football thread No11

If there's a need for numerous (in)valid explanations for truly sucking at football , please don't hesitate to ask for help. We have decades of continuous experience.
Yeah at least the girls actually qualified to an EURO in the first place, something our boys never do.

Still, 0-8 is never ok, it was a right travesty. They'll need to be on absolute fire against Austria to regain any momentum at all.
 
Denmark was bad and we much worse so result is expected. We're under a curse of female Hodgson which manifests itself as mostly boring avoid-mistakes-at-all-cost games unless the opponen is extremely bad or way better than Finland.
Totally different league of play in Germany-Spain. Two excellent teams with different tactics going add it. The 1-0 was gift-wrapped by the goalie but the finish was still excellent and if had seen that in black & white on 14" CRT I could've easily said the scorer was clearly Der Bomber. That's the difference between a proper striker and the peeps who occupy that space for the lack of anyone better or because jersey #9 was the only one available. Some of the ref's/VARs decisions were exceptionally dismal.

In final round German will crush us with their b-team, we'll play 85mins with the same already legless 11 and then while being few goals down switch a striker for midfielder and play 541 instead of 532 - I've seen it before.
Spain will dominate the Denmark game but I'm not convinced that they can actually score anything without the help of a ref/VAR. It's also possible that they'll get few lucky bounces and score 5.
 
Yup, I saw that too on BBC but still I was somehow more drawn to the Bangkok pre-season ManU-Pool 4-0. I know Klopp has been advocating more changes but using 30 in one game is a bit more than I expect FA to approve, I think 5 is too much.
 
Welcome(?) to the club. Actually it's not so bad here or at least one get's used to it eventually.

England - NI game deserves a special mentioning as there was a good VAR decision without it being obvious. I wonder when we'll see next one of those?
 
Our games went just like everyone expected, lost every game, as the group surely wasn't the easiest.
Out of the 8 conceded goals 1 was from penalty & 5 headers - I think I can see at least one area were we might've room for improvement. I could also make a generalization - others are better.
Also, if I'd had to make a prediction I'd say this was the last (& only) time with all 5 Nordic countries in top16. Sweden, Denmark & Norway will have a fair chance & regular presence but Iceland and & Finland are iffy. The current state is equally reflective of gender equality than it's of any country's footballing merits. Team events tend to be population contests as well.
 
Sweden & the Netherlands got through Sweden finally showing some of their potential while Dutch are still struggling a bit. Their game against Switzerland was an epic one and only few very late goals make it look uneven on paper. Absolute masterpiece as entertainment. Even VAR got few decisions right.
 
Few or a few? Knowing what VAR is like… ;)

Also, what is it with Italian football?
 
Sweden - Belgium wasn't as great as the previous two games but the Belgian effort was valiant and Little My in the goal was impressive. Blackstenius needs a recap of offside rules if Sweden is to beat England.
Tonights' game is an interesting one. Miedema is back so the Dutch may perform and France can be anything between hilariously sloppy and magnificent.

There's clearly something rotten in state of Italy. Not news on its own.
 
Few or a few? Knowing what VAR is like… ;)

Few. A few would give VAR tribute which it doesn't deserve. I ignore the VAR decisions which John Lennon could've seen correctly without glasses.

An odd game as was somewhat expected. The optimist in me thinks that France did pretty much what they wanted in the game - they just didn't want to score. It could've been 6 in 90 and another 6 in the extra time and they still needed a penalty to score. Luckily for them Renard's previous one wasn't the high point of French competence from the spot. If France had Miedema they'd roll over everyone else with ease - they could still concede 4 and win comfortably but the lack of even semi-decent #9 is a concern.
The Dutch goalie was superb.

At this point my hope is that the winner comes from the latter semi-final.
 
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Few. A few would give VAR tribute which it doesn't deserve. I ignore the VAR decisions which John Lennon could've seen correctly without glasses.

An odd game as was somewhat expected. The optimist is me thinks that France did pretty much what they wanted in the game - they just didn't want to score. It could've been 6 in 90 and another 6 in the extra time and they still needed a penalty to score. Luckily for them Renard's previous one wasn't the high point of French competence from the spot. If France had Miedema they'd roll over everyone else with ease - they could still concede 4 and win comfortably but the lack of even semi-decent #9 is a concern.
The Dutch goalie was superb.

At this point my hope is that the winner comes from the latter semi-final.
Yeah Katoto's injury during the group stage means we're not very consistent with our finishing. Let's hope we keen getting a million chances so that one or two ends in the net.
 
I think France is very consistent with its scoring - it just doesn't do it. Perhaps they should get Nike as a footwear sponsor.
On the other hand all the lucky bounces are still unused which is always a good thing especially before important games.
 
Another one bites the dust. Apparently our Swedish coach has been sacked due to crappy performance, worse leadership and bottom dweller entertainment value. It's not the first time Finnish & Swedish leadirship styles clash publicly but this is an odd one as now the Swede is authoritarian & uncommunicative.
 
We sacked our Swedish coach too. Obviously the players deserves their fair share of the blame for the abysmal results. But there has to be a way to get more out of that amazing (on paper, at least) line up. We'll see.

Here's hoping Sweden gives a good performance tomorrow.
 
I'd give big credit to the fixtures which are insane. Sweden had some legs for 30mins and then ran out steam. I doesn't necessarily mean they would've won with two more days rest but the score wouldn't be 4-0 in that case. Scoring against a team which isn't running is fairly easy. Had Blackstenius scored early on from Asllani's lovely through pass and/or crossbar-out been crossbar-in the game would've been a totally different one - as it usually is with ifs & buts but I also think that was the Sweden pre-game plan realising that they can't match the pace of England for 90mins. Early lead & then full Mourinho. The ref was disastrous but probably didn't change the outcome.
A second before Russo's goal I was about to text my cousin that what a lovely attack apart from the Finnish-French style scoring but luckily I didn't. That'd have been my stupidest statement for the year and there's some stiff competition.
 
Was hoping for penalties but I'm glad England took it in the end. They've got a great team and were due for some silverware.
 
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