UEFA Women's Euro 2022 - General Discussion

I often hear folks saying things like "It is better to finish the group as #1 (or #2) because it avoids so and so. It was even said at the last WWC as many folks felt that the US would have been better off not winning their group because it meant facing France (I think it was France) in a early elimination match. That is really only true if you expect to be beaten by the team you are trying to avoid. However I have always believed that you have to beat everyone to win a trophy. (Or you have to beat whoever beat that team or whoever beat both of them.) In truth I believe that meeting a stronger team early in the knockout rounds is better that meeting them later.
In the knockout rounds all you need do is beat who is in front of you and you will progress at each stage. If that is a strong team then you are very unlikely to take them for granted however if you face a team that you believe is weaker then you might try to "take it easy" or "rest players" or "play an experimental lineup" or some such trying to make your next game easier. I believe all such actions server best to make losing the next match more likely.
In this case I do not think any team emerging from this group will progress as far as the finals as there is just too many weaknesses in each team. However, if I had to pick one to go through to the Finals it would be Sweden as I feel their "weaknesses" are not as weak as the Netherlands'.

But I just intend to have fun watching the rest of the tournament. My granddaughters inform me that they want to watch all the knockout rounds with me and that is sure to be fun. Their comments and observations are more entertaining that any soccer tournament could be.

I do not think there is an easy or hard route to the final. All paths are equally hazardous and equally easy. Every remaining team is good and that will make for good entertainment.

 

Not really, if you are 100% sure to win against either it do not matter, but this is the knockout round of the Euros so if you are 100% sure to win it would probably benefit your team a lot to get a more realistic coach.

80% to get trough is better than 50%

That is true if there is only one or very few strong teams in the mix, but this is the Euros knockout round, all six favorites* are left and if you can avoid facing one in all rounds left you have a better chance to win. It is very likely that from the semis no teams outside the six will remain**:
Very rough estimate of chance for one of the six to get past another of the six: 50%
Very rough estimate of chance for one of the six to get past another team: 80%
50% x 50% x 50% = 12½%
80% x 50% x 50% = 20%

There are no easy route, but there are hard and there are harder routes.

That said I do not recommend playing for second place (partly because the negative effect it have on the few Swedish NT that tried that) but if you can ease your advance by scoring a few extra goals you should really try to do so.


*Norway was 7th but the odds was way worse than for the top six (like 25 time the money compared to 7 times for the worst of the six). Norway wasn't really one of the favorites to win but more considered the best of the rest.

**So far, with 13 gamed played between the Six and the other ten teams:
The six wins: 13
Draws: 0
The six losses: 0

 

It's true that all remaining teams are good but not all paths are not equally hazardous. If you are a team that historically warms up slowly in tournaments, then you'd much rather play your round games in increasing order of difficulty, and there is a huge difference between facing France or Belgium in your first quarterfinal.

Not to mention that there are other important factors like, say, the weather and injuries. Would you rather play your toughest game at 25C or at 30C? Would you rather play against Russia early and get your ankles broken right away?

Even if the ideal tournament was that every team played every other team and you simply added up the points at the end, the exact path would still matter.

Sometimes people need rest. Sometimes good players have run themselves ragged or have an injury that sitting out a single game will cure.

 

In women's soccer, USA is the team you have to beat to win major titles. It's nice to win 8-0. Often the awakening comes against the USA. France always failed against the USA. England always failed against the USA. The Netherlands have so far failed against the USA. Spain failed so far against the USA. Germany Sweden won 1 time against USA in a knockout round. I also have the feeling that what the Europeans are going through now and are experiencing with the high number of spectators in the stadium, the Americans went through at the end of the 90s. Then came WUSA and I think it went bankrupt. Lyon, Barcelona, PSG invest a lot in their women's football department. Juventus,Real Madrid are investing more and more in their women's football department. The English seem to have a good TV contract. Actually, the clubs only make economic losses through women's football. That's why German clubs are no longer so dominant in Europe. Wolfsburg Bayern invest more money than the rest of the league, but not nearly as much as those mentioned above. Barca are bankrupt. They have an expensive world-class soccer team, they have a world-class handball team, they have a top European basketball team. Everything is expensive. Actually, they shouldn't be able to afford such a women's soccer team.

 

Threads for first two quarterfinals created:
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/weuro-2022-qf1-england-vs-spain.2121778/
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/weuro-2022-qf2-germany-vs-austria.2121779/

 

Average attendance (group stage only):

Men's EURO 2021
average allowed stadium capacity due to covid: 24 890 (12 venues)
average attendance: 18 025 (36 matches)
stadium fill rate: 73.14% (including covid cap)

5.2 billion cumulative global live audience (all stages)
prize purse: 371m €


Women's EURO 2022
average stadium capacity 27 848 (8 venues)
average attendance 15 388 (24 matches)
stadium fill rate: 55.25%

expected to reach a global live audience of more than 250 million (all stages)
prize purse: 16m €

 

And finally the moment I always fear in every tournament came! After a dozen days of always having one, or most often two games available to watch, the group stage ends and the withdrawal starts.

How am I supposed to go through this full day without matches???

Then they'll give me 4 consecutive days of quarter-finals, but after that it will go worse and worse soon...

 

Lieke Martens out with a foot injury. No replacement can be called in.

 

Advantage of a familiar arena:

Not sure how much impact it have but for QF the group winners have it.
France have played at New York Stadium thrice in this Euros
Germany have played at Brentford Community Stadium twice in this Euros
Sweden have played at Leigh Sports Village twice in this Euros
England have played at Falmer Stadium once in this Euros
The other four teams have not played at their QF arenas in this Euros

In the SF the only teams that may get a similar advantage are Germany and Sweden that have both played once in this Euros at their possible SF arena.

 

New York Stadium has a capacity of only 12K? Is that right?

I have to wave my hand dismissively at this...too small for this match. A joke.

There have been more the 20K fans at all the previous The Netherlands matches in this tourney.. Not sure what attendance at France matches as been.

 

Thanks those numbers. Surprised that the French matches had such low attendance.

 

Welp game over for Netherlands.

 

Mmmm, given her form lately it's not a loss. It actually forces the coach to swap in a player, who might contribute to th e attack.

 

I want to thank UEFA and all of Europe and England for this rather wonderful tournament. This is the first time I have been able to watch a tournament that did not include the US or Japan with my granddaughters where the matches were good enough and the play good enough to hold the interest of my little 12 (just had her 12th birthday during this tournament) and 14 year old small blond people.

I do wish we could actually be together to watch but a pretty solid video chat feed makes it nearly like being together.

The little ones have even gone so far as to figure how to alter their sleep schedules some so they can watch live. The 14 year old actually skipped a supervised "date" with a "dreamy" boy so she could get a bit more sleep. So far it seems good soccer trumps dreamy boys.

The matches have, mostly, been quite entertaining for me. My only real complaint is that you Europeans are making my CONCACAF look pretty pathetic in the attendance category. I wonder if the final of the CONCACAF tournament even approached the attendance of the average Euro match?

It is getting close to, actually a little past, the normal young lady wake up time in Japan but my granddaughters are still imitating small corpses. I find it very interesting how deep and fully kids can sleep. I am quite envious. The last time I slept that deep there was a crew of doctors and nurses watching and the smells were upsetting anyway.

 

From a US fan who has been reading this thread and the threads on the individual games: It is really interesting to compare the commentary by all of you non-US fans to the commentary I see from US fans on games of the US women. On average, it seems to me that US fans are far more critical of their coach and players than all of you are of yours.

 

Fans are usually the most critical of their own teams. Vilda has gotten ripped to shreds by the Spanish fans but you only see the occasional criticism from non-supporters.

 

My "complaint" about coaches in general is that they fail because they let their egos override what is best for the team. In particular they mostly choose players based on the system they want to play rather than finding the best 11 players (or 12 or 13 or a few more) and devise a system that maximizes what each player brings.

Most coaches world wide operate by the first system which means that very very few teams ever are really as good as they could be.

I feel a lot about coaches as I do about politicians. If they offer themselves for the position they have already disqualified themselves.
"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"

 

Ha: It may be because the favorites have a

Let's not get carried away. Coaches do modify their system/style of play to fit certain players. Not every coach, but many do.