Most people will disagree, but so far I've been underwhelmed by this tournament. Spain and Italy were atrocious to watch. Netherlands crapped the bed. England, Czechs, and Greeks have not been fun to watch. France seem lost when they play. Portugal have been the most entertaining but not solid either. I had not thought about it until now, but I want Portugal to win. They have two dynamic wingers that are out there actually trying to play soccer. Guardian football weekly podcast made the point that Spain have become a parody of themselves and I tend to agree with that. I swear that a few years ago, it was some of the prettiest soccer around, now it's just dull and boring. I'll concede it has a lot to do with the tactics their opponents employ, but still, it's boring. The Germans are a strong team, but they are dwelling on the ball way too long. There is just no flow to their attack. Staccato?? It's driving me nuts that players of their caliber come to the table with no ideas and their teammates equally. They're just looking for a way to put the ball into the box to their excellent finishers. There has just been a lot of tentative soccer being played in this tournament. Maybe it's reflective of what's going on in Europe in general?
Sorry you haven't enjoyed the tourney thus far, Elessar. I've enjoyed it greatly, but then I really love the tournament format, the compressed schedule and the moments of brilliance we've seen thus far. Maybe if we took 16 teams from Europe and gave them the same schedule/format we'd see "better" soccer, but until we do, this is what we've got. I love the format. I like that in group stages, everyone gets to shrug off a poor game, or in the case of the Russians, they have to bring more than one good game to the table. While I love the win-or-go-home format of say, March Madness, in the group stages everyone gets their fair ups. Then, we take the best of teams and then it's single elimination. None of this two-legged crap we have to sit through in the CL. We've 24 matches in 13 days, and while there have been some clunkers, Portugal v Denmark, England v Sweden, Germany v Denmark (so yes, I'm sad to see the Danes exit), and Sweden v France have been particularly entertaining. Plus both of the Group A final games were hard fought. There have been strong performances from formerly presumed washed up stars like Shevchenko, Pirlo and Gerrard, sublime performances from more unheralded players like Gebre Selassie and Hummels (though everyone in Europe must be familiar with Hummels) and some great goals: Carroll's header, Sheva's second vs Sweden, Torres' first vs Ireland and of course, Ibra's wonder strike vs France. We also got the finest sub performance I've seen in a while in Salingidis' introduction into the Poland game where he scored, drew a PK and scored a second, albeit offside, goal. There have been sterling performances all around, IMHO. And from a tactical point of view, we've seen Spain go 4-6-0, Italy has committed to the 3-5-2, and in the Dutch, we've seen how frail the 4-2-3-1 is if your two DMs are as slow and suddenly old as De Jong and van Bommels have been. It's been illustrative. And here we are, the Spanish are still the team to beat, playing their boring brand of soccer, all with Xavi looking decidedly human. And I've felt that Xavi has been the best player in the world the past 4-5 years. Spain has lost their captain, no one has been able to expose Ramos because Pique is playing out of his mind, and as a result of moving Ramos to the center have lost his marauding runs down the right. Cesc and Silva have successfully become the focus of the attack. I think Spain is playing brilliantly and they are still the team out there I want to watch the most as a fan, and a coach. Seems pretty good to me, but I hope you like the next 7 games better.
So boys what do you think about putting Ronaldo as the 5th taker when Spain and Portugal went to PK's. Being a great scorer does not mean you are a great pk taker, but unless he was having a lot of trouble with his legs after a 120 minutes. I would have put him first or second. You don't do that because it might be over before he gets his chance to shoot. I think the keepers chances of stopping PK's goes way up after the field players played 120 minutes. Normal you have 1 or 2 designated in regular time if you get a pk. But when it goes to pks that changes. How do you guys train players to take pks, and how do you make it seem like real game conditions when you take them in practice?
We close out practice regularly with a PK shootout. I have the girls heckle each other and try to psych each other out. There's a punishment or reward (Dairy Queen gift cert or something) at the end. To be honest, I don't think you can ever replicate the pressure of penalties. But you can come close so it won't be the first time they step up to take a penalty.
I got this from the coaches list. I hate that I was not the one to think of this. When you do it make first player to miss her team loses. So if the first player to take the first pk misses her team lost. That will put a lot of pressure not to miss on each player taking a pk.
You are right, we don't know if Ronaldo was the best PK taker on the team, at least whether or not Bento thought he was. But.... we do know that Ronaldo loves the spotlight and feels no pressure in the moment. And I would bet he's taken more penalties than Alves. I can see why Bento wanted to keep Ronaldo for last, figuring that if the score was tied, he'd need a big-moment guy to take the kick. And in my favorite shoot out of all time, Arsenal won the 2005 FA Cup over a Man Utd team that had owned them on the pitch in shoot out. And we shot second. But when it came down to it, our last PK taker was Patrick Vieira, a big game guy if there ever was one and he converted. But, I think you need to put yourself in a position whereby this doesn't even happen, where your "best guy" doesn't even get to the spot. I'm a firm believer that you put your best taker first, your second after him/her and on down the line. If you can make your first three, the pressure is really on the other team. I spend a lot of time on penalties, not so much for the penalty-ness of them, but for the teaching points of being composed, choosing before you step up to the ball where you want to place it. Any girl who just comes up and shoots the ball without knowing where she wants it to go, well, she has to run a lap. Typically I work on PKs when there's only 2 or 3 of us who have showed up yet. I discovered my second best PK taker ever almost by accident. We had a very severe rainstorm and only two girls showed up. The three of us did PKs for almost an hour. That girl won her JV team's tournament with a PK last fall.
The person who you know is going to make the PK goes first in the shoot-out- makes everyone else feel better and confident. Ronaldo requested last- coach should ignore that request and put him somewhere in first 3 shooters
This story says Ronaldo was asked by the coach if he wanted to go fifth that was the coaches plan. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jun/28/euro-2012-cristiano-ronaldo-portugal
My take on the defense used by italy to beat Germany. They played a zone, but there backs also stepped up to intercept passes. In a zone you don't get a lot of intercepted passes. In man defense you do get a lot of intercepted passes. If you guys remember when Argentina's under 23 team played the US regular men's national team. Their under 23 team beat us playing the same way Italy beat Germany on defense.
Schweinstieger(sp) was off for the second game. Germany looked soft in possession through the center because of it. But they seemed stuck there the whole game. Germany's width is expected to come from Lahm and Boateng. Great! if you're playing against one forward like everyone else showed them. Two forwards doesn't allow the wide backs the freedom to get lost wide in the attack and Germany never realized. Ozil, Reus, and Mueller were all having success wide, but it wasn't the normal gameplan. By then (second half) it was desperate. For lack of a better word. And to think, Italy started out looking horribly sketchy on the wing, giving up those early chances. Spain is likely to have the same problem- DeRossi and Pirlo sitting on top of the back four forcing play wide. But the threat of two attackers overpowering Ramos and Pique will hold Arbeloa and Alba back. Worked pretty well in the first game against Spain, and Italy has only gotten better since. If Italy sticks to it's line-up (with Montolivo in) and it's gameplan (Attack, who'd have thunk it), I think they'll be the victorious side. I was hoping Croatia wouldn't wimp-out and pull Jelavic to put someone else behind the ball like they did. I think two forwards will open up Spain's defense just like Germany's. Portugal went all-out (as they should) and if they had bothered to test Casillas they would have won that game. (4+ horribly missed shots off frame in second half) Can't put no shots on goal, you can't win no soccer match. And EVERY PK is the most important PK. Should have read like a depth chart. Gamesmanship just looks silly.
Germany decided to put Italy under more defensive pressure at the start of the second half. But that also tired out the Germans.
Congrats to Spain. They played a brilliant game. Interestingly, three of their goals came from counter attacks, and they didn't win possession in the first half. It was obvious ten minutes in that they were going to be playing more direct when Xavi actually started shooting from outside the 18. They looked like the Spain that may be the best ever. Without presenting their best team or playing their best tournament in this span. Ultimately they've produced a brilliant run of form and I couldn't tell you who can knock them off at this point. Italy just seemed... unlucky. Chiellini seemed a mistake to start. Does Fabregas get around a healthy Balzaretti? And Thiago Motta goes out minutes after coming on? The soccer gods have spoken! Be happy with second gents, not gonna be your day.
How should the Italians have defensed Spain? I saw Italy play in this tournament against Germany. But this is the first time I have seen Spain play. I would like to make some oberservations about them. First they are a dirty team on defense. Also because of the way their formation is they have 11 back and they attack from that. They play from side to side and a lot of back passes. Then when they get into scoring distance they do a long run from the back and through pass to that player. I would have liked to see Italy play with a staggered defense. So if a player was beat with the through pass and other player a little further back had a chance to beat the Spanish receiver to that through pass. I saw those through pass runs a mile away. But where were those Italian defenders to get to those through passes? No where they were flat. I think if the italians backs were staggered they could have got to those through passes.It also looked like the Italian mids just watch the spanosh mids make those runs. What do you guys think
Well, I've seen a lot of both teams. The first aspect of this game is that Pirlo had gotten conditioned to playing free. In the last two games, he basically ran free: the English didn't even try to stop him and adding Kroos didn't work for the Germans. And Pirlo, at aged 31, was given pretty much free reign to saunter around the pitch and make pretty passes. He was denied the ball constantly this game and he had to work so much harder to pick any spots that he was pretty toothless (well, according to his high standards) in the final third. And Spain, who I've become convinced were playing at half speed all tourney to conserve their energy, really ramped it up and their own midfield maestro, Xavi, who I think belongs on a very short list of all time best central midfielders, ever, finally had a stellar game. The other aspect, and this was in retrospect a mistake by Prandelli, was starting de Rossi wide and leaving only Pirlo as the DM. Pirlo is a deep lying playmaker, but he is most definitely not a D Mid, and Spaniards were running right past him. Right past him, like he wasn't even there. de Rossi needed to be played more centrally, like he was in the group stages. To me, he was woefully out of position all game long today. But it doesn't really matter, really, Spain's back line came to play and they have waaaay too many quality middies. They are simply the best international team, ever. Spain merely had a good tournament, there was no way they were going to be able to keep up, regardless of the injured third sub.
I will tell you one thing man. Spain can really pass that ball. Maybe Italy should have played with a sweeper to cut off all those through passes. That was some victory for them.
That's how the final paragraph was supposed to read... Yeah, that's what I was saying. de Rossi could have functioned at that sweeper, though they are called DMids now.
We have to look at why Spain is successful and the key to Spain is penetration. When you pack it in close to goal a la Chelsea in the CL final, there is no room to penetrate behind the defenders and in front of the GK. Once they are "in", that's when they cause havoc as defenders get pulled out of shape and even Silva can score off headers. The backline should set deeper, inside the 18(??) and have 3 or 4 screening in front of them. Forwards need to contribute more as well and disrupt the build up from the back.
Well, if you want to park the bus, that is one way. Italy didn't approach the game thinking that they had to, but they sure as heck needed some additional cover for their back which Pirlo was unable to give them. And they got shredded pretty easily. As for what I would have done, given that, for Italy. I would have moved de Rossi back to form a two man pivot with Pirlo, which should have freed him up a bit and added Diamanti as winger, maybe taking off Montolivo, and the choice Prandelli made which was to switch Cassanno with Di Natale. Diamanti was way too active in prior games to leave on the bench with 2-0 deficit.
I just said set up deeper, not park the bus. It's more of the "posture" when the other team has the ball. You certainly can go and attack even if you set up deep when you have the ball. Chelsea et al, chose not to attack. Additionally, even at 2-0 the game was not out of reach for Italy. I kept thinking that if they just scored one that the feel of the game would shift.
Yeah, of course the game is always within reach at 2-0, and if Di Natale had buried his early header, the game would of course have shifted. But Pirlo was out of the game, at least the extent that he'd been so influential vs England and Germany. So the brilliance would have had to come from a Ballotelli or Di Natale, and I don't think that ever would have happened. Of course, it's also not likely the game would have turned into a 4-0 rout without the injury.
yeah, for all intents and purposes that's a 2-0 game. The rest was fluff after Motta goes out.Cassano was surprisingly a non factor as well. I've never liked Sergio Ramos and it's just solidified my opinion of him when he tried to backheel a goal in when it was 4-0 with under 5 to play. What a class act.
