Semi-finals | Spain vs France | Netherlands vs England

NLunited said:
I actually rate Koeman, he‘s getting results with an underwhelming squad, with attacking football.

I do not see an issue with his line ups. The wildly criticized Depay is important for us for his creativity and hold up play and Frimpong didn‘t look that good when he played. You can argue about Bergwijn, because he was poor against Turkey.

Who do you think should play instead?
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Depay had the one assist last match. But besides that he is the worst player of the tournament so far. Constantly loses the ball, misses a lot of chances and his set pieces are absolutely horrible.
And then there is player like Wijnaldum who shouldn't even be in the squad, but still he got 60 minutes so far, in which he touched the ball 20 times, with at best a 50% success rate.

Van Dijk clearly isn't as good as he was before, yet Koeman let's him play the same way as he used to play, which clearly doesn't work anymore. His yellow card against Turkey is a perfect example. Van Dijk with an adjusted role/mentality would still be the best defender, but this barely works anymore. Same goes for De Vrij, decent enough, but together with Van Dijk is an accident waiting to happen.
 
England always find a excuse for losing in every major tournament.

They have found a good one here to be fair.
 
NLunited said:
I actually rate Koeman, he‘s getting results with an underwhelming squad, with attacking football.

I do not see an issue with his line ups. The wildly criticized Depay is important for us for his creativity and hold up play and Frimpong didn‘t look that good when he played. You can argue about Bergwijn, because he was poor against Turkey.

Who do you think should play instead?
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I believe he dropped deeper when Wout came on and, coincidence or not, the Dutch looked a lot better so maybe start Depay but not up front? The opposite wing to Gakpo is another issue, i always assume Frimpong could play that role but it doesn't seem like the manager fancies him there.
 
Irwin99 said:
I believe he dropped deeper when Wout came on and, coincidence or not, the Dutch looked a lot better so maybe start Depay but not up front? The opposite wing to Gakpo is another issue, i always assume Frimpong could play that role but it doesn't seem like the manager fancies him there.
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This is being mentioned by quite a few pundits. Dropping Simons would actually not be that odd as, Romania aside, he's been a bit cack.

Dropping Memphis alltogether is not happening anyway.
 
Fortitude said:
Yamal's not seeing out games and is rightfully being protected from himself, which is a good thing. He has a 65-75ish minute window to affect the game, and unless Spain become irresponsible, that should remain the case.

Whilst he's on the pitch, the majority of the time, the fullback will be pinned and preoccupied with positioning and containment. The longer the game goes on, the time left to be of that mindset reduces as it gets closer to Yamal's substitution. Once he's off, the game can open up and the fullback can look to a two-way role with the suffocating presence removed.
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Got it, that makes sense. Not sure if I was just tired or what last night. Thanks!
 
KirkDuyt said:
This is being mentioned by quite a few pundits. Dropping Simons would actually not be that odd as, Romania aside, he's been a bit cack.

Dropping Memphis alltogether is not happening anyway.
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He gets a lot of stick but Weghorst does contribute something when he plays- in fact, he pretty much stopped a certain goal when it was 1-0 with a block in the box and also missed a golden chance to square the ball for a goal at the other end :lol: .
 
That_Bloke said:
They're a cheap France knock-off.

Austria would've knocked them out and they'd never have survived if they were in the other half of the table, but I can't see Netherlands stopping them.

France vs England seems the likely final.
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Ah yes, Austria. The football hipster's choice after an article in The Athletic told us all they were good enough to win the tournament. Shame they were shit at defending set pieces.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
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You can't make this shite up :lol:

Lets appoint a convicted match fixing referee to one of the highest profile international matches in the last 2 years. What could go wrong?

The state of football.

I tell you what though, if you have children, start them early as referees. Its a job where you can consistently feck up and accept bribes yet still retain job security.

You can also be an absolute daft cnut and still get hired.
 
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It’s odd in the extreme that they appoint a convicted match fixer to a tournament, never mind a semi. They have zero room for error here, if he makes a genuine mistake and costs a goal/the game then the fallout will be never-ending. We’ve already seen though that the football powers that be at various levels couldn’t care less about dodgy appointments, as evidenced with that geordie clown we sent over to Germany.

It should be irrelevant whether he is the best referee or not, he should be excluded from international/European tournaments after the conviction.
 
Irwin99 said:
He gets a lot of stick but Weghorst does contribute something when he plays- in fact, he pretty much stopped a certain goal when it was 1-0 with a block in the box and also missed a golden chance to square the ball for a goal at the other end :lol: .
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Wout knew we'd score from the corner, that's why he went for goal :p
 
whitbyviking said:
It’s odd in the extreme that they appoint a convicted match fixer to a tournament
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They have english refs at this tournament, so it's not that odd. One of them is even Oliver
 
Didn't this ref also do Holland vs Romania?
 
LordSpud said:
Just had a look at the stats for England and Spain because it doesn't seem like we play Spain all that often. According to Google, since 1950 we've played them in total 6 times, we are W1 D2 L3 and the last time we played them in an actual tournament (not incl the Nations League) was World Cup 1982 (drew 0-0) and prior to that World Cup 1950!
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Euro 1996 - “Am I joke to you?”
 
whitbyviking said:
It’s odd in the extreme that they appoint a convicted match fixer to a tournament, never mind a semi. They have zero room for error here, if he makes a genuine mistake and costs a goal/the game then the fallout will be never-ending. We’ve already seen though that the football powers that be at various levels couldn’t care less about dodgy appointments, as evidenced with that geordie clown we sent over to Germany.

It should be irrelevant whether he is the best referee or not, he should be excluded from international/European tournaments after the conviction.
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If a fecking referee is convicted of match fixing that surely should be end of career no?
This has got scandal written all over it.
 
Does anyone have the bank details of this ref by any chance? I'm feeling charitable.
 
We are now at the stage of the tournament where I don't care how England play, I just want them to find a way through.

So it's all setup for a top performance and dodgy defeat.
 
KirkDuyt said:
He did. Seemed fine enough in that game.
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After Qatar paid for the Argies to win the WC, partly at your expense in the game they should have had two players sent off in, the reffing gods have to appease both of those who lost out and setup a Netherlands/France final.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
After Qatar paid for the Argies to win the WC, partly at your expense in the game they should have had two players sent off in, the reffing gods have to appease both of those who lost out and setup a Netherlands/France final.
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They were supposed to have 2 players send off? I can imagine maybe Parades for the dug-out thing, but who else?
 
There must be some decent european square chair throwing potential in this one.
 
Redplane said:
Messi for taunting LvG? :cool:
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Ah right, how dare he.

Honestly though, we deserved feck all that match. Most out of nowhere comeback I've ever seen. If Wout had completed his late hattrick though, it would probably have been the greatest sports match of all time.
 
The referee didn't match fix. He just accepted a small bribe from a referee who did match fix instead of doing something about it. He was probably put in a difficult situation to not rat out his friend. It also happened almost 20 years ago. No need for excuses.
 
Spain v England is my gut feeling for the final. Mbappé injury and England bench the decisive factors
 
Netherlands v England. Should be interesting, both kinda similar profiles - two big nations who have always underachieved and somewhat bottlers in tournaments.
 
It'd be nice to see both matches won in 90 minutes, in each case the result of goals that are not of the penalty or own-goal variety.
 
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