EURO 2020: Reigning, Defending, Champions Of Europe General Discussion

And Portugal needs to be more creative rather than focusing everything on and or around CR7

 

England played mostly every game at home and had an easy ride until the final. They had it easier than every team and you know they did. I'm afraid it was now or never for them. If there was a Spain or even a France on that side of the bracket, would they reach the final? Probably not.

Saying England deserved to be in the final is like saying that they were the 2nd best team of the tournament. That is just not true. I would rank Switzerland above them.

 

"They had it easier than every team..."

That is so idiotic. Denmark reached the semifinals by losing to Finland and Belgium, then beating Russia, Wales and the Czechs.

Italy hosted its group, which included Wales and terrible Turkey; Spain hosted Sweden, Slovakia and Poland.

Switzerland drew Wales and was obliterated by Italy. They won one match in the whole tournament and that was against Turkey. WTF are you talking about?!

 

I'm not sure you can say that based on what actually happened. I would actually say the answer is more likely to be probably than probably not.

You're right, playing every game at home was a huge advantage for them, and all the other host nations. An advantage they took quite well. The one game they didn't play at home was arguably their most impressive too. Destroying a Ukraine team that was continuing their impressive qualifying campaign, where they beat out Portugal to 1st in the group.

England were a penalty shoot-out away from beating an Italy team that Portugal 100% would not have been able to beat, not with the way Santos had the team playing. Italy made beating Belgium look easy. Portugal made Belgium look like they could be tournament favorites. Compared to Portugal's performance against Germany, England made dumping them out look easy.

England beat a Croatia that took Spain to extra-time, a Czech Republic team that quite easily beat the Dutch, and an excellent Danish team.

Every team, except Italy, suffered losses/ties that deviated from what was expected. England experienced this when they tied with the Scottish. Even then it can be partly excused because it's an international derby of sorts and there's always an added 'wildcard' element there. The Swiss tied with a Welsh team that got smacked hard by the Danish and were also resolutely smashed by Italy 3-0. Again, it's worth noting that England came the closest to beating Italy. They led most of the game and were only penalties away from winning. Considering how impressive the Italians were, this isn't something to easily overlook.

I would say Italy and England were the best two teams in the tournament, all things considered. Do I think England would be considered as such if they did not have home advantage? No, I do not. But I do think Italy was definitely the best team and it really makes you wonder what someone like Mancini could do at Portugal's helm.

Santos showed himself clueless as to how to use the pieces at his disposal, whereas Mancini had Italy working and functioning at what is probably their highest possible level as a team. That's very impressive. Especially after they missed WC 2018 and will likely now go into WC 2022 as the leading favorites.

 

Thank you Sir. A lot of people are deluding themselves trying to downplay England or Italy when under this clown we finished behind fecking Ukraine in the Euro Qualifiers, and are spouting nonsense like we had the second best squad in the tournament, when in fact we didn't even had the second best squad in Group F.

A problem that we have in Portugal is that people believe on the hype generated by the Portuguese Media who is on Mendes pocket. Ffs, Canal 11 belongs to the Federation and they just repeat the talking points of Gestifute, the other day João Marcelino was spouting nonsense like Sanches had a better tournament than Pogba.

Nothing against Sanches, but we never know when our press is evaluating a player if they are clueless, directly paid by Mendes or else... This wasn't the best Portugal squad ever, which of course doesn't mean Santos is a terrible coach who should have been sacked after finishing behind Ukraine.

 

England needed a penalty gifted to them by UEFA and an own goal to beat Denmark. You are implying that Denmark did not deserve to get that far and yet England could not even beat them clean.

Switzerland beat the favorites (France) in what was probably the best game of the tournament. They also took Spain to penalties.

Italy & Spain were on the hard side of the bracket. England was on the side that was criminally easy. England had an easy group AND an easy bracket AND they nearly hosted all of their games. Do you get it now? Or are you still tripping over the fact that its not coming home?

 

Hope you didn't mix up your Grindr and BigSoccer accounts homie.

 

and...

Lets not forget that Switzerland only managed a 3-3 draw at home and lost 0-1 away to Denmark in the Euro-20 qualifiers vs. a Denmark with no Andreas Christensen, Mæhle, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, Damsgaard or Kasper Dolberg in the starting 11.

Lets also not forget that Denmark actually finished ahead of England in the 2020-21 UEFA Nations League Group stage, by a 0-1 away win and a 0-0 home draw, not to forget Denmark beating Austria 4-0 away a few month ago in the WC-22 qualifiers, an Austrian team that reached the Round of 16 and then only lost 1-2 AET to Italy at the Euro-20.

When foreigners tell me that I seem much too confident and patriotic about "tiny team" Denmark, I just have to say that it's only based on actual recent NT and U-21 NT results and nothing else, This Denmark team had only lost to Belgium in their past 47 games in a row before the freak and devastating Eriksen incident vs. Finland, and considering that we are now in 2021, then Denmark have only lost 1 out of 6 games to Germany since year 2000.

The fact that the Danish coach and players were able to recover from the horrible Eriksen incident, obviously playing without him and also having to change from 4-4-2 to 3-4-3 and changing the style of play, but still reaching the Semi-Finals, should also tell you something about the actual quality of this team.

 

The soccer math arguments on this page are atrocious.

a beat b
b beat c
Therefore, a would beat c!!!

 

Find a lot of this really persuasive even if it's contradictory!

Just wanted to say I love penalties:

--huge mental pressure for the big stars to enjoy or not
--not as easy as people think
--fairer than sudden death/fluke shot
--keepers get some respect finally
--finite, predictable end to the game unlike other sports (sounds weird but after two hours, let's end this).

 

Defend this point. How is it fairer?

 

Easy --five structured chances versus some random error or chance score. The better team should win.

 

Well if Denmark is D, then only B (Belgium) but neither A or C or any of the other letters you can come up with, have been able to beat them during a full 90 minutes in their past 53 games in a row (you could argue that Denmark also lost to Finland, but that was not really a normal game of 90 minutes ,and we all know why Denmark lost that one)

 

Again, Denmark produced 0.3 expected goals the whole match and 0.03 over the final ~80 min. England created every chance after falling behind, outshot the Danes 21-6, and everyone who watched the match knows they were the deserved winners.

The PK decision was terrible, but based on the 120-minute match England thoroughly deserved to win just as it did against Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany and Ukraine.

Over the course of the tournament, England stifled its opponents, barely allowing any decent shots on goal. They progressed by deservedly winning with a strong midfield and defense. Not every team wins the same way, as Portugal showed in 2016.

I never root for England. I didn't root for England at Euro 2020. But claiming England had the easiest path, or that they didn't deserve their wins because so many were at home is pure fiction. You obviously did not watch Group A or Group E matches.

Every tournament has a host (or more) playing matches at home; this wasn't a unique situation, having a host go deep into a tournament. England was just better than each team it beat, and beat those teams with more ease than did the other teams you mention.

Every objective measure says England deserved what it got (including in the final) all tournament and that its path was not "easy" to a noteworthy extent.

 

ehh lets not get carried away now.

I agree with everything except England not having an easy path. If you avoid all of: Portugal, Italy, France, Belgium and Spain on your way to the final that is pretty fortunate.

How exactly did Portugal make Belgium look like tournament faves? If anything its the opposite. We destroyed them in the second half having numerous chances. Their only chance was a trash shot that Patricio should have easily saved. On the other hand, Belgium created more chances against Italy, even missing two tap ins (lukaku). To claim Portugal would have zero chance of beating Italy is preposterous. What are we San Marino?

 

It was a Denmark team that looked more and more tired as the 2nd half progressed, also having to make 3 subs at the same time a bit too early on, and so with both Damsgaard and Dolberg subbed out in the 67th minute, they were not really creating any danger from that point on and just as clearly going for a penalty shoot-out after also Delaney and Christensen had to be subbed out before extra-time. When England took that penalty lead at the end of the 1st half of extra-time, Denmark did sub out Vestergaard for a striker, and though they then also suffered the misfortune of being down to 10 men the last +15 minutes, they still managed to push forward and be rewarded 2 corner kicks in the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half of extra-time. So it's not like they did not give it a try.

The stats also reveal that Denmark looked better vs. England than England did vs. Italy, even despite Denmark playing 10 vs. 11 the last 15 minutes.

Denmark stats v England : possession 42%, total attempts 6, on target 3, passing accuracy 83%, passes attempted/completed 543/451

England stats v Italy : possession 39%, total attempts 6, on target 1, passing accuracy 78%, passes attempted/completed 436/340

Then we can always argue if Denmark did nothing to win the game after the 67th minute, but were going for a penalty shoot-out, that also would have happened if not for the penalty, but as it was also the case in the England vs Italy game, and Italy vs. Spain, it of cause do matter tactically to a great extend in highly important games like this, that it's no disaster if the first 90 minutes ends in a draw, when there is also extra-time and a possible penalty shoot-out

Here are a few quotes from the English BBC match report of what happened after Damsgaard's free-kick strike

"England looked rattled. Pickford gave the ball away again. Denmark almost created a second on the break after Sterling's free-kick hit the wall."

"England had the momentum behind them in the final moments of the half but, after the interval, it was Denmark again looking the most threatening - before Schmeichel made a second superb stop of the night to keep out Harry Maguire's header at full stretch."

"Kasper Dolberg shot at Pickford after another cutting Danish move but that would be their first and only shot since the goal until extra-time, as England finally began to rediscover their authority in the match, with Mount seeing a shot blocked and another claimed by Schmeichel."

"The Danes spirited up a big push in the second half of extra-time in search of an equaliser but were all out of steam and down to 10 for the final stages when Mathias Jensen limped off."

 

There's always context to consider, such as Denmark taking the lead on a FK and creating essentially nothing re: chances the rest of the way, or England scoring early against Italy and doing little with its attack after.

There's also stuff like this:



One team had 14 shots from inside the penalty area alone and a handful of chances from closer than the penalty spot; the other team took one shot inside the penalty area all night and scored on a 25-yard FK (won while taking a FK).

Had Denmark made it to a shootout, it would have been thrilled. And it would have been thrilled because it knew it had no business (or chance) winning the match w/o a shootout as things were going and had gone for the previous 90 of 120 minutes.

Denmark took one shot after halftime...

 

We need to make sure we are adequately prepared for the world cup. Our staring lineup needs to be clear and already have played matches together for one.

I want us to also try booking friendlies against teams we notoriously struggle against. Germany and comnebol teams for instance. Please no friendlies against trash like Israel, cape verde, angola etc. That Israel friendly is one of the worst things that happened. It gave our delusional coach false hope in shitty players like William.

Anything other than at least a semi final at this world cup is a failure for me.

 

We will be lucky to make it out of the group stage in the heat of Qatar, especially with Santos. I cannot stand the way we played at this Euro. Makes me not want to watch at all.

The majority of the players are over paid spooked brats that just want to make money and insta followers, instead of busting their nut on the field.

 

Just like i said TRASH. Sit down son.

Your daddy lukaku proved once again he is a flat track bully who does FK all when it matters

Like i said, carried by De Bruyne and Hazard. Hazard is now finished, so its just KDB

 

Damn! Bumping a thread from over a year ago just to make a point.

 

*BUMP*

well… we made it out alive 2 out of 3 ain’t bad, but Ronaldo hasn’t carried us, a team game is what we must strive for. Santos is my problem… will he make smart subs.

 

Hows your boy lukaku doing? Just like I have always said, trash player.