So none of the teams out of the group of death survived the quarter finals. Was Group C not as tough as expected? Or were it exactly those tough matches that cost Italy and Holland the semi final because they were exhausted?
RIP Probably this is really Germany or Spain's time. Romania was good but had bad luck and played bad against Holland Holland after those two awesome victories lost its brain completely Italy was a tired team... but I'm happy we defeated France France demonstrated that until 2010 we're world champion and we deserve that title and that they are too overrated after that (only) WC in 1998. See you all in 2010.
I think it was the latter, especially considering that the two teams that survived the group of death went on to play 120minutes in the quarterfinals.
group of death teams always burn out fast in tournaments. Playing 3 hard group games is difficult . in WC 2006 the group of death was probably holland ,serbia ,ivory coast and argentina. None of those teams got past the QF. In WC 2002 the group of death was england ,argentina ,nigeria and sweden. again none of those teams got past the QF.
in EC 1996 , group of death was Germany, Italy, Czech and Russia. Germany and Czech made the final at the end.
hmm.. I don't know about that... that was back in 1996. Czech Rep & Russia were competing in their first Euros as independent nations and were kind of unknown qualities. I think the real group of death there was France, Spain, Romania and Bulgaria - the latter two had just reached the QF & SF of the world cup 2 years prior.
Except that Holland rested 9 (am I right here on the number?) of their top players during their third group game. Claiming that the Dutch team was exhausted seems just slightly exaggerated. If it was only that, surely the Dutch team with a rest period of a week (June 13 to June 21) would have won against a Russian team playing against Sweden on June 18?
I think it's simpler than that. Your future rivals study how you play. If you're in a group of death, you have to show all your cards early. After you have done so, winning is going to be much more difficult.
only two teams came out and its pretty easy to explain why they didn't go too far. Holland pulled a Dutch Italy was unlucky to lose Pirlo, they were then relying on a catenaccio style of play to win however they never got that goal and lost on PK which Italy usually don't win (2006 was the exception, 94 and 98 the example) not to mention Spain is a top quality side.
That's only your excuse and what do you know what these teams had to endure knowing that there was no weak team in the lot. The fact of the matter is that playing 3 high level matches in a short span takes its toll both physically and mentally.
Both France and Italy generally are slow starters and you can't afford that at the European championships (whereas you can at the world cup). It's not exactly new that Italy and France don't perform at the Euros, they didn't get past the group stage in 2004 either. Which I've tried to tell this forum time and again before the tournament started but no-one would believe me. Anyway, what happened to Boulahrouz had a massive impact on the Dutch mentally. Also, Russia really are pretty damn good.
You get my point! Everybody was convinced Italy and France would sail through, just a few weren't. Thing is the Euros are a completely different tournament than the world cup, people always forget that in the run-up.
I was refering to the Euro 2004, when France did get past the group stage (they lost to Greece in the 1/4 final). Have a nice day.
Perhaps by reputation alone everyone was thinking that there was no weak team in the lot before Euro 2008 strated. But as soon as everyone saw the games, it was quite obvious that the Netherlands were a strong team. Italy was, with all due respect, pretty weak and France was even worse. Romania just performed catennaccio and when it needed to go forward when it mattered, they couldn't.
Don't you hate it when people talk out of their ass? This was called a group of death because of reputation and using the ridiculously laughable FIFA rankings. It was quite obvious there were gaps of skill between every single team. 1-Netherlands -HUGE GAP- 2-Italy -GAP- 3-France -SMALL GAP- 4-Romania That group was obviously not a group of death. A group of death would be more like if the current Russia, Germany, Turkey, and Spain were grouped together in the first round.
When you take into account as much information as possible and ignore the hype and the money the media, teams, and players throw around. Unfortunetly, most people don't think that way.
What viable and/or relevant information existed before the tournament that Italy would be more of a threat than Russia?
I think it is you who don't have an answer. I can give you 3 reasons why Russia shouldn't have been taking lightly before the tournmanent. 1-Guus Hiddink is known to take his teams farther then expected. 2-Some of Russia's key players are currently UEFA Cup champions. And if you saw them play the tournmanet, you will know that they are quite skilled in contrast to the all-English Champions League final which bored me to sleep all the way to penalties. 3-The Russia league has been grown to be very competetive since 2004. It is now ranked the 6th best league in Europe by UEFA. Another evidence of this is the fact that all but one player in the Russian squad plays in the Russian Premier League.