Probably earlier exit if anything
Day 13 | Slovakia vs Romania + Ukraine vs Belgium | Czech Republic vs Turkey + Georgia vs Portugal
- Thread starter RobinLFC
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I think its fair to say, despite the pre-tournament consensus, neither England or France can be considered the best teams so far.
In mitigation, France is generally poor. Even in the World Cup final France was mostly poor, then Mbappe did a madness and it was 3-3 out of nowhere. France is one of the few teams that, generally, does not need to be good to win. As long as they defend stoutly and create options for a counterattack, France will always have a puncher's chance.
On the other hand, Austria has undoubtedly been one of the better teams.
If he failed his way into the England job I would never stop laughing.
couple of red cards after the match following a few bust ups....the ref completely lost the plot
Mikautadze might be worth a punt for a mid table PL or Europa/Conference team needing firepower.
Still absolutely crazy that ITV have Matterface as their no. 1 commentator and Tyldsley as number 2.
I don't get that at all.
One as in one of options A and B, or one as in one of the players you've listed?
Because either way, Mikautadze ain't getting picked.
Would Georgia have finished second IF Turkey had drew with Czech Republic?
She left while she was winning
No. Turkey needed to lose because a draw puts them both on four points and Turkey beat Georgia head to head.
If Czechia had won 1-0 Georgia would have finished second on goals scored. If Czechia had won 2-1 Georgia would have finished second on disciplinary record. Any other winning scoreline for Czechia puts them ahead on either goal difference or goals scored.
Portugal won it due to a last minute goal against the Czechs.
Spain was in one of the easiest groups.
Germany also barely won their group with a last minute goal.
France blew it.
Winning the group is not easy at all.
Ridiculous take. They had Italy - the reigning champions, Croatia - a team that has finished second and third at the last two World Cups and took them to extra time in the knockouts of the last Euros, and Albania, who won their qualifying group and always put up a fight when the stakes are high.
The only group I could argue is stronger than Spain's group is Group D.
Croatia has been in horrible form for some time, they barely even qualified. Italy is not even a shadow of the team it was on the Euros when they won it. And Albania is... Albania. With all respect to them, they put a great fight, but they're not on the level where you could say they are "hard" for Spain. And Spain was already through when they played them so no pressure.
Croatia and Italy fans would tell you themselves that their national teams absolutely suck right now and were lucky to even be on the Euros.
If that is a hard group then England had a harder group.
Denmark and Slovenia are better teams than Croatia, Italy and Albania at the moment and would win head-to-head against any of those. Not sure about Serbia because they always bottle everything so I guess I can give you that one, but they're at least on paper a very solid team.
Only one of the players listed has done anything worthwile all tournament for his team.
Tell me you don't know what you are talking about, without telling me you don't know what you are talking about
Mikautadze is the leading goal-scorer of the group stage, in the lowest-ranked team. And he is the one not getting picked over players who have scored nothing or just one goal in very strong teams? Yeah, sure. Nobody is saying he is better than these players in general, but in this tournament why would you be so adamant to not pick him. That's crazy
Errm. No they wouldnt. Nobody expected that we will be so bad prior to the tournament and no we werent lucky to be in the Euros. It was hard but every qualifying we do it the hard way. That doesnt mean being lucky to be in the Euros. We beat Portugal in a friendly few days before Euro and looked good vs Macedonia too. It all fell apart in the Euros but as I said nobody expected it.
On paper, without hindsight, it was a hard group.
You're acting like we became a trash team overnight. Thats still a solid to very good, experienced group of players who collapsed in the Euros.
No, they go through. Every team in a group can go through if they all just make a deal to get 4 points each.
What the hell is this?
Portugal scored the goal themselves to top the group.
Germany scored the goal themselves to win the group.
France did blow it, true. Inn the toughest group though.
My point is England topped their group but that was hugely fortunate because of results in other games. That Denmark game nearly ended up with Denmark winning right at the death, that would have thrown England into the other side of the draw.
All England had to do was beat one of the lowest ranked teams and failed to do that. Do you think their performances would have topped any other group? Apart from Romania, England have the lowest points to top the group.
But If you think Spain had one of the easiest groups then yeah, ok, I don't think it's worth our time discussing this.
Unfair that my dark horses go out on 4 points.
He's scored two penalties. Ivan Schranz has more goals from open play than him. I still wouldn't pick either of them over Mbappé if given the choice.
Mbappé won the first game for France by creating the play that resulted in the own goal and scored a penalty in the game against Poland, which they would have lost without his goal. His involvements have won them three extra points in their group, without which they would have been eliminated.
The superstars might be falling short of the sky-high expectations placed on them, but that doesn't mean that none of them are contributiing anything at all. The players listed in group B have four goals and two assists (three if you count Mbappé's cross for the own goal) between them.
We sucked so much last season that he played for us a mere 8 minutes.
So penalties don't count now?
Tell that to Baggio, Kane, or many other superstars who have missed game-changing penalties for their countries and have seen their teams eliminated...
Yes of course. Football is so black and white that there is no room for nuance whatsoever. Mikautadze is the top scorer, so he's obviously the best forward in Europe bar none and anyone who suggests that the likes of Mbappe, Kane and Lukaku might be better players "doesn't know anything". Chuck on a condescending green laughing smiley for good measure so even the illiterate can see how much smarter than everyone else you clearly are. Bravo.So penalties don't count now?
Tell that to Baggio, Kane, or many other superstars who have missed game-changing penalties for their countries and have seen their teams eliminated...
There isn't a team in the world that tailors their entire playstyle entirely around scoring penalties. Penalty-taking ability miles down the list of skills you want your striker to have. Even the worst penalty taker in the world would get chosen over someone with a 100% conversion rate if they were one of the best in the world at something that reliably results in goals over the course of the whole game - movement off the ball, heading, shooting, even anticipating tap-ins. Exclude his penalty goals and Mikautadze doesn't break into the top 10 performers in the tournament on any relevant metric for measuring a forward's attacking threat overall or per 90 minutes. Not one. Basically, Willy Sagnol would give you his left nut for free if you offered him the chance to swap Mikautadze for someone like Mbappé before the RO16.
That's literally true for other teams as well.
If Georgia beat Turkey or Czechia, they'd be on top of the group.
If Switzerland beat Scotland by a 4 goal margin, they'd be top of the group.
Portugal and Germany were aided by fortunate results from other games too.
Spain is the only team that didn't need help from other teams.
I don't think I could have set it up more obviously as a joke...
None of those had the gulf that England had over the mighty Slovenia.
Like I know there was luck to go around but when you see that England have had this luck for 3 tournaments now, you have to surely want them to seize the opportunity, not play like the way they are.
Slovenia is better than most of the teams Portugal and Germany faced. And Slovenia was not the closest rival to England to first place but Denmark, which is a solid team.
NOBODY says Mikautadze is anywhere near the level of most of these players, in general. For instance, I absolutely don't want him at United (even though we had Weghorst for feck's sake and Mikautadze is clearly better) but the point was - could he strengthen a national team in Euros
Euros and national teams are very different from club football. I think it is not a foregone conclusion that he would not perform well for this competition at a different team. That's all, mate
Imagine the fact that Ajax sold Mikautadze after only playing him a couple of games and are signing Weghorst right now
Portugal had the easiest group, if you go by Fifa ranking.
Going into the tournament they were ranked 6th, while Czechia were the next best team, ranked 36th. Turkey ranked 40th and Georgia 75th.
Georgia literally only qualified because they won a Nations League group containing Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Gibraltar, beat Luxembourg in a play-off, then won on penalties against Greece. They finished fourth in their qualifying group, ahead of only Cyprus, who were also the only team they beat.
Slovenia were ranked 57th going in, but at least finished 2nd in their qualifying group, level on points with Denmark (with a better goal difference).
Germany only dropped points to Swiss, who are decent.
Portugal lost to Georgia after they were guaranteed top spot.
England drew with Slovenia, which was a Serbian block away from sending them to the other half.
I don't know what else to say... It's coming home?
I don't look at those rankings. They have Belgium third and Germany not in the top ten.
I get why they're there but they are not a true measure in my opinion.
Germany aren't in the top 10 because they've been a bit crap for ages. Failed to make it out of the groups in the last two World Cups (in groups containing Sweden, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Spain and Costa Rica) and beaten in the round of 16 in the last Euros, having only managed to beat Hungary in the group.
They've not even done anything in the Nations League. Finished 3rd, behind Italy and Hungary (and above England) in the latest edition with just one win, were only able to beat Ukraine in the edition before that (with Switzerland and Spain in their group), and finished winless and bottom of the first edition (behind Netherlands and France).
The rankings aren't perfect, but they're a decent enough measure of the general quality of a team.
Germany barely equalized against Switzerland in last minute.
Slovenia is a better team than Switzerland.
We already knew Ajax is dysfunctional, in post-EtH eraImagine the fact that Ajax sold Mikautadze after only playing him a couple of games and are signing Weghorst right now
This is the issue with rankings. The Germany team that got knocked out in the last euro for example is not the same Germany team now.
I guess we're not going to set eye to eye on this.
FFS. You'd think he'd be out regardless.
He's long overstayed his welcome. Should have been out after the last Euros.
Unless a miracle happens, we've wasted yet another generation of elite players.
They've been knocked out of another World Cup in the group stage since then, and even this German side were a stoppage time equaliser from losing to Switzerland and finishing second in their group.
As I said, they've also recently played 6 games in a group containing Italy, Hungary and England in the Nations League and won just one of them, ending up 3rd.
Since September, they've been beaten 4-1 by Japan, drawn 2-2 with Mexico, lost 3-2 to Turkey and 2-0 to Austria, and right before the Euros they drew 0-0 with Ukraine and only managed to beat Greece 2-1.
How else do you propose we rank Germany if not by their most recent (often disappointing) results?