They were all fairly mediocre....kinda telling that a team could win the whole tournament despite drawing all three group stage matches and finishing 3rd in its group. On the pitch, the biggest problem was the tendency of teams to bunker and the inability of attacking teams to break them down. There are very few good playmaking midfielders these days, and the quality of the crossing from wingers and fullbacks was generally horrible. Structure wise, the biggest issue is that having a round of 16 enabled teams to play poorly in the group stages and still get through, as well as adding another round of matches to the schedule. The group stage would have been much more exciting if only the six group winners and two best 2nd place teams went through.
I didn't like much of anything about this Euro, other than seeing Iceland beat England. That was the highlight of the tournament for me. Otherwise, I would have preferred a 16 team tournament with the top 2 in each group advancing to the quarterfinals. As for how I would rank the teams, I agree none were stellar. I think the best teams in this tournament were Germany, Italy and France even if reasonable people might differ on the order between the team. I agree that Portugal was the #4 team in the tournament. Edit: There is one other thing that I liked about the tournament and that was seeing all these past statistical patterns broken, including seeing Germany beat (albeit on penalties) and eliminate Italy from a major competition for the first time. I take that as a good omen that other statistical patterns I don't much like, such as my team qualifying to the World Cup only every other time (but never twice in a row) being broken too!
Even more incredible to me is that they were ahead 7 minutes longer than they were behind all tournament. Had they managed to score in the dying moments vs France to win the tourney or won on penalties, they would have trailed longer than they led.
Weird tournament somehow. Congrats to Portugal, they did a very good job in the final today! They played 7 games and nobody was able to beat them... Best teams in my opinion: Italy, France, Germany but they just didn't scored when it really mattered, Eder did that today!
The third place bunker mentality certainly played into the lack of appeal this time. I'll go one further though. There isn't enough quality (even in UEFA) to warrant a 16 team knockout stage. In any given tournament, there might be 8 teams with enough talent on paper to make a strong semi or further bid. Three of those 8 in any given tournament are going to be subpar though so you'll end up with 5. It is too easy for a disproportionate number of true contenders to get stuck in one half of the draw with 16 knockout places. Cutting the field to 8 by only guaranteeing advancement for 1st place may encourage attacking play at the group stage, but inevitably you're going to send more of the bigger teams home earlier because weird stuff happens. If they really want better quality, they need to just blow this out to 32 teams and add a second group phase. 8x4 top 2 go through to second group phase of 4x4. Group A 1st and 2nd combine with Group B 1st and 2nd to form a supergroup and so on. Results from first group round 1st/2nd carry over, so 2 more matches in the second group phase. Top 2 from the four "supergroups" to the quarters. Any of the smaller teams getting to quarters would have run a deserved gauntlet. It adds an 8th game, but qualifiers would be reduced substantially, which means you could probably end the club season a bit earlier to compensate. UEFA gets their bigger tourney, but the secong group phase on more or less resembles the traditional 16 team Euro format.
Hey, at least you played perfect last 10 minutes against Croatia to get a draw. I would definitely put Ukraine on 24th. 0 points and 0:5 in goals. That's pathetic Winners: Portugal, Wales, Iceland, Poland, Hungary maybe even Slovakia and Northern Ireland as they were not the favorites to make it out of the group. Disappointment: France, Germany, Spain, Croatia, Italy (although they played the best football to watch IMO) Complete losers: Ukraine, Austria, England
Another record: Portugal beat France after three semi-finals lost, and it weren't just any semi-finals. Portugal had some of the best teams of its history in 84, 00, and 06, had legitimate hopes to win the title, and was defeated by France of Platini and Zidane. None of Eusébio, Chalana, Rui Costa, Figo, Deco, and Ronaldo were able to score a decisive goal to win a title, but the black sheep Éder did it. A big Karma f***.
I agree with your list of winners, but I would put Belgium on the list of losers. While I never bought into all the hype about Belgium, seeing them outclassed in the opener by Italy and then deservedly find themselves eliminated by Wales must have been far less than many would have expected from a team boasting their roster.
Based on who was fun to watch for me 5. Wales 4. England (lmao) 3. Germany 2. Italy 1. France Tbf Portugal was only fun to watch in the game against Hungary
Does it really matter what we all think? At the end of the tournament, the only nation holding the trophy is Portugal.
Here is how I'd rank the teams: 1. Italy 2. Germany 3. Croatia 4. France 5. Spain 6. Portugal 7. Poland 8. Wales 9. Belgium 10. Switzerland 11. Iceland 12. Republic of Ireland 13. England 14. Northern Ireland 15. Slovakia 16. Czech Republic 17. Hungary 18. Turkey 19. Albania 20. Austria 21. Romania 22. Russia 23. Sweden 24. Ukraine
To be fair, I also think Italy had the best performances considering their quality, but if we are ranking teams basing on their performance, then Portugal has to be ahead of Croatia and Spain, though I give some credit to Croatia for playing more attacking football. France, Germany, and Italy deserve to be ahead because they played generally well, went far into the comptation, and lost only due to small details. So, I think White-blue's ranking is more reasonable.
That's the spirit. As the official german troll you can't let these little details get away from you. I was worried for a second.