News: EURO 2017 - Vivianne M. Adoration and Qualifiers Thread

That is true but you also didn't have matches like France-Macedonia, Germany-Georgia etc... It's interesting, the biggest defeat was Germany 12-0 to Hungary, who were in contention to qualify as 2nd place for most of their campaign. The field was also just 40 teams which didn't include the Netherlands, a scoring machine, and lacked some other teams that would surely be obliterated by top opponents. France-Albania, England-Estonia, and Spain-Montenegro are all still to happen (all home games). Moldova were lucky to draw Sweden and Denmark, impossible to score against but also don't put up many goals themselves. Perhaps the biggest surprise was Switzerland only 4-0 against Georgia at home, I watched that game and the Swiss were just horrendous in front of goal...didn't help that Georgia had all 11 players in the box half the time!

 

the Eastern Euro countries are inching their way towards being more competitive, but there's also a lot of bunkering going on that keeps the scores low. For instance look at the France/Greece game, the score was only 1-0, which might appear as a closely fought game. But closer observation; shots taken stats were France 16, Greece 0. So not only Greece mostly likely stayed in a shell, but French do have a tendency to pass the ball quite a lot(instead of the direct approach like the US) to build their certain brand of rhythm to their game, so shots taken number is quite low too. Whereas in the England/Serbia game it was all out attack and the Lionesses ended up taking 42 shots and making 7 goals. But we all know England is on par with France as much as Serbia is with Greece.

 

The highlights of the recent victory of Russia against Turkey, from the official website of the Russian Football Federation: http://www.rfs.ru/main/media/video/4711.html
Interesting player this 21 y.o. Nadezhda Karpova, who scored again in their last victory abroad against Croatja...

 

Looking at the tables, the runner-up for Group 3 will get a maximum of 16 points and in Group 5 a maximum of 17 points.

So all the top 2 teams with 18 points + are already through either as group Winner or best runner up.
Spain and Sweden are threfore qualified with Iceland and Scotland likley to join them tonight.

 

here's the full replay, Iceland vs Scotland. Unfortunately it's from the one youtubie that does a rather poor job of copying games, hence the poor video quality

 

here's showing that Euro soccer teams aren't alike and do have different styles. Pernile Harder dribbles the ball strongly vs Slovakia. Some other NT's might of frowned upon her 1v1 tactics and would of preferred her pass the ball instead

 

They dont ? I Need to recalculate everything

 

Scotland has qualified for the Euro, but they must reverse a 4-0 deficit in Iceland if they are to finish group winners. Iceland is virtually qualified, needing one more point to make it official, though will likely qualify anyways.

Portugal must beat Finland and Ireland, WITH the Finns losing to Spain in order to just make the play-off. One more Finnish win should see them join the qualified Spain at the Euro, but anything less would likely mean the play-off.

Romania must win their last two games to avoid the play-off. If they beat Greece, they would need just a tie 0f 2-2,1-1, or 0-0 against Ukraine to finish second. Due to goal-differential, it's unlikely either of these teams will qualify directly.

Sweden are qualified while Denmark's big win over Poland almost guarantees their place as well. Even if the Danes lose at home to Sweden, they'll still qualify unless BOTH Finland and Russia take points off Spain and Germany.

Hungary's loss to Turkey expedited their elimination as Russia beat Croatia. If the Russians beat Croatia again and lose to Germany, they'll still be in the play-off unless Italy lose one of their next two games, OR Finland fail to win.

Italy will directly qualify if they beat Czech and N. Ireland, while 4 points from those games would likely make it come down to goal-differential with Russia/Finland. Czech must beat Italy by 4 goals, and beat N. Ireland to finish 2nd.

Belgium will join England at the Euro with one more win or two ties. If Belgium defeat Serbia, the Red Flames could win the group by winning at home against England.

Norway require just one win against Israel/Kazakstan to secure 1st place, while Austria is all but officially qualified as well. Even if Austria lose their last game to Wales, goal-differential at the very least should carry them through.

 

There is a really strong Nordic showing in these qualifiers. From one aspect it is remarkable, from another not so much.

ISL: 6 - 0 - 0
FIN: 4 - 1 - 1
SWE: 6 - 0 - 0
DEN: 4 - 1 - 1 (the loss was against Sweden)
NOR: 5 - 1 - 0
Total: 25 - 3 - 2

The Nordic region has about 26 million people, which is about 3% of the region's population (UEFA region roughly at 850 million). The UEFA region has, according to a recent report, about 1.2 million registered female footballers all ages. The Nordic region has 371 000 of these players. That's more than 30% of all players. Iceland topping their group with 7000 players available is still impressive though.

 

The only teams that are officially qualified as of right now are Netherlands, Germany, France, and Switzerland. Most of the top two group finishers have been determined, but haven't officially clinched a spot yet. They will eventually, since the scenarios for elimination aren't going to happen, but it hasn't been mathematically guaranteed.

 

The Nordic region has always been a WoSo powerhouse, led largely by Norway and Sweden but there's usually at least one other also showing up in any given competition.

 

where's the Faroe Islands? lol. Other things worth mentioning; Sweden's the only NT to have a winning record(actually unbeaten in competetive bouts) against the US in the last 5 years. Plus Iceland tied the US & Denmark beat them in their last games. Speaking of Danes, here's their last match vs Poland. Nice crowd, but not so nice result for the Poles

 

UEFA updated their maths (it was a bit shoddy this morning, and didn't include the teams that can't possibly fail to at least finish amongst the top six second places) so now the official standings look like this:
Qualified: Netherlands (hosts), Germany (holders), England. France, Norway, Spain, Switzerland
Confirmed at least play-off: Iceland, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Belgium, Austria
Can still qualify: Finland, Portugal, Ukraine, Romania, Italy, Czech Republic, Northern Ireland

 

Here's a rundown of the race for direct qualification among 2nd place teams.

In order from most likely to least likely
Scotland: qualifies with tie to Iceland; or if any other team in contention (barring Belgium) fails to win ALL remaining games

Austria: qualifies with win over Wales; tie with Wales and either Italy/Russia/Finland fail to win all remaining games

Belgium: qualifies with win over Serbia (or England) AND either Italy/Russia/Finland/Denmark/Austria fails to win all remaining games; with two ties and either Italy/Russia/Finland lose one of their remaining games

Denmark: qualifies with win over Sweden; with tie to Sweden and either Italy/Russia/Finland/Austria fail to win all remaining games

Italy: Qualify with wins vs N. Ireland and Czech, AND either Russia/Finland/Denmark/Austria fail to win all remaining games; with win and tie AND either Russia/Finland fail to win another game; with superior goal differential if Russia/Finland/Ukraine all finish on 10 points; with win and loss if two teams between Russia/Finland/Ukraine fail to win a remaining game

Finland: Qualifies by earning more or matching the number of points that two teams between Russia/Ukraine/Italy earn in all remaining fixtures, while also maintaining their current superior goal differential

Russia: Qualifies by earning more or matching the number of points that two teams between Finland/Ukraine/Italy earn in all remaining fixtures, while also making up a current goal differential deficit

Ukraine: Qualifies by beating Romania AND two teams between Russia/Finland/Belgium/Italy fail to win another game; AND by overcoming a substantial goal-differential if tied on points

...

Let's say for example:
Belgium finishes with 11 points and Italy finish 12 points
Russia and Finland both lose to Germany and Spain respectively by 2 goals
Romania beats Greece by either 1 or 2 goal

That would qualify Belgium, Italy, and Scotland...While Denmark and Austria would still hold a substantial goal differential even if they were to both lose their last game ultimately qualifying them as well

Here is how it would look at the end with all teams on 7 points....
Finland (away vs. Portugal) +2
Russia (home vs. Croatia) +0
Romania (home vs. Ukraine) +0 or +1
Ukraine (away vs. Romania) -3

 

According to the UEFA regulations, only the matches against the 1st place and 3rd place teams count in ranking the second place teams among the eight groups (!) So not only do the games against the last place (5th place) teams not count, neither do the games against the next-to-last place team (4th place).

I was taken by surprise, reading this. I don't remember this at all. (I looked because I calculated Spain was qualified but not yet England or Norway)

It's on page 17 of the UEFA tournament regulations.

Apparently some of UEFA's own news articles have been wrong. I found at least one. It's from the April 12 article France and Germany first to finals.

 

This is bizarre. I swear I'm not crazy. I found and opened another copy of the pdf and the relevant section is on page 16 and the section is 13.03

Try going to the Standings page and click on the link in the right column Road to the Final - competition regulations.

Standings page: http://www.uefa.com/womenseuro/season=2017/standings/index.html
But what's really bizarre is the two versions both seem to have the same hyperlink location. How can this be?!

I'm going to try, again, a direct link but I wonder if it will re-direct to the other pdf version?
http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles.../Regulations/02/16/53/77/2165377_DOWNLOAD.pdf

OK, this time it seems to work. I wonder if some browsers will revert to an older, cached version???

And by the way, even the news article announcing Spain, England, and Norway have qualified has it wrong, saying only the results against 5th-placed teams don't count.

http://www.uefa.com/womenseuro/news/newsid=2370420.html

 

The highlights of Croatja - Russia, as before from the Russian Federation official site:
http://www.rfs.ru/main/media/video/4721.html

 

You are looking at the rules for the preliminary round (section 13), while what we've been playing is the group stage (section 15) of the qualifying competition:

In the preliminary round, the groups have only 4 teams, so both there and in the group stages results against the last team in the group is ignored.

 

Okay. Duh...

But I don't see how England and Norway could have already qualified if it is the games against 1st, 3rd and 4th which count.

For example, England has 13 points vs all teams other than last place Estonia, but there are still 6 other teams which could finish in 2nd with 13 points vs all but the last place team in their groups.

 

Have you looked at the matches remaining for all the groups? In group 3, Ukraine have 13 points, with one match to go against a team that is not bottom-ranked Albania (they lose 6 points here) so they can at most finish with 10 points.

Meanwhile, in group 6, Italy are sitting at second with 12 points, but they have played both matches against Georgia, who only have one match left. However, that's against group winners Switzerland, so you can just subtract 6 points from every single other team in that group; thus nobody will get more than 12 points there.

England have a match in hand against Estonia, thus they will remain at 13 points even if they lose both their remaining matches. Likewise, Norway have two matches in hand, but they're against Israel and Kazakhstan and one of those countries will finish last, so they can't land at less than 13 points even if they somehow manage to lose both those matches (where they have the home field advantage).

 

Thanks, it's Group 6 (Italy's group) where I got confused with all the possibilities. But if Italy and the others have a maximum of 12 points in the tiebreaker, then that explains England and Norway having it locked up. What ever happened to the scheduled Czech vs No Ireland match? Get postponed due to weather and not yet rescheduled?

 

It's been re-scheduled for August 3rd.

And it wasn't weather that caused the postponement. The teams were unable to get to the stadium for the game because of traffic.

 

It looks like these are the 16 nations that are going to qualify, and would love to see the groups end up like this.
This would be the perfect balance among the four groups.

Group A
Netherlands (Host)
Sweden
Iceland
Austria

Group B
France
Switzerland
Italy
Russia

Group C
England
Norway
Scotland
Finland

Group D
Germany
Spain
Denmark
Belgium


Why is Group A so intriguing in this scenario?:
Netherlands vs. Sweden turned into a nice rivalry during the mini Olympic qualifying tournament held in the Netherlands. Sweden vs. Iceland is a "throwback" women's football match here. This is a group in which Austria could be a true dark-horse. They could beat Iceland, get a draw against Netherlands per se', and somehow squeak out of this group in 2nd place with 4 points (due to goal difference).

Why is Group B so intriguing in this scenario?:
Switzerland is on fire recently. France is France, and we haven't seen France vs. Switzerland in a major tournament yet. That type of match would produce some fireworks. Italy has a serious grudge against France, they have often been in qualifying groups in the past with France during Euro qualifying for major tournaments.

Why is Group C so intriguing in this scenario?:
The rematch of England vs. Norway from the Round of 16 match at the 2015 Women's World Cup. Norway vs. Finland in a Scandinavian like match. England vs. Scotland. Kim Little wants a piece of England.

Why is Group D so intriguing in this scenario?:
Spain is looking to pull off the unthinkable upset (draw or victory) against Germany. Denmark has been giant killers before. Spain vs. Denmark is also going to be a war for 2nd place. Belgium is a big time dark-horse here for 2nd place as well. They could pull it off. Germany would still win this group, even if they slip up with a loss or draw in one of their three matches. 6 points are winning this group, because the bottom 3 teams on paper in this group will all beat each other up in round robin fashion, and possibly score a couple draws against one another.