Euro 2012 Group B: News & Analysis

Boris thx for the huge confidence! 1:1 against the Netherlands and we lose against Portugal, yeah thx....

And of course Denmark wins with 2:1 against Holland...

Your predictions are somewhat bullshit.

yeahhhh I know, all I was saying is that anything can happen. Will be interesting to see all the games tonight to see how all teams perform. Will send through new predictions tomorrow (this time a bit more serious)

Löw announced the German pre tournament squad:

Tor: Neuer, ter Stegen, Wiese, Zieler

Abwehr: Badstuber, Boateng, Höwedes, Hummels, Lahm, Mertesacker, Schmelzer

Mittelfeld: Lars Bender, Sven Bender, Draxler, Götze, Gündogan, Khedira, Kroos Müller, Özil, Poldi, Reus, Schürrle, Schweinsteiger

Sturm: Cacau, Gomez, Klose


One goaly and three field players have still to leave. Both Benders, Gündogan, Draxler, terStegen and to a certain extent Cacau are a bit surpirsing.

Portugal's chance of getting out of this group is nill. Unless its wingers score goals and defenders stop goals.

He! We might even start with the youngest player in the history of the European Championships! Jetro Willems! 18 years and 70 years at time of the first match! ... Jaja! See his large wiki page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jetro_Willems



But I agree, even Germany can end last in this group.

Wow!!!!

Damn I'm absolutely ready for the Euro 2012. It's gonna be wild as always!

But damn, Portugal can't win against the Netherlands and Germany, at least I hope so...and think so ^^

With 1 month to go, the current FIFA rankings are actually (http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/rankingtable/index.html):
Germany: #2
Netherlands: #4
Portugal: #5
Denmark: #10

So, Group B consists of 3 out of top 5 teams in world, 4 of top 10, 3 of top 4 European teams. We have WC finalists, semi-finalists and quarter-finalists in one group. Truly awful draw. That the tournament will lose 2 of these top squads in group play - for shame.

Portugal overrated? Not so sure about that (look below). The record of qualifiers is largely irrelevant once the tournament starts. I think the most relevant record is to look at the results over the last 4 major tournaments.

Code:

Team (rank)  EURO2004    WC2006      EURO2008     WC2010
Germany (2)    Group            SEMIS*          FINAL*           SEMIS*
Holland (4)      SEMIS      Round of 16      Quarters           FINAL*
Portugal (5)     FINAL*           SEMIS         Quarters         Round of 16*
Denmark (10)  Quarters          DNQ               DNQ                 Group
* Lost to eventual tournament winners                

I think the table says all that you need to know about the relative quality of the squads (i.e. there's a reason for Germany, Holland and Portugal's FIFA rankings).
Germany's talent, depth and experience means they are my pick for winners of the whole tournament (ahead of Spain who have dropped significantly recently - Xavi and Pique have declined and Puyol is out of tournament). Germany's main -perhaps, only- weakness might be CBs but Portugal is ill suited to take advantage with mediocre strikers. Holland, on the other hand, has several red-hot strikers ready to take advantage... And Denmark could certainly get a surprise result from any of the 3 matches (though I doubt they'll get 2 results).
Overall, I think Holland, Portugal and Denmark chances of coming out of this group with Germany track more or less with their relative FIFA rankings.

Final point about Portugal. Unfortunately, the table also highlights another reality - we are on the decline. The talent pool has declined since the "golden generation" and except for CR, Nani and Pepe, the rest of the squad is average and threadbare in depth across the board. (primarily defense, a huge strength in the past).
My thought is that on any given day Portugal can beat any team (esp. if Nani/CR go into Playstation mode) but the likelihood of a deep run in the tournament is low. That being said, our coach is 10x better than the one we had at the beginning of Qualies or during WC2010, so who knows?

Good luck to everyone - and let's see the Euro winner come out of this group... ;-)

what are you on about ?? Who said anything that bad....?

Agreed. Joel, nothing provocative in the comments here (so far... ).

Anyway, quick opinion question: any feeling on a "home-field advantage" for any of these teams?
i.e. what % of seats will be filled locals and who will they favor? (i.e. how pro/anti-German will Polish fans be?). Related: Will Podolski and/or Klose feature?

Dipluso ... i doubt Polish opinion about Germany matters much since they're playing in Ukraine in the group)

Danish Squad (still need 3 more appointments)

GK: Thomas Sørensen (Stoke), Stephan Andersen(Evian)
Defenders: Lars Jacobsen (FC København), Michael Silberbauer (Young boys), Simon Busk Poulsen (AZ Alkmaar), Daniel Wass (Evian), Simon Kjær (Wolfsburg, currently on loan in AC Roma), Daniel Agger (Liverpool), Andreas Bjelland (FC Nordsjælland, Twente next season)
Midfield: William Kvist (Stuttgart), Christian Poulsen (Evian), Niki Zimling (Club Brugge), Jakob Poulsen (FC Midtjylland), Lasse Schöne (NEC Nijmegen), Christian Eriksen (Ajax), Michael Krohn-Dehli (Brøndby), Thomas Kahlenberg (Evian)
Strikers: Dennis Rommedahl (Brøndby), Tobias Mikkelsen (FC Nordsjælland), Nicklas Bendtner (Arsenal, on loan in Sunderland)

The main weak point from where i'm sitting is that other than Bendtner Denmark doesn't have any good center-forwards that jumps out in mind ...

Lots from players from Evian I see. Is their coach shore about this? If I were Danish I would ask him water he's doing, especially considering the opposition. I hope the next 3 ehm appointments.. offer a more quality wave or I'm afraid the flood gates will be open coming up against the likes of Ronaldo, Robben and Reus.

Did you use Google translator?

Yes, yes I did. No need to be a beach about it.

Well, it's crap, like those ugly seaweeds that wash up on the shore of a nice beach.

Og-wa-ter?

all the players from Evian was players on NT (if not starters then at least from the regular bench) before joining Evian so ...

futhermore ... reading a bit into it ... Kahlenberg is on loan from Wolfsburg and Wess is on loan from Benfica)

Should've called this the everyone in group B is ranked higher than in group A thread.

My predictions

A
Russia [11]
Poland [65]
Greece [14]
Czech Republic [26]

B
Germany [2]
Holland [4]
Portugal [5]
Denmark [10]

C
Spain [1]
Italy [12]
Croatia [8]
Ireland [18]

D
France [16]
England [7]
Sweden [17]
Ukraine [50]

Which would give us a bracket of:

Russia
.........> Holland
Holland
........................> Holland
Spain
.........>..Spain
England

..........................................>..Holland

Germany
.........> Germany
Poland
........................> Germany
France
.........> France
Italy

Seems like you fudged your bracket, so that Oranje ends up on top!

Bayern lost at Champions League. While team Germany have 8 player of Bayern. This Euro will chance for them to regain confidence in fans. So, Germany can go to the final. (Success often will go after mistakes.)

Or still be completely heart broken and devastated to the point where the start wondering if it all worth it

I feel a little differently. For one thing, Neuer's confidence needed a reality check. He clearly thinks of himself highly but between conceeding 5 to Borussia recently and then Saturday's game, Neuer's confidence going into the Euro tournament has to be less than 100% (unless he's a psychopath). Drogba's header was good but anytime a keeper conceedes on the near post, questions will be asked. Neuer reacted slowly pure and simple. Also, during PKs, everybody and their mom knows what Lampard does 3/4 of the time - blast down the middle - I called it, everybody near me agreed, but Neuer just sat down and let the blast go over his head.

Don't get me wrong - Neuer is a good keeper. But a confident keeper will perform above his level and is a huge, huge bonus during a tourney. Neuer's last 2 official games before the Euro tell me he won't have that extra edge. So in that regard I think the other teams in this group were happy to see Neuer losing (though the Dutch will not have been happy about Robben's play either...).

I'll stick with my pick for Germany as favorites to win the whole thing but the weekend result was a negative result for Germany, not a positive IMO.

Well you know the question is who is that much better? Was that Cech guy better? Or that amazing keeper Casillas? They all made mistakes and allowed goals to be scored. And they all missed and saved and did shit during the penalties.
The Euro is definitely not that much about big goal keepers. A strong offense can score whenever the ******** they want! What I want is to see many goals. Not from Spain though ^^