2020-21 Football thread (5 Viewers)

Na, for real, they're pretty shit compared to the actual good teams. They haven't played an actual good team in the tournament yet, and they won't unless they get to the final and face Italy.
The two best teams in Europe are clearly Italy and Belgium, and Belgium completely took England apart last time they played.
After Belgium and Italy, the best teams would be France, maybe Portugal and Spain. Portugal are a pretty good team as long as they start Renato Sanches who runs absolutely everything for them. Spain are a team that would be good if they could ever play a forward pass. They were fucking shit against Switzerland.

After that, you'd say Germany, but Germany have gone to shit. They were really good for about 40 minutes against Portugal, aside from that I haven't seen them play well in over a year. I did see Switzerland outfight the shit out of them in the Nations League a year or so back though, and the Germans were very lucky to get a draw against them.
The next tier of teams is the likes of Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Croatia, and this is the tier that England fall into. Teams that can be solid and cause problems, but really aren't up to much at all and just have to rely on counter-attack play versus the better teams.
As far as I'm concerned, all these teams are shit compared to real times like Italy and Belgium. That doesn't mean they won't grind a result every now and then, but usually they'll lose those matches by a goal or two, or maybe more, pretty easily.
 
watching BBC and RTE at half time during England v Ukraine I thought they were talking about different matches. England were too defensive against a weak side,/ there was little pressing and after an early goal they didn't try to crack on.
Brady, Hamann and Duff were disappointed but BBC thought they were doing well.
apart from Kane getting a brace it's hard to glean much from the match.
to be honest after the third goal I got a phone call from an ill friend and didn't pay much attention to the rest of the game. strangely Grealish never got on.

England have a lot of potential to win something in the next few years but Southgate is too pragmatic and cautious. they won't beat Italy and they've lost to Denmark and Belgium recently and like the last World Cup they have got to the Semis without facing a top side.

oh -the on screen clock on the RTE broadcasts is wonky it's unusual about 10 seconds out after 45 minutes.
so matches have ended about 89:48 etc
 
I do agree that Southgate is probably too defensive, but like I don't see any other manager really getting anything more from England. It's not really a tactics thing so much, what sets Italy and Belgium apart is how they operate as a team. I mean, you see the same kind of fight and teamwork in some of the 'lesser' teams like Denmark and the Czechs, but they don't have the players all over the pitch to really work like a machine. Italy and Belgium do.
I guess Germany is the best example of what I'm saying here. They can play like a machine, and they're brilliant when they do it. But switch just a couple of players out of the team, bring a couple of players in that aren't on the same page, and their machine falls apart.
What's amazing about Italy is that their team spirit and team work is so fuckin good that they can basically switch players in and out and hardly suffer any negative effect at all. They definitely missed Chiellini for the 2 or 3 matches he was out, but they still won and then when he came back they looked even better. You'd think surely they'll miss Spinnazola as well - what's the odds that whoever plays there instead does just as well? The genius of Mancini here is how he's got so many players on the same page for so long, with all the players really playing for each other and no ego shit. That's what makes them that bit better than all the rest.
 
I do agree that Southgate is probably too defensive, but like I don't see any other manager really getting anything more from England. It's not really a tactics thing so much, what sets Italy and Belgium apart is how they operate as a team. I mean, you see the same kind of fight and teamwork in some of the 'lesser' teams like Denmark and the Czechs, but they don't have the players all over the pitch to really work like a machine. Italy and Belgium do.
I guess Germany is the best example of what I'm saying here. They can play like a machine, and they're brilliant when they do it. But switch just a couple of players out of the team, bring a couple of players in that aren't on the same page, and their machine falls apart.
What's amazing about Italy is that their team spirit and team work is so fuckin good that they can basically switch players in and out and hardly suffer any negative effect at all. They definitely missed Chiellini for the 2 or 3 matches he was out, but they still won and then when he came back they looked even better. You'd think surely they'll miss Spinnazola as well - what's the odds that whoever plays there instead does just as well? The genius of Mancini here is how he's got so many players on the same page for so long, with all the players really playing for each other and no ego shit. That's what makes them that bit better than all the rest.

It's been less heralded but after the catastrophe of 2010 the Italian FA did some thing akin to the German's post 2000 reboot. Many of the players in this Italy side have been playing this way together at underage level since they were in the u-15s.
 
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Italy were a bit lucky today, they weren't nearly as good as they were against Belgium. Spain had their best match of the tournament, but what I've been saying about them held true: A good defence can give them 100 chances and they'll still manage to score fuck all. For all their possession, Italy looked the more likely to score any time they had an attack. I think the Spanish goal came from the 2 subs Mancini brought on disrupting Italy's shape, they were all at sea for that move.
ITALIA FOREVERRRR
 
Spinazzola was a huge loss but they got the job done in the end.

the two Irish lads in the Italian end celebrating were famous for 15 minutes. One had a 90's Ireland jersey and then there was a guy with a red beard beside him who seemed to be wearing a Kerry top.

i'd be surprised if tonight's game is decided by more than one goal.
it will make or break England if they conceed whether they have the resolve to come back.
they have the players to win something in the next few tournaments but not yet.

Rio is so laughably biased and his beard looks silly.
 
when the media lowered their expectations in England after a string of disastrous tournaments, England's 2018 campaign actually got a reasonably positive response from the Irish public (including myself) which was unpredecented.
BUT now their media are back to the old ways of being completely insufferable.

If an England fan asked me why I prefer Denmark or Italy.
A: ''Why would I want England to win? the rest of the world all wants Denmark to win today and not just because of Eriksen. Have a think about the many reasons why mate''

And why are 65,000 allowed in Wembley tonight one day after it was capped at 18,000?
 
After decades of complaining about Maradona in 1986 (''cheating'') what will the likes of Lineker say about that penalty?
But the real villain was the VAR person.

Really good match until that point.

I want an autographed photo of Kaspar Schmeichel for Xmas.
 
Interesting, such negative vibes.Not feeling that here, and that's nice.

Whatever about penalties, it's almost as if soccerball is a bit shit and stupid.
 
After decades of complaining about Maradona in 1986 (''cheating'') what will the likes of Lineker say about that penalty?
But the real villain was the VAR person.

Really good match until that point.

I want an autographed photo of Kaspar Schmeichel for Xmas.

Look i'm never gonna justify that penalty - but I would say long before that the strategy was 100% to see if they could push for penalties and be saved by Kaspers amazing presence - they'd already dumped the whole game on penalties at that point. Still think it's BS and I want to HEAR THE TAPES of the VAR room so you can hear them saying that Eng-Ita is more money for soccer give them the peno but also Denmark defo were depending on a one man win at that point.
 
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