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Northern Ireland22495 Posts
On July 10 2024 16:37 gTank wrote: German security guard injured Morata after the game, not enough that Kroos fouled half of the spanish team. Man I’m so sick of fucking pitch invaders, this only happened because the security guard tried to do his job. Or hers, I’m unsure!
I’m not a complete killjoy, if you wanna do the classic get naked and run around a bit, hey it’s a bit daft but it’s a harmless tradition.
This recent trend of actively approaching players has got to be nipped in the bud, it’s putting their safety at risk if it’s a mad person bent on doing them harm. Hell someone punched Jack Grealish in a Birmingham derby
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Northern Ireland22495 Posts
More importantly, is it coming home?
My personal odds are about 55/45 for tonight’s game anyway, rather lower for a hypothetical final!
The Dutch have recently got slightly more out of their resources than England IMO, so it should be a pretty tight one. For England fans we’re at 5 games where it hasn’t really clicked and the clear talent in the squad hasn’t been fully harnessed, but hey sixth time lucky
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Went as expected. One lucky punch/ brilliant moment by Mbappe and otherwise all Spain. Barcola was great though, should have brought him sooner. At least Germany did pressure Spain when they were down one. Had the Spain defense swimming at times. France did nothing and played like it was a draw and hoping to get saved by a shoot out again... And this was quite a weakend Spanish team. Tired legs and half the defense out.
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Pitches: Yes handegg and waaaaay too much rain killed some of the pitches, specially Frankfurt. Infrastructure: Yes it sucks. Always did and always will. Absolute embarrassment. Cucurella and online petition: Yes we are that petty/ sore losers. Learned that from the English which not only are sore losers but also sore winners
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On July 10 2024 16:37 gTank wrote: German security guard injured Morata after the game, not enough that Kroos fouled half of the spanish team.
Gotte be honest with you, I'm kinda fed up with your Anti-German stance these last few pages. At least get your info right: The guy that slided Morata is a member of the Spanish NT Entourage...
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Wonder where you have that info, I have it of a german site (kicker.de) that it was one of the security guys.
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On July 10 2024 18:46 gTank wrote: Wonder where you have that info, I have it of a german site (kicker.de) that it was one of the security guys.
Kicker says:
Nach SID-Informationen handelte es sich übrigens um einen Ordner des spanischen Verbandes, keinen von der UEFA. www.kicker.de
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On July 10 2024 18:48 mahrgell wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2024 18:46 gTank wrote: Wonder where you have that info, I have it of a german site (kicker.de) that it was one of the security guys. Kicker says: Show nested quote +Nach SID-Informationen handelte es sich übrigens um einen Ordner des spanischen Verbandes, keinen von der UEFA. www.kicker.de
Ah yeah sorry, then its my bad. I stand corrected!
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So with De La Fuente also advocating for it the discussion around skipping extra time for everything but the finals picked up steam... Thinking about it, I've looked at previous tournaments to see how many teams made it through "clean".
And well, I didn't expect this, so let me share: Looking at each tournament winner and the total number of games going to extra time / pens: R/E/P =Game ended in Regulation / Extra Time / Penalties
1960: Winner: Soviet Union - Group stage: None - Knockouts: 1R / 1E Overall: 4 Knockout games, 3R / 1E First Euro ever, only 4 teams knockout, and the final was the first extra-time game in Euro history...
1964: Winner: Spain - Groupstage: None - Knockouts: 1R / 1E Overall: 4 Knockout games, 2R / 2E
1968: Winner: Italy - Group stage: None - Knockouts: Won Semifinal in extra time, drew the final in extra time, won the repetition game of the final then (no penalties back then...) Overall: 5 Knockout games, 3R / 2E This was the only occurrence of a repeated game in Euro history, but it happened in the final...
1972: Winner: Germany - Group stage: None - Knockouts: 2R / 0E / 0P Overall: 4 Knockout games, 4R / 0E / 0P A clean run by the tournament winner and a clean tournament overall. Neither extra time nor pens were required! Historic! But hey, it was only 2 games :D
1976: Winner: Czechoslovakia - Groupstage: None - Knockouts: 0R / 1E / 1P Overall: 4 Knockout games, 0R / 3E / 1P Well, if the previous tournament decided all games in regulation... Let's just do the opposite here...
1980: Winner: Germany - Group stage: 2W / 1D / 0L - Knockouts: 1R / 0E / 0P Overall: 2 Knockout games, 1R / 0E / 1P For the first time a changed format including a group stage. Weirdly enough it went from the group stage straight to the final, so not many chances for extra time/regulation. But Germany had a draw in their last (meaningless) group-stage game, denting the otherwise flawless run. Btw: the game for 3rd place ended 9-8 on penalties! It was the last game for 3rd at the Euros.
1984: Winner: France - Group stage: 3W / 0D / 0L - Knockouts: 1R / 1E / 0P Overall: 3 Knockout games, 1R / 1E / 1P Now they've added semi-finals and promptly both semi-finals required the extra mile.
1988: Winner: Netherlands - Group stage: 2W / 0D / 1L - Knockouts: 2R / 0E / 0P Overall: 3 Knockout games, 3R / 0E / 0P The Netherlands lost their first game to the SU but then went through everything, including beating the SU in the final!
1992: Winner: Denmark - Group stage: 1W / 1D / 1L - Knockouts: 1R / 0E / 1P Overall: 3 Knockout games, 2R / 0E / 1P The late replacement team Denmark, also labeled as Big Mac team and their miracle victory. They needed penalties in their semi final before crushing Germany in the final (Germany was also only placed 2nd in the group stage though...)
1996: Winner: Germany - Group stage: 2W / 1D / 0L - Knockouts: 1R / 1E / 1P Overall: 7 Knockout games, 2R / 1E / 4P More teams! More knockout games. And nearly nothing was decided in regulation. Both semi-finals went to pens. The final was decided by the first Golden Goal. (and I still remember watching the games...)
2000: Winner: France - Group stage: 2W / 0D / 1L - Knockouts: 1R / 2E / 0P Overall: 7 Knockout games, 4R / 2E / 1P The second tournament with the Golden Goal and France scored one each in their semi-final and final to crown themselves... This was enough reason to scratch that rule again.
2004: Winner: Greece - Group stage: 1W / 1D / 1L - Knockouts: 2R / 1E / 0P Overall: 7 Knockout games, 4R / 1E / 2P Rehakles and the Greek wall. Beating Portugal cleanly in their group stage to advance and then in the final to seal the title. Besides that, they also had 4 games they didn't win in regulation though.
2008: Winner: Spain - Group stage: 3W / 0D / 0L - Knockouts: 2R / 0E / 1P Overall: 7 Knockout games, 4R / 1E / 2P Spain requiring pens in their QF vs. Italy was the only scratch on their otherwise perfect tournament. The closest we have to a perfect run in the era of many teams.
2012: Winner: Spain - Group stage: 2W / 1D / 0L - Knockouts: 2R / 0E / 1P Overall: 7 Knockout games, 5R / 0E / 2P Spain again, but this time they dropped some points in the group stage and required pens in their semi final.
2016: Winner: Portugal - Group stage: 0W / 3D / 0L - Knockouts: 1R / 2E / 1P Overall: 15 Knockout games, 10R / 2E / 3P Again more teams, more games. And Portugal getting the title with only a single victory in regulation. Whatever that was... Except for Portugal, most other knockout games ended in regulation though.
2021: Winner: Italy - Group stage: 3W / 0D / 0L - Knockouts: 1R / 1E / 2P Overall: 15 Knockout games, 7R / 4E / 4P Italy started strong, but then won the title requiring pens in both their last 2 games.
So... Germany 1972 was the only flawless run in Euro history, and even if we only look at the knockouts, that kind of runs only happened to Germany '72 and '80 (only one game) and the Netherlands in '88. Since they've added a 3rd knockout round (and lately a 4th...) nobody managed a perfect run. Only France and Greece managed to win the title without going to pens in this era.
Amusingly, the Netherlands could still make a perfect knockout stage in this tournament. So we have another reason to cheer for them!
And back to the original point: While I completely understand the reasoning for removing extra time and going straight to pens... It looks like it would make those games even more random. No team is dominating enough to cut through everything in regulation. Even with the current rules most championship runs required pens at some point. I think even more pens would undermine the value of the title.
But hey, since the footie overlords main goal is always more teams and more games, something else has to give to reduce the player exhaustion, right? Let's see what other rules we will get when the Euro will be hosted in China. Though I admit I feel like e.g. the new substitution rules (5+1) are well implemented and had a positive effect on the game, so not all change is bad.
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Great writeup! Brings back fond memories! Except the golden goal rule ofc :D Regarding player exhaustion, I also like the rules with more subs and also the water breaks when the weather calls for it. Glad they didnt make this into commercial breaks yet. Do you think that the possibility for players to join after they got subbed out would be good or bad to support this?
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I don't think this would be an option many coaches would utilize.
Especially when looking at the exhaustion topic, if you want to bring a sub, you want 100% fresh legs, and not some legs that have played 60 minutes, then had to be subbed and are now semi-ok after 20 minutes of recovery. Also not sure what sports doctors would say about this.
I could see this used when undoing tactical changes, so when you took off your striker, but then the game turned around and you suddenly need him again. But this has nothing to do with the fatigue issue.
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Northern Ireland22495 Posts
Great writeup Mahgrell!
For me intuitively, it’s easier for a worse side to grind it out for penalties over 90 minutes than 120, which doesn’t lend itself to sparkling football.
Players are clearly burned out by summer tournament time, and there’s too much football of high intensity played by the elite players for sure.
But I don’t think cutting the 30 minutes+ of extra time is much of a solution there, introduces further incentive for negative football and removes a phase of the game that has provided memorable intensity and high-stakes drama.
They already semi-attempted this before with golden/silver goals and it didn’t really work. Make one mistake and you’re done just made teams more risk-averse and as a neutral it never real felt ‘right’ in a sporting justice sense.
@gTank, interesting suggestion, I think it makes sense if a team completely disrupts their team balance to either hardcore attack/defend, only to end up in extra time with a really unbalanced team. On the flipside I guess there’s an argument that if you are in such a desperate need to do either, that the other team has maybe earned that advantage.
Not sure on that one tbh!
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Bearded Elder29902 Posts
I love these early goals. Opening the game and spicing things up
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Well what was left of my fantasy died with that goal. But oh what a goal it was.
And he deserves it!
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Just please don't park the bus, my heart can't handle 80 minutes of game on our half.
And please, Koeman, if you're reading this..
Don't sub in Wijnaldum.
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Bearded Elder29902 Posts
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Clear penalty? I think so. At least after watching replays.
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Okay, different question:
Why do have a fair number of players 3 ripped holes on the back of their socks? This is across several teams, with all kinds of players. And no, those aren't battle scars, they have this even during walk-on and when freshly subbed...
What kind of fancy trend is this?
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