Euro 2020 (in 2021)

Denmark by far the better team. Them vs (probably) Netherlands in the quarter final should be a fun watch.

Wales really struggle with most of their players not playing regularly for their clubs. So dependant on Bale or Ramsey coming up with something, and both of them are nowhere near their best.
 
Dexter Inferno said:
Denmark by far the better team. Them vs (probably) Netherlands in the quarter final should be a fun watch.

Wales really struggle with most of their players not playing regularly for their clubs. So dependant on Bale or Ramsey coming up with something, and both of them are nowhere near their best.
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Playing regularly or not, I do expect professional footballers in the knock-out stage of a Euro cup to be able to put a pass or two together. Denmark was good, but man, the first 60 minutes Wales literally just let it happen and gave the ball back immediately when they accidentally got it.
 
wok said:
You’re giving Denmark way too much credit there. Wales were shocking. All 4 goals were absolutely amateur-level defending
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Not really. The Danes were far better than Wales in that particular game, as expected - mostly because Wales were indeed crap, to be fair. The Welsh couldn't even create much going forward either.
To be brutal, only Ward has been good for Wales this tournament. And he hasn't played a league game since 2016. :grin:
 
The Danish team are very emotional and it will be interesting to see how they cope with a little more adversity.

Italy vs Austria was an entertaining up-tempo match. Austria put up a great fight against a steadily disintegrating Italian team. It could have gone either way, if you ask me.
 
Monson said:
The Danish team are very emotional and it will be interesting to see how they cope with a little more adversity.

Italy vs Austria was an entertaining up-tempo match. Austria put up a great fight against a steadily disintegrating Italian team. It could have gone either way, if you ask me.
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Denmark has been really impressing with the way they bounced back after the first game. They really bullied Belgium to bits in the first half of that game. If they were playing anyone else than Belgium they'd have taken a huge win from that game. Yesterday didn't mean that much considering how utterly useless Wales was, but they really professionally pushed to 2-0 and rode out the game easy going and conserving energy after.

Italy - Austria was fun indeed. Italy was good but seemed somehow lazy. Austria threw all they had at it, it was quite surprising to see them play like that considering how easily they rolled over against the Netherlands. Absolutely loving Insigne btw, he's so quick and unpredictable, it's great to see.

Gotta say, I'm getting real fed up with all the "big toenail offside after applying several passes of Phd level geometry at it" VAR offside calls... It's getting really ridiculous.
 
ColourofFire said:
Gotta say, I'm getting real fed up with all the "big toenail offside after applying several passes of Phd level geometry at it" VAR offside calls... It's getting really ridiculous.
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Even then, it's not been anywhere near as bad in the Euros as in the Premier League. There are rule changes coming though, they've seen now that some of the old rules need tweaking to work well with how VAR is supposed to be used. PL is going to start using thicker lines next season, giving a bigger margin.
There's also been a proposal from Wenger as well that only body parts you can actually score with can be flagged for offside . That should at least help with the numerous armpit/upper arm offsides.
So, they're at least trying to get rid of the most controversial ones. Personally I'd rather they award the goal instead of doing checks for 4-5 minutes. If it's that close, it's fine to give it.
 
Dexter Inferno said:
Even then, it's not been anywhere near as bad in the Euros as in the Premier League. There are rule changes coming though, they've seen now that some of the old rules need tweaking to work well with how VAR is supposed to be used. PL is going to start using thicker lines next season, giving a bigger margin.
There's also been a proposal from Wenger as well that only body parts you can actually score with can be flagged for offside . That should at least help with the numerous armpit/upper arm offsides.
So, they're at least trying to get rid of the most controversial ones. Personally I'd rather they award the goal instead of doing checks for 4-5 minutes. If it's that close, it's fine to give it.
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Yup, so far the only goal that the VAR canceled that after review made sense was the French goal against Germany. All the other ones I've seen were utter horseshit. The Finnish goal against Russia, the Belgian goal against Finland, the Austrian goal yesterday, probably missing a few. Absolutely ridiculous decisions.

Beyond that it's a fun tournament though, there's no real favourite at the moment IMHO. There's a bunch of really strong teams, but none of them haven't been incredibly unstable at times.

Germany is playing like crap, but it's Germany, so you can never count them out.
France looked very strong at times, but struggles to get wins.
Belgium is extremely lethal the moment they get some space but looks quite weak when their defense/defensive midfield is pressured..
The Netherlands is really fun to look at but struggles to keep it tight in the back for 90 minutes and they tend to give away way too many chances.
Portugal has some great moves followed by inexplicably weak moments.
Spain seems to be mainly focused on getting 99% passing accuracy rather than scoring goals.
Croatia is nowhere near the form they're in a few years ago and they can't seem to keep the ball in the team.
Italy looks good but somehow lazy and unfocused.
England does what England has been doing since forever...

So far it actually looks like most of the teams might have a shot and it's going to be down to really small moments.
 
ColourofFire said:
Yup, so far the only goal that the VAR canceled that after review made sense was the French goal against Germany. All the other ones I've seen were utter horseshit. The Finnish goal against Russia, the Belgian goal against Finland, the Austrian goal yesterday, probably missing a few. Absolutely ridiculous decisions.

Beyond that it's a fun tournament though, there's no real favourite at the moment IMHO. There's a bunch of really strong teams, but none of them haven't been incredibly unstable at times.

Germany is playing like crap, but it's Germany, so you can never count them out.
France looked very strong at times, but struggles to get wins.
Belgium is extremely lethal the moment they get some space but looks quite weak when their defense/defensive midfield is pressured..
The Netherlands is really fun to look at but struggles to keep it tight in the back for 90 minutes and they tend to give away way too many chances.
Portugal has some great moves followed by inexplicably weak moments.
Spain seems to be mainly focused on getting 99% passing accuracy rather than scoring goals.
Croatia is nowhere near the form they're in a few years ago and they can't seem to keep the ball in the team.
Italy looks good but somehow lazy and unfocused.
England does what England has been doing since forever...

So far it actually looks like most of the teams might have a shot and it's going to be down to really small moments.
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Hard to tell who gets through to the final really.
France, Belgium, Italy and Portugal all have really tough games coming up. All of them have world class players that can come up with something in the big games though.
I had France as the big favourite before the tournament, but I haven't been impressed with their performances so far. Then again, the winners often just barely scrape through on their way to the final (Portugal in 2016 was a great example of that).

I can see one of Netherlands or Germany getting the other spot in the final.
But..it's not entirely impossible that Denmark can punish the Netherlands in the quarter finals. De Boer is very naive defensively, so that could be their downfall.
When the Danes are on a run like that, they can beat almost any team.
 
Dexter Inferno said:
Not sure what he was thinking. Gave the ref no choice there really.

Can't really see a way back for the Dutch now. They've been dreadful all game.
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Just a dumb reflex I guess. But yeah, definitely stupid.

Pretty embarrassing to go out against Czechia, but playing like this it's deserved...

Btw very underwhelmed by Depay this tournament. If he keeps playing like this he's gonna be mostly warming the bench in Barcelona
 
ColourofFire said:
Just a dumb reflex I guess. But yeah, definitely stupid.

Pretty embarrassing to go out against Czechia, but playing like this it's deserved...

Btw very underwhelmed by Depay this tournament. If he keeps playing like this he's gonna be mostly warming the bench in Barcelona
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Yeah the Czechs have deserved this imo. Played smart and taken their chances.

Curious how Koeman is going to juggle all those attackers at Barca. Messi, Aguero, Griezmann, Depay, Dembele. Think you can guess which 2 will usually be on the bench. :wink:
 
Dexter Inferno said:
Yeah the Czechs have deserved this imo. Played smart and taken their chances.

Curious how Koeman is going to juggle all those attackers at Barca. Messi, Aguero, Griezmann, Depay, Dembele. Think you can guess which 2 will usually be on the bench. :wink:
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Pretty sure he's just gonna get fired the moment Barca can afford it. Really should have just stayed with the Dutch squad. Would be nice to see de Boer go as well.
 
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