Only caught the last twenty minutes or so running home for a late lunch break. In France's defense, this was Germany away. I know it's an unfancied Germany, but it's still Germany away. Most of the teams that impressed in their first games were not up against that caliber of opposition IMO.
Euro 2020
- Thread starter Schwallacus
- Start date
Only caught the last twenty minutes or so running home for a late lunch break. In France's defense, this was Germany away. I know it's an unfancied Germany, but it's still Germany away. Most of the teams that impressed in their first games were not up against that caliber of opposition IMO.
I agree with this take, but I wouldn't even say Germany carried the play. Germans just ended up passing the ball around the box and didn't do much with it to put the ball in threatening areas or make legitimate chances. Might just be me being biased towards Löw, but all the possession did nothing for them. I will agree that I wasn't particularly impressed by France, but they've found a way to just do enough to win. Pogba had a sensational game and the rest of the French squad did what they had to do. France understandably had more chances on the break as you stated.
I just can't wait for Löw to leave. Thanks for the WC in '14, but Germany started moving downhill ever since, and has been in freefall since 2018.
The weird thing is that all my friends were speaking high praise of France, but I don't see it. I still hold by Belgium winning the whole thing.
You know what Germany is missing? An attacking midfield presence with great creative abilities. Aka Reus. But because this season was so tough he took this Euros campaign off to let himself recover. (and rightly so from an injury-prone player like himself). I think with someone like that, those passes could have materialized to more. Also why did Havertz start over Sane? Weird.
Sane has had an eh season recovering from his knee injury, Havertz is coming off a decent finish to his season and scoring the winning goal in a CL Final.
IDK if Reus would be the answer, I feel he would just add to the passing back and forth outside the box. I think it's just shitty tactics- 3 ATB? None of the CBs play with 3ATB aside from Rüdiger. Kroos barely made any forward/incisive passes to really worry the French defense, and in my opinion shouldn't be starting. a 4-3-3 with Kimmich, Gundo, and Goretzka would be the ideal midfield (Goretzka is just coming back from injury, so may not happen this tournament).
Italy has been very impressive. Wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the final
Same, assuming they top group A, they will have to go through, most likely, Belgium in the quarters, and France in the Semis.
As a neutral it’s hard to care about the Euros group stage when they play 36 games to eliminate just 8 teams.
then you have the Copa America:
then you have the Copa America:
Group F of Euros is way better than the entire Copa America tournament
Chaotic final group games for all four teams. Felt like there was a change in the live standings every ten minutes.
The huge problem with the Copa America group stage is that CONMEBOL only has two good teams (BRA, ARG) and three more okay teams (URU, COL & CHI), and then five trash teams. So the chances of actually getting decent matches during the group stage is horribly low.
And they seem to do everything they can to assure Brazil wins (as if they need the help) like letting the play continue after the ball hits the ref or 10 minutes of stoppage time when their not winning!
Back to the actual topic:
Some good round of 16 match ups. England-Germany Belgium- Portugal. Belgium have to be the favorites there but I would not be pleased if I was Belgian that their reward for running the group stage is a match up with Ronaldo and company.
I'm not going to argue against that classification, but just to point out that South America's lesser teams are much more savvy that, for example, CONCACAF lesser teams. Being that they are not at the level of ARG and BRA, you would have to bundle USA and MEX as okay teams, and Costa Rica somewhere between okay and trash, however every time one of those three loses against El Salvador, Jamaica, Honduras, Panama, T-and-T, etc it's considered a huge upset. The okay teams in SA have a pretty hard time defeating the lesser teams.
england benefitting from basically no travel, home matches, and a very soft PK call.
hope italy rips them to shreds and embarrasses them in their precious wembley.
hope italy rips them to shreds and embarrasses them in their precious wembley.
Dude!!! Harsh!!!
Yes, the penalty was soft, but that’s the kind of thing that happens when you let the other team control the ball in your half for extended periods.
