Defense: Arbeloa - Pepe - Sergio Ramos - Jordi Alba
Midfield: Khedira - Pirlo - Iniesta
Attack: Ronaldo - Balotelli - Cassano
Bench: Neuer, Moutinho, Xavi Alonso, De Rossi, Ibrahimovic[/quote]
[quote=“El Topo, post:56, topic:3016”]Best Euro players for me
Goalkepper - Buffon
Left Back - Jordi Alba
Center Backs - Pepe and Sergio Ramos
Right back - Aberloa
Midfield - João Moutinho Xabi Alonso and Khedira
Forwards -Ronaldo, Balotelli and Iniesta[/quote]
Either team would do for me but may I nominate the England team as ballboys? You could guarantee efficiency because as soon as they got the ball they would give it straight back.
I thought England were okay, much more fun to watch than the team from the World Cup
They seemed to enjoy themselves. I enjoyed the game against Sweden and they did relatively well against Ukraïne and (a strong) Italy.
The problem still is: why is Rooney always dissapointing in the national team?
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:63, topic:3016”]The problem still is: why is Rooney always dissapointing in the national team?[/quote]Maybe Capello is right saying he only understands Scotch ;D
I have to agree - I was quite surprised actually at how good our defence was; it was a large improvement over the World Cup. So perhaps getting rid of Capello and bringing in Roy Hodgson was a good move after all. But we still need to work on our attack instead of counting on Rooney all the time if we ever want to progress any further than the quarter-finals in any major tournament.
But Italy had half a dozen big chances, and should have won 3:1 or 3:0 after 90 min. But they wasted them all, like they wasted several big chances in the second half against Germany, they simply failed to make a goal, while their first 2 chances against Germany lead to 2 goals and decided the game.
Italy were by far the better team against England, but in general it wasn’t a bad tournement for England; The World Cup was disastrous: high expectations, bad results, awful football.
I think the new coach did a good job; there was some positive energy.
The Italy - Germany game could’ve gone both ways. Germany started well, and if they score early on, it’s a different game. But they didn’t and then Italy did (twice). In the second half Italy should have score one or two more goals, but that was also a result of the risks Germany took to score one back. All in all it was a deserved win for Italy.
It was a deserved win the way the game went, but as you said, Germany had 2 or 3 good chances in the first 20 min, and if they had made this early goal, they probably would have won it easily.
But they had their problems in the offensive midfield, like in the first 3 games, due to the in hindsight strange tactic of Löw.
And they were vulnerable by counterattacks, and the lesson of the Greece and the Denmark game should have been not always to try to play beautiful offensive football, but to play it a bit more defensive.
To be honest I was thinking the mannschaft would be the team beat in the Euro, even a degree above Spain since those didn’t have Villa, they had the players and a key advantage in a national side, that consists in several key players coming from the same club, BM in the case, amking a solid block. But after the first game I had my doubts, the center backs didn’t look nothing special, and only Ozil seemed to have some magic (whatever happened to Schweinsteige?), but it was still German.
But then their coach made the biggest mistake possible, a team that wants to win must not change their tactics cause of the others, it could work sometimes or weaker teams, but for bigger teams like German is a sign of weakness, even worst when cause of Low bad decisions, they lost the so called players from the same club advantage.
I think that one of England problems over the years is that one, they make their national sides from players of too may different clubs, that doesn’t show if they are been playing together since the youth national sides like Holland or Portugal (well not this team, but a lot of players at some point played together in Sporting with Bento as coach), let’s not forget that players like Xavi, Casillas and Ramos are playing together since they were 16 years old, in all national youth teams and that counts a lot.
biggest disapointments Holland of course to much egos and money and no coach or leadership, and France too much wasted talent
I’ve already said I didn’t understand Löw’s tactics. But he had this problem that Özil didn’t reach his very best form. Maybe the pressure was to high, I don’t know, the guy’s still young. Khedira, on the other hand, was terrific, but he can’t for two at once.
Furthermore I still have the idea Schweinsteiger is not 100% fit. Maybe he lacked rythm after his injury, like Sneijder or Afellay. Schweinsteiger played well against Holland, but in the other games he was dissapointing. That’s two ‘Leistungstraeger’ not reaching their best form. Against the likes of Danmark or Greece that’s not a problem, but against Italy or Spain it is. But, as said, if Germany scores early on, all these reflections would’ve been superfluous. Scoring the first goal in a game, is becoming more and more important.
Yes, Schweinsteiger wasn’t fit and made a lot of mistakes.
But he wasn’t the only one who did not reach his usual form. Podolski, in the past always pretty good at tournaments was a total loss, and Müller was only half as good as he was in 2010, and as a result Özil had not the room he needed, especially as Schweinsteiger also failed to deliver.
Well, Löw did the right thing against Greece, and with Reus and Schürle on the sides Özil made his best game.
I can understand that Löw gave Gomez another chance, even if Klose is the better choice (but he also was slightly handicapped by an injury), at least Gomez scored a lot in the Bundesliga and in the Champion’s League, and he made 2 beautiful goals against Holland.
But Löw should have kept Reus and Schürrle. Maybe he should even have replaced Schweinsteiger with Kroos.
But it is always a big problem for every team if the established stars are not in the best shape.
Italy on the other hand achieved more than their comparatively limited team could hope for.
I already said this, but Podolski is not my kind of player. But the main thing is that I didn’t understand why Löw brought him instead of Schürrle. It was to be expected that the Italians would try to take away the space for the German ‘runners’. Schürrle seems to me the better player when there’s not too much space. And yes, this returning problem: Gomez or Klose. I would’ve started with Gomez too, he seemed in very good form. But he gets nervouss because of all these discussions, I think. Understandable, but he’s a pro, he should be able to stomach these things.
Italy did far better than expected. Prandelli did a very good job, not only tactically, but also in creating a team spirit: this was a group of players who were prepared to fight for each other, to help each other when neccessary. Only in the final the team fell apart: Spain was too strong, and the were brought back to ten men.
I think, by the way, that Germany did relatively well. You can’t expect that all your players are at their very best during one and the same tournament (it hardly ever happens). Some Spanish players weren’t in top form either (not to mention the Dutch). I guess expectations in Germany were a bit too high.
