Every international tournament must have a ongoing narrative about how awful England are, regardless of whether they don't qualify or make the final. I think you'll find it's in the rules.
Day 11 | Albania vs Spain | Croatia vs Italy
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran are here to talk about a frustrating 2 points dropped at Crystal Palace. They then discuss the regeneration of Old Trafford. Finally, Nik is joined by special guest Michael Statham from the Football Oranje podcast - who gives us a more in depth look at our EL opposition FC Twente, and then runs through the (many) Dutch connections currently at United.
Every international tournament must have a ongoing narrative about how awful England are, regardless of whether they don't qualify or make the final. I think you'll find it's in the rules.
As long as Serbia don't beat Denmark and Georgia don't beat Portugal to go onto 3 points?
Edit: Portugal not Czech.
I don't think this will bear out at all. All it means is that they don't need to be as good as they'd have needed to be pre-Euro 2016 to qualify, and that the nations that were previously in the revolving door for maybe qualifying, maybe not, are (short of a disastrous qualifying campaign) basically guaranteed spots.
Wales have already dropped off a cliff, and then you've got a nation like North Macedonia that qualified for Euro 2020 and were a play-off away from the last World Cup, that only managed to finish above Malta in their qualifying group for this Euros.
Instead of it being the likes of Serbia, Ukraine, Greece and Switzerland fighting it out for the last few spots, it's Scotland, North Macedonia, Estonia and Albania.
The suicide rate on redcafe if England won the euros would be insane.
Comparable to United winning the league I reckon
Yeah there's so many ways, might as well wait for it to play out.
Yeah, to be honest, the whole 3rd place ranking is pointless. They really should have left it at 16 teams with top 2 qualifying.
saddest MOTM pose I’ve seen Croatia have been exceedingly dull and agricultural, even by modern standards, for the last few tournaments. Happy to see them go home early
Amazing for Hungary this. None of that happens as looks likely and they'll go through so that was a dramatic win in its own right last night.
Desperately need some quick forwards to come through if they want to feature in later stages of major tournaments again given the midfield will need to be regenerated very soon.
Were so dangerous in 2018 with Rebic and Perisic running on to Mandzukic flick ons but their attack is pretty average now so looks a bit like they'll go back to what they were in early 2000s after the France 98 generation all retired at the same time.
Country of 3-4 million can't challenge at every tournament.
Don't get me wrong, I do think they have done very well for a country of their population size and what not.
My views are purely as someone who has no allegiance to any of these European national teams, who just wants to watch some entertaining football, that since that 2018 team, which was actually decent to watch, Croatia have been among one of the most painful teams to watch, on the spectrum of the teams that did reasonably well and progressed in the tournaments.
They’re an abysmal side with no quality or spark up front at all, glad to see the back of that tedious Croatian midfield three too, although wouldn’t be shocked if we see them again in 2 years, horrible horrible team.
Everyone waxin about Modric, Modric this, Modric that, give me a break, when was the last time he put a performance even half as good as 39 years old Ryan Giggs did vs Madrid at Old Trafford in 2013.
I mean, there are a couple of examples of small countries that consistently produce great talents and challenge countries that are 5 or 6 times their size in terms of population.
As I understamd it, for Croatia to go through, these four things have to happen:
1) England have to beat Slovenia by more than 3 goals (or exactly 3-0, so Slovenia will finish behind Croatia on goals scored)
2) Denmark have to beat Serbia
3) Turkey have to beat Czechia
4) Portugal have to beat Georgia
A big ask for all of those to happen, but stranger things and all that.....
First time you're watching I presume? He was a big reason Bologna finished in CL zone, but I suspect he will follow Thiago Motta and join Juve
The thing is having a subpar or poor league doesn't stop Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, France, or the Netherlands (until recently anyway) from constantly producing great players. Italy seems to have a good technical setup for identifying talent at the club and national level too, so I'm not sure where exactly they're falling behind the others. From my total amateur perspective their current crop of attackers just look unathletic and seem to lack any spark of creativity or dynamism. Maybe it's just a poor generation of players and it will fix itself in 5-10 years but this is depressing stuff.
I’m not talking about four year cycles, I’m talking far longer than that. Inspiring the next generation of players to come through, that’s one of the big reasons for a small country like Croatia being so successful and having a conveyor belt of top players.
You’ve also left out the likes of Norway, Sweden and Greece who didn’t qualify, so it’s not like jeopardy has gone from qualifying completely. And again, I’ve seen nothing to suggest the quality is worse. Teams like Slovenia, Georgia, Romania are better than they’ve been for years (or ever), they’ve qualified by merit over teams with more financial clout like Norway and Sweden.
Ever since Paulo Rossi dragged Italy through a poor group display I am never surprised when the Italians pull something out of the bag.
Frankly, Albania not beating Croatia has cost them.
I meant getting to SFs and finals every time as they did at the last two World cups.
By comparison Croatia have never really done that much at the Euros. Just one QF in 2008.
Haha seriously
Bastoni is the real deal - Calafiori is a work in progress, and sensibly he will go to Juve to finish his Ph.D. in defending ;-)
If given a choice, I would take Bastoni 100%
It's much more difficult to replace generational talents one after another when your countries population goes from 10 million and bellow that, at least if you're talking about football nations, doesn't matter to bring countries with 10 times more population than Croatia if football isn't their national sport or part of the tradition.
If anything what Croatia has done since 98 in the WC's is nothing less than a miracle, even Uruguay as great as they are producing players for the size of their country hasn't achieved the same (since 98) reason why in Portugal they should stop with the excuse we are a small nation, we should be more consistent in the WC's, not saying we should be always contenders but we don't raise our level there, maybe less in the Euros but let's see if they won't flop in the last 16 first.
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What an incredible goal for Italy; moment of the tournament so far.
And lost that one in a similar fashion, but even crazier.
They made the quarters in 96 too. Lost 2-1 to Germany
Finally got my head round how you know which of those England would play IF we win group
I don't think Croatia have really played notably worse than they did in Qatar, where they got through the group because Belgium missed four or five big chances in the last group game. Shows how fine the margin in level of play can be between going out narrowly in a group and grinding your way into the later stages.
Yeah, you've kind of sold me on it now, fair play.
Heartbrake.
Dont get me wrong, we were bad all tournament, even yesterday it wasnt that good but to concede in the dying moments is such a shock. I feel so bad for all the players, especially Modrić.
Special mention to the ref. He was dodgy as hell from the minute one. All the 50-50 decisions went into Italy's favor, he didnt see the most obvious handball and needed VAR to show a penalty, added 8 minutes from nowhere and when Italy scored couldn't wait to blow the final whistle although Italians scored in the 7:20, celebrated and there was stuff in the stoppage time which should have been added on 8 minutes.
Dont get me wrong, we were bad all tournament, even yesterday it wasnt that good but to concede in the dying moments is such a shock. I feel so bad for all the players, especially Modrić.
Special mention to the ref. He was dodgy as hell from the minute one. All the 50-50 decisions went into Italy's favor, he didnt see the most obvious handball and needed VAR to show a penalty, added 8 minutes from nowhere and when Italy scored couldn't wait to blow the final whistle although Italians scored in the 7:20, celebrated and there was stuff in the stoppage time which should have been added on 8 minutes.
Quarterfinals in 1996 and 2008, last 16 in 2016 and 2021 but yeah we do way better in the World cups.
Nah.. Makkelie (the ref) can be a bit of an attention seeking cnut but he had a good game. Got almost every call right. Yeah he needed VAR to get the penalty call right but that's what VAR is there for. The 8 minutes absolutely didn't come from nowhere. The VAR check and penalty were easily 3 minutes, play was stopped 6 times for subs for at least 30 seconds each so that's another 3 minutes minimum and then there's the plethora of fouls resulting in yellow cards and free kicks which were easily another 2 minutes. I agree with you that he should have added another minute for the goal and other stoppages in extra time though.
I think you've just proven exactly why it won't make much difference to the long term futures of these teams. Regardless of finances or past performances (Greece won the thing!) it's all reliant on having enough players of a base talent level some through around the same time, and it's going to take a lot more than a couple of group exits in the Euros to change that.
Dont agree really, If we dont count added time as a mistake his critera wasnt the same. There was a number of Italian small fouls not given (pushes to the back), yet the 1st time Gvardiol pushed an Italian player it was a foul. Sučić's first foul in the game, not especially hard, yellow card. In the 2nd half it seems he was giving yellows to our players just for looking strange at him.
Dont get me wrong it isnt and shouldn't be an excuse. We should have eaten that ball in the dying moments and not let them hit us on the counter like that.
The reason why Italy won in 2021 was not simply due to chance, but because we were tactically better.
You do not knock out Belgium, Spain and England in consecutive games due to mere chances.
The main difference was that we had a top team of coaches ... not just Mancini, Vialli was a part of it too, along with Sandreani, another name known in Italian football for having coached different lower rated italian teams.
Each of them had a connection with 1990 Serie A, just like Ranieri (only the dude who did the Leicester miracle).
The staff we had made all the difference.
Or Ancelotti, or even JM (who openly admitted he idolized Sacchi). Or Marcello Lippi, who won us the 2006 WC.
Italian football, by far and consistently through the decades, has produced the best coaches in the history of the sport.
At the end of the day, even if we were to lose the next 3 consecutive games against England, and the next 3 against Germany, and so forth against other key european nations .... our heritage is so high that we would still have a positive record against each of them.
Consider that, despite our having done very bad in the last 15 years in club football, we still have more European finals played than english teams.
Currently as it stands, and I believe that's undeniable, Italy is the historically bigger football country .... when no other countries has had such a good COMBINED history in BOTH club and international football at the same time.
Germany is just slightly ahead of us internationally, but they haven't played nearly as many european finals as we did.
England and Spain are on a similar level with clubs (and they were considerably behind, especially Spain, up to 15 years ago) .... but they don't even come close to us in terms of international wins.
Other than that, yes, yesterday we were shit.
I agree with the Croatian friend that it was very unlucky for Croatia ..... though I will say, if you don't win against Albania, and lose the other game, you need a more convincing display to deserve to go through after that.
And, for fairness sake, I will say we deserve to go out in the next round if that's how we play.
Why does the official Euros third place standings, updated an hour ago, have Albania in ahead of Croatia?
https://en.uefa.com/euro2024/news/0...5-1000--uefa-euro-2024-best-thirdplaced-teams
Am I missing something?
https://en.uefa.com/euro2024/news/0...5-1000--uefa-euro-2024-best-thirdplaced-teams
Am I missing something?
This may come as a shock to you but:
- Both things can be true at the same time.
- Someone is allowed to call another team boring even if their own team is boring. This is what is simply called an 'observation'.
Italy - Croatia was, to me, the most boring game of the competition yet .... at times the pace was so slow it reminded me of games from 50 years ago.
I dunno mate, at least it was watchable. That England/Denmark game was just awful in every way. And I say that as an England fan. Just terrible.