Romania will win this group with 2 wins and one loss. The Netherlands will come second. Romania Netherlands Italy France
These are the same types of posts that made you look foolish during the qualifying campaign. Not that I think we'll win the group, but your attitude only sets you up for ridicule.
everybody is allowed to dream, many say honduras wont make it to the wc, but i will believe they can. Nonetheless i personally dont think romania will do it but hey you are a fan and u believe ur team can do it is good for u. as i said Italy and the orange now powder blues will go through in my opinion. The holland team has alot of the madrid players who are champs, i hate them, but they seem to be good, and I like how they play offensively and i want to see good looking football. Italy have a strong team, personally de rossi and aquilani is their version of xavi and iniesta right now, in my opinion not as good but still really threatening, Cassano is good, zambo always a good defender (except for that goal by scholes in the CL) and Luca Toni one of the worlds top strikers.
Italy and Holland. France have some serious problems going into the tournament if either of these last two friendlies are anything to judge by.
I'm glad someone brought up the friendly's. A draw vs. Paraguay and a 1-0 vs. Columbia (via a penalty) are not very flattering scorelines for the French.
One thing to notice about France - even though they didn't score much, and their game seemed to suffer, they didn't receive *any* goals. So even though they seem less scary than people might have though, I wouldn't predict their downfall yet. Official games can be very different at times.
moreover, during the last 3 games, not once did France have its actual euro08 lineup: the 11 frenchmen on the field vs Columbia are likely to start vs Romania but not in this formation, toulalan won't be playing right winger and malouda won't be defensive midfield you want to know why france played that way? how the hell would I know? I am not in that stupid domenech head of his maybe he thought he would mix up the italian, dutch and romanian scouts
I wonder how the french team would look with Nasri instead of Malouda from the start. The Chelsea player seems a bit out of shape to me... But I know, not gonna happen. Anywho, as a Romanian, the only thing about the french team that seems exploitable is its aging defensive line. I can see both Gallas and especially Thuram being vulnerable against fast plays. Unfortunately, Piturca figured it would be a good idea to leave home our fastest striker - Bratu :/ And considering Marica's abysmal form, we'll prolly start with Marius Niculae, who's not exactly fast... I just hope we won't start with 3 defensive midfielders, like we did in the first half of the Montenegro game. Curiously, that made our defense weaker, and our attack almost absent. Had it not been for another brilliant strike by Mutu, it would have been a totally ballanced first half. The second half, when we had two midfielders with a much more pronounced offensive character on the pitch (Dica and Cristea) had us experience basically full control of the play, we scored three times while Montenegro didn't really seem dangerous at all. And while having both those players against France would be a little unrealistic (they don't really like defending very much), i think it's absolutely neccesary to have at least one. Shish. Can't wait for the game
The essence of this group is that it all will be very close. It's impossible to predict what the outcome will be. France, as always, has a great squad, defending and attacking. Althought, the last games they weren't that impressive (the outcomes), and maybe it's not a real team yet. Italy, as always, is also a great team, with a great defence and also a very good attack. But, in contrast with the WC, they miss Totti, which is a major set-back. Romania also has a great team, with chivu and mutu as the two big players. Maybe they are individually lesser then the others, however, as a team (from what I saw in the qualification) they are great, and are possible to do nice things in this group. Holland, may I state, has the best attack of the four teams, but it's defence (apart from van der Sar), is not at the same level. This could cause them problems, but the rule still always is, if you score more goals then you concede, you will win. My prediction for this league, however probably being biased, will be the folowing: - Holland 5 (Italy - Win, France - Draw, Romania - Draw) - Romania 5 (France - Win, Italy - Draw, Holland - Draw) - Italy 4 (Holland - Lose, Romania - Draw, France - Win) - France 1 (Romania - Lose, Holland - Draw, Italy - Lose) How realistic is this? As realistic as every other prediction, however, it seems likely to give some arguments for this prediction. The only outcome, I'm not really supportive of, is the Holland - Italy game, which can also end in an other outcome, but my bias gives me the argument to let Holland win this game. Romania will surprise France, which start their tournament rather lousy. Furthermore, with Romania in a winning mood, they will draw against Italy, and Holland will have a France wanting revenche, although are good enough to get a draw against the French. In the last game, Holland and Romania can play for a draw, so that they are both certain of the second round.
same here as for your question regarding nasri instead of malouda, I think domenech is too focused on defense on that left side because he's considering henry/anelka almost as left winger while he should be turning around benzema/gomis. according to me it's unbalancing the team leading us on depending too much on ribery but I'm not the coach (thank god 'cause he's a moron ) what i'd like to see even more is a duet evra/malouda which would be dangerous defensewise but probably much more interesting on offense
I think/hope NL will draw 1-1 with Italy, beat France 2-1 and Romania 3-1. But 3 losses are also very well possible.
I changed my mind: I think France and Holland will make it through group C cannavaro's injury has a lot to do with me ruling out Italy in favour of the Oranje
France as i said i doubt, i watched the gameyesterday against colombia and wow, they won on a penalty. Its a win but they didnt show superiority.
as I said earlier, the french lineup vs romania will be close to the one you saw yesterday but the tactics will be very different in my opinion. I think yesterday was a counter-attack test with malouda as a WB and ribery as a MO; it shouldn't be that way against Romania (hopefully)
Probably because there wasn't much to pick amongst the top 3 teams in this group, therefore, that was the decider.
italy's D without cannavaro is still 10x better than holland's of all clubs. if cannavaro's the decider then that chap really doesn't know what he's talking about. italy are much more complete than holland, they play complete futbol and they're proven winners whereas the dutch, besides the golden era, have been nothing but an enigma who lack mental toughness and have more holes in their game than swiss cheese which the the italians and french will expose.
I have a ton of respect for the Dutch, ton but there is a lot of truth to what he says. Not having cannavaro in the Italian backline is a huge blow but, whoever starts in the middle, Barzagli, Matrix, Chiellini, etc, the Italian backline is still one of the better ones of all teams in the entire tournament. And before I get any heat, this is NOT an insult to the Dutch; they play good football and I cannot wait until the opening matchup.
France looks like they're having a scoring drought with their FWs. The mid is going to have to carry them or they won't make it far.
hmm...the french are creating loads of chances so there's not much to worry about. scoring drought maybe, but if they weren't creating anything that'd be more concerning. eventually the ball's going in the net. they're just too talented.