Euro 2012 Catch-all Thread

[Dr Gloom 22147]

germany were hardly shite though stevie were they? you can't really claim to have called that one right

[McFaul 35]

germany were hardly shite though stevie were they? you can't really claim to have called that one right

They were functional, they weren't shite. Shite is what England were, I'd say in comparison to the kraut expectations they were average. Klinsmann sat there before England v Italy saying the whole of Germany expects to win the final, it's just deluded. Any side that concedes two goal to an international team containing Samaras, needs work doing.

[Gemmill 46027]

Functional 4-2 victories.

Functional 100% group stage record.

 

Functional.

[McFaul 35]

Functional 4-2 victories.

Functional 100% group stage record.

 

Functional.

Stats, stats, stats. I know allegedly you used to be an accountant, but you have to think outside of the box. The stats also tell you England were unbeaten in four games against, the better of the two hosts, France, Sweden (who were in shit hot form before it) and the European Championship Runners Up. Based on stats, England will be ranked THIRD best team on earth http://www.football-rankings.info/2012/06/fifa-ranking-july-2012-probable-ranking_20.html when the next FIFA rankings are released in 2 days time. Stats, stats, stats. They weren't better than Portugal or Holland but sneaked through, they were very, very average against Denmark, and with ten mins to go one goal the other would've put them out, and you could a team off Toontastic who would get a draw off Greece, then they play Italy and are outclassed for most of the game as I thought they might be. Think outside of the box.

[Toonpack 9939]

Stats, stats, stats. I know allegedly you used to be an accountant, but you have to think outside of the box. The stats also tell you England were unbeaten in four games against, the better of the two hosts, France, Sweden (who were in shit hot form before it) and the European Championship Runners Up. Based on stats, England will be ranked THIRD best team on earth http://www.football-...ranking_20.html when the next FIFA rankings are released in 2 days time. Stats, stats, stats. They weren't better than Portugal or Holland but sneaked through, they were very, very average against Denmark, and with ten mins to go one goal the other would've put them out, and you could a team off Toontastic who would get a draw off Greece, then they play Italy and are outclassed for most of the game as I thought they might be. Think outside of the box.

 

Box of frogs ?

[Gemmill 46027]

Stats, stats, stats. I know allegedly you used to be an accountant, but you have to think outside of the box. The stats also tell you England were unbeaten in four games against, the better of the two hosts, France, Sweden (who were in shit hot form before it) and the European Championship Runners Up. Based on stats, England will be ranked THIRD best team on earth http://www.football-rankings.info/2012/06/fifa-ranking-july-2012-probable-ranking_20.html when the next FIFA rankings are released in 2 days time. Stats, stats, stats. They weren't better than Portugal or Holland but sneaked through, they were very, very average against Denmark, and with ten mins to go one goal the other would've put them out, and you could a team off Toontastic who would get a draw off Greece, then they play Italy and are outclassed for most of the game as I thought they might be. Think outside of the box.

 

I was hardly trying to boggle anyone's mind with stats. I was just pointing out that being no more than functional seems to be a very successful tactic for them.

[Lake Bells tits 1]

Everyone were calling Germany the best team of the tournament and bigging them up to slay spain until they were sent packing by italy.

"Functional"

[ChezGiven 0]

That's a different situation though Chez, surely. In club football you can just go into the market today fix problems.

 

In international football, we have proven ourselves terrible at retaining possession for years now, and that stems back all the way to grass roots coaching. And it's huge at international level, and these 35 percenters are the best England has to offer.

 

You can't fix that without a) recognition of the problem, investment to put it right and then c) time to allow the players benefitting to work through the system.

 

In that regard, you could say that a decade is a conservative estimate. You probably need closer to 15 or 20 years to really see the difference.

 

its certainly not a different situation. I present a few exhibits from our recent experiences: James Perch, Danny Guthrie, Ryan Taylor. All players not fit to play Sunday league who became adequate Premiership players with the right coaching.

 

You're right we cant go and buy the players we need but to transform Germany took about 6 years and a team only needs one or two world class players to compete at the top level if the rest of your players are decent enough.

 

I think all teams are miles behind Spain but we are not a decade away from competing with Italy, thats nonsense. The reason i bring club football into it was to remind people how much they exaggerate these differences.

[Gemmill 46027]

But we haven't turned any of those players into top internationals. We've just made them functional, to use Stevie's word. There's a big difference between getting James Perch to cut out silly mistakes and getting A. N. Other ready to compete at the very highest level.

 

Germany is a poor example cos they have a history of success - they haven't been getting it wrong for as long as us and they weren't getting it as wrong as we were. There was much less to fix.

 

Edited July 2, 2012 by Gemmill

[quadraspaz 0]

its certainly not a different situation. I present a few exhibits from our recent experiences: James Perch, Danny Guthrie, Ryan Taylor. All players not fit to play Sunday league who became adequate Premiership players with the right coaching.

 

You're right we cant go and buy the players we need but to transform Germany took about 6 years and a team only needs one or two world class players to compete at the top level if the rest of your players are decent enough.

 

I think all teams are miles behind Spain but we are not a decade away from competing with Italy, thats nonsense. The reason i bring club football into it was to remind people how much they exaggerate these differences.

Germany were already a country with a history (and consequently a set-up and, more importantly, a culture) of producing technically proficient players capable of doing well at major tournaments. They consider semi-final exits to be failures, meanwhile we still wistfully hark back to Italia 90 as though it was some sort of golden age rather than a flash in the pan. So lets not make out they were in the football wilderness and 6 years later they had sorted everything. And you could argue the very fact they acted to put things right shows how different they are to us and how far they are ahead of us so many aspects.

Italy are similar. They play the game in the right way from a very young age and their players are taught to protect the ball and having a good first touch is considered essential rather than a luxury.

With that in mind and the paradigm shift required to really advance us as a football nation then yes, 10 years is ridiculous, because you really can't quantify in time what it would take. I bet we're still saying similar things in 10 years time though.

Edited July 2, 2012 by quadraspaz

[Kid Dynamite 7169]

Do people actual think our professional clubs are teaching their youth teams to hit it long and smash people btw? The wife's little brother has been in and out of the big 3 academies up here and it's all triangles, small sided games, keeping in on the floor etc.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

All players not fit to play Sunday league

 

Except they'd shit on sunday league players and leave them to wipe up the mess. Sign of a bad argument when you've had to make a huge exaggeration to support it.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

Do people actual think our professional clubs are teaching their youth teams to hit it long and smash people btw? The wife's little brother has been in and out of the big 3 academies up here and it's all triangles, small sided games, keeping in on the floor etc.

 

They train the small kids who will never make it in that way, then once they're ready they use them as cannon fodder for the bigger lads on a full sized pitch.

[Kid Dynamite 7169]

The solution is obviously to give Wenger the England job. He plays football the way the press are telling us It should be played. Wilshere is the nearest we have to a younger, shitter Iniesta.

[Gemmill 46027]

Brooking's job to fix all this isn't it? The fucking useless cunt.

 

They need someone young and driven with a brain and an interest in getting it sorted. Not a gibbering arsehole more focused on coasting through to retirement.

[ADP 0]

 

They need someone young and driven with a brain and an interest in getting it sorted.

 

totally agree.

[Gemmill 46027]

Seriously though, Brooking is a fucking ex footballer. You only have to look at how successful most footballers are in business to know that you don't give them a job like this.

 

I bet the first day he took this job, he sat behind his desk and he didn't have a fucking clue what he was gonna do. And I bet not much has changed since. It's a massive job and it required a huge programme of change to make the things that need to happen, happen.

 

He's 63 now, 9 years into the job. He'll knock it on the head shortly and they'll probably give it to Stuart Pearce.

[ewerk 31195]

Isn't that Southgate's role now?

[McFaul 35]

I think we'll have a generation of players again to compete, I don't know when but we will. Germany are no nearer to winning a major trophy than they were 6 years ago, 15 years ago they wouldn't have been heralded as a great kraut team, I don't care what anyone says. As I've said before can people not just accept they fact we're shit. Why should we be good? We've had good teams, and we've had shit teams.

 

Everyone knows that we're not the third best team in the world even though that's what the ranking say. However, we are with our better players like Wilshere back in the fold, without doubt in the top 10 top 15, and that is a reflection about how shite global football is right now. Brazil are shite, where is their Ronaldo, or Romario, or even where is their Ronaldinho (wghen he wasn't 19st). People can go on about these random younguns like they've seen every youth game they've ever played (thinking of no one in particular here ;-)) , but Brazil aren't Brazil, Argentina are Messi, global football is poor, and this England team is poor. 10th in the world is reflective of our population. Smaller than France, Italy, Germany, Russia, USA (who won't always be shite), Mexico, Brazil, these countries should be better than England, why should we produce better players than we have? I don't get it.

[Lake Bells tits 1]

I think we'll have a generation of players again to compete, I don't know when but we will. Germany are no nearer to winning a major trophy than they were 6 years ago, 15 years ago they wouldn't have been heralded as a great kraut team, I don't care what anyone says.

 

Maybe not, but a whole lot closer than you guys

England are a QF-team at best in euros and that isnt going to change any time soon when the squad can barely string 3 passes together between them.

The Spain-Italy final were no more one-sided than the one-way motorway that was the QF between you lot and Italy.

Miles, MILES between the two sides and considering the english league is (for some weird reason) considered the superior one you do halt to a stop and wonder where it all went wrong.

Yes Spain is basically 60% Barca and 25% Real Madrid - but why cant the english top sides be of similar composition?

Edited July 2, 2012 by Lake Bells tits

[ChezGiven 0]

Germany were already a country with a history (and consequently a set-up and, more importantly, a culture) of producing technically proficient players capable of doing well at major tournaments. They consider semi-final exits to be failures, meanwhile we still wistfully hark back to Italia 90 as though it was some sort of golden age rather than a flash in the pan. So lets not make out they were in the football wilderness and 6 years later they had sorted everything. And you could argue the very fact they acted to put things right shows how different they are to us and how far they are ahead of us so many aspects.

Italy are similar. They play the game in the right way from a very young age and their players are taught to protect the ball and having a good first touch is considered essential rather than a luxury.

With that in mind and the paradigm shift required to really advance us as a football nation then yes, 10 years is ridiculous, because you really can't quantify in time what it would take. I bet we're still saying similar things in 10 years time though.

I think you're all complicating the issue. I also think our kids are taught to protect the ball, i certainly was.

 

Germany's history of winning is only relevant if the problem is mainly psychological. If Germany's history of winning things truly matters then the argument isnt about teaching kids a first touch into a space around the body that maximises the probability of ball retention. Its not about movement then in this case, the difference is what i suspect it is, mentality. The thing that stood about Spain is their confidence on the ball, they werent pulling off mad skills just consistent high quality passing. High 'performance' like that requires a complete confidence that we as a nation, as a society dont really have in the same way the Spanish do.

 

Beyond the mentality (weak mentality being giving the ball away when another option exist) there is the standard of player and tactical awareness. I dont see any real reason why we cant compete with Italy if we could upgrade a few players. As way of illustration, with Tiote in the middle by himself we werent even top half, with Cabaye alongside him our team was transformed. Not saying its possible to get that extra quality in midfield, i'm just saying that if a player in e.g. central midfield existed, the impact on the team could be dramatic.

[McFaul 35]

Maybe not, but a whole lot closer than you guys

England are a QF-team at best in euros and that isnt going to change any time soon when the squad can barely string 3 passes together between them.

The Spain-Italy final were no more one-sided than the one-way motorway that was the QF between you lot and Italy.

Miles, MILES between the two sides and considering the english league is (for some weird reason) considered the superior one you do halt to a stop and wonder where it all went wrong.

Yes Spain is basically 60% Barca and 25% Real Madrid - but why cant the english top sides be of similar composition?

No one is saying England aren't shite you fuckin Nazi, in my view from 96 to 2006 we were better than them, and they'd agree. Since then its went the other way, so why put that? No one here is saying anything other than England are shite. Here man Northern Ireland and Wales have the same chance Norway have of getting to a QF ever, NONE! Mug.

[Lake Bells tits 1]

I knew you would throw Norways National team in my face Its irrelevant, we are shit and Im genuinely happy we are not in the euros or any other tournament.

 

This is about england, best league in the world and still a frog leap behind the other top european countries when it comes to the big scene.

[McFaul 35]

I knew you would throw Norways National team in my face Its irrelevant, we are shit and Im genuinely happy we are not in the euros or any other tournament.

 

This is about england, best league in the world and still a frog leap behind the other top european countries when it comes to the big scene.

The fact England have a lot less indigenous people in the Premiership compared to Spain and Italy, doesn't help. Too many foreigners playing and too many foreign fans talking pish.

[Lake Bells tits 1]

Toontastic resident foreign fan lover Mcfaul