back again, or because they are forced into a system to favour him despite him not scoring enough to warrant that. But I would argue that at best we are 50/50 on public opinion on him. The other side always argues that this is not cronaldos doing, its the full team problem because this is not our best 11 or team, this is "Jorge Mends and friends NT".
So even when it happens, even though today is a lot more possible to have a discussion about it, any fault of cronaldo is very quickly dismissed and blame shifted everywhere else. But again, very little was written or discussed about our elimination, attention shifted almost right away to club football.
Cheers for the insight!
It’s just very odd for me as an outsider looking in, because Portugal have such quality now, and historically.
Off the top of my head you had scenarios where one player was clearly a step above their national teammates, Bale with Wales, Litmanen with Finland, Kvaratskhelia with Georgia springing to mind. But yet those teams felt more collective and less in thrall to a star man than a Portugal side full of integral players in some of Europe’s most elite clubs. Hell he’s not even the only Portuguese player to lift a Ballon D’Or in the past 20 years
You know what I mean? Portugal had the vibe of being a one-man team, more than teams that actually were. It’s very strange!
Perhaps it’s that Ronaldo transcends the sport? He’s not merely one of Portugal’s best footballers, he’s one of the most famous men on the planet, and certainly the most famous Portuguese person.
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Yeah completely agree with you.
But people use him and earlier on Mourinho as examples to teach to kids "work hard, full dedication and you can be the best in the world" and react very badly whenever people challenge the notion that they are no longer or were not the best (mourinho failed so many times and never reached cronaldo status that it is acceptable to bash him these days).
And as I write this, today he is making news around here because someone says once more that he is pushing is career because he wants to play with his son before retiring. Which is fine, but leave the NT alone. Watch his kid being called to the NT just to make cronaldo happy (kind of joking...I hope).
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On July 09 2024 17:17 KobraKay wrote:
Yeah completely agree with you.
But people use him and earlier on Mourinho as examples to teach to kids "work hard, full dedication and you can be the best in the world" and react very badly whenever people challenge the notion that they are no longer or were not the best (mourinho failed so many times and never reached cronaldo status that it is acceptable to bash him these days).
And as I write this, today he is making news around here because someone says once more that he is pushing is career because he wants to play with his son before retiring. Which is fine, but leave the NT alone. Watch his kid being called to the NT just to make cronaldo happy (kind of joking...I hope).
I think there's also a notion of hedging in there. Coaches are people too and they are worried a random 0-1 loss to a Slovakia screamer, when their 'top' player is benched, ends their career and reputation.
I realized this when it's obvious to all in France current Mbappe is a liability. He avoids duels and can't aim at goal properly due to his mask, saying so himself and even boasting about it to teammates. They see it and actively defend him on interviews. The press sees it, I see it. Any other player would at least share the spotlight with a motivated youngster like Barcola or for Portugal Goncalo Ramos.
But the star player plays, simply because they are the coach's critic insurance and need to be on the pitch on defeat day. It's cynical and an insult to the overall quality of the team, especially with crazy generations like France and current Portugal, but it is what it is. The 'son of' factor also happens already in France with Marcus Thuram starting games when he's the most useless of our attackers. Football NTs are managed more like a small business than like a serious listed company with independent auditors.
Edit : There was a legendary Guardian sports article excoriating Ronaldo's attitude, strongly recommended read.
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This is such a stupid article. Portugal could have been eliminated without ronaldo as well and then the guardian would cry why was the 2nd best player in football history not played, goalscoring machine etc...
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On July 10 2024 02:59 sharkie wrote:
This is such a stupid article. Portugal could have been eliminated without ronaldo as well and then the guardian would cry why was the 2nd best player in football history not played, goalscoring machine etc...
Whatever you think about the content, I thought it was extremely well written, and besides - you actually make my point. Yes, all journalists make that meta-point recursively as there wouldn't be backlash, therefore fear of backlash, therefore suboptimal compositions, if they didn't exist. OK.
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This euro shows that germany has neglected their infrastructure for decades, Netherlands press conference canceled because train outages. And its not the first time this happened during euros, there are memes about this even.
Does this have an impact on the game tomorrow?
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51489 Posts
The English fans went mental for Serbia game, trams weren't running and infrastructure been poor experience.
The worst part for me, which isn't an infrastructure problem, is the state of the pitches! England have played on some shocking pitches which could have caused some serious damage. Not just England as well, many players getting feet stuck in the awful turf which is cutting up everywhere.
Very disappointed as Germany should be top tier for a tournament like this!
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The stadium in Frankfurt especially has a really bad pitch, that was already like that in test games.
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yeah I read American football destroyed frankfurt pitch
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FRA pitch before the hand-egg game was hybrid of natural and artificial grass, but got destroyed by the hand-egg event.
They opted for a cheaper all natural pitch in november..which never really took root and since then is famous for being soapy in Bundesliga.
It's to be replaced in 2025 or 2026.
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Northern Ireland25467 Posts
On July 10 2024 02:59 sharkie wrote:
This is such a stupid article. Portugal could have been eliminated without ronaldo as well and then the guardian would cry why was the 2nd best player in football history not played, goalscoring machine etc...
Except the Guardian’s sport desk have been mostly consistent on this point for ages, and they’ve a lot of good sportswriters. Hell as far back as his time at Juventus people like Nicky Bandini who primarily covers Serie A were making the ‘yeah he’s a great player but despite his personal numbers being great, he drags down elite teams’
Happened at United as well, it’s clearly happened again with Portugal.
The problem is that he can still do a job, but either he or his managers by virtue of his profile don’t have him do that job. So he ends up playing literally every minute, or taking every free kick etc etc
He could have dropped down to a mid-table, relegation fighting side or a Europe-chasing one and there his sheer quality perhaps is worth the trade-off with his ‘can’t or won’t run much’ quality. Or he could be an impact player at a top side.
Other sides have this problem too, but even the borderline undroppable captains in Kane and Mbappe have been subbed this tournament, and they’re not 39.
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Wow, Kolo. Didn't expect that !
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EPT
