What an absolute dissappointment Euro 2024 was..

Annihilate Now! said:
Social politics aside, the World Cup was great.
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It was bang average at best.

The final was awesome from 70 minutes onward, but otherwise a bog-standard football tournament. Not great, but not awful. Better than this Euros, yes.

I do worry some venerate the WC because of an adverse reaction to its protestors.
 
it has nothing to do with age, that's just an lazy excuse. recent WC was great for various reasons and stories behind it (on and off the pitch) and we got awarded with amazing final game on top of that.

this tournament simply had nothing behind it for the most part. no intrigue, big nations all playing negative football bar Spain and Germany, and most attackers and usually reliable goalscorers not performing at all. there was no one like Messi, Mbappe, James or Forlan from some of the previous tournaments to entertain us.
 
Absolute disappointment is a bit over the top. It was... fine, I guess. Too many teams, though. And third placed teams shouldn't qualify. It's going to be a lot worse when they inevitably add more. At that point, I will just start watching from the QFs.

But the decline in individual footballers who make you want to watch a particular nation is so evident.
 
The format is rubbish.

The group stages are almost completely pointless as half the teams in it are useless and yet two thirds of the teams go through, so there is no chance of peril or drama at all. Any half decent team an quite literally walk their way through. THere is no such thing as group of death because even if the three best teams in the tournament somehow ended up n the same group, they'd probably all end up going through anyway.

The rubbish group format and need to have 16 teams in the next round dilutes the competition and results in things like England being able to reach the final by playing no one.

Quarter final stage should be only good teams who have had to beat opponents or be extremely well organised. Not teams who've scored about 2 goals, drawn every game and won a penalty shootout vs the 21st best team in the competition who got through by beating the 24th best team in the competition 1-0.

Its a mess imo. The last 3 Euros since its been 24 teams have all been garbage and involved games being played like friendlies or with the emphasis on not taking risks because you can literally 0-0 draw your way to winning the whole thing.
 
It's already not bad Euro.

If Slovakia had beaten England, it would be even worse.
 
BrilliantOrange said:
I mean really... Looking back at this tournament.. What's there to actually to look back to? Is there anything really significant worth looking back to? What and who will we remember for this tournament?

Looking at the performances per country countries..
- France, England, Portugal were incredibly disappointing.. So much quality, but such a negative, defensive, boring style of football..
- Belgium and Italy are in a generational low-tide currently and not by force of making real impact..
- Germany and The Netherlands had their moments, but were mostly underwhelming..
- Spain is the only country who lived up, played attractive football, entertained and delivered actual quality..
- For the rest Austria, Turkey, Georgia caught some attention and they did well, but let's not pretend they were all THAT good.. They had an attractive style of play and/or some individual quality which was refreshing and surprising, but they are still mediocre at best..

Many many stand out individual stand out performances have we seen over the whole tournament? Rodri, Williams, Lamal stand out for Spain.. Maybe Guler?

How many really good memorable games have we actually seen? I mean for real...? Turkey Georgia? Croatia Italy? Germany Spain?

How many really good memorable goals have we actually seen? Yamal? Guler? Calhanoglu?

Apart from that there were so many insignificant tactical games without any tension in the group stages due to the setup with the best numbers 3 also going through..

Thank feck for Spain for saving the Euro's a little bit, but overall.. Damn this was an uneventful forgettable European Championship..

(or am I wrong?)
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Don't put germany and the Netherlands together. Germany was very good this tournament.
 
Zehner said:
Think we were the best team in the tournament and should have eliminated Spain which was very entertaining itself. Netherlands and Austria were also quite exciting, Turkey had brillant moments as well. France, Italy and Belgium were disappointing. England achieved good results but was, in terms of entertainment, the most disappointing team in the tournament.
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Really?
I must have missed that game
 
I really enjoyed the group stages but tournaments are always defined on knock out games and the big duels were very disappointing. Portugal-France genuinely had me dozing off at points and England-Netherlands was also very cat and mouse for an hour given neither were playing with the quality that predecessor teams have.

I'd say the most enjoyable game of the tournament for pure end to end football was Austria-Turkey where cautious tactics very much took a back seat.

46 World Cup is going to be even worse imo especially given the temperatures in the States during the Copa America just played so games will be played at even slower tempo with players not wanting to be burned alive on the pitch.
 
Quality was really average. Germany are getting better, Georgia were v impressive with their approach, and Spain were beautiful to watch. The rest? Much of a muchness... not just Euros, but note Copa America.

Football is now a game, which is corporate in style.. overly planned, lacking imagination, character, personality, structured to the point of boredom. Cole Palmer; Lamine Yamal; Williams; Kvaratskhelia; Musiala... even Bellingham when he is right. These play with a freedom that is all too rare in football. Football is a game of expression.. it's not chess.

I hope the Spanish result has inspired other teams. Bielsa spoke about the state of the game in Brazil, very interesting.
 
Turkey vs Georgia was the best match by far.

The rest of the games were boring.
 
Pretty much every game was worth skipping until the last 5 minutes. Nobody except Spain and Germany played to win the game.

The fan experience seemed good though. Germany knows how to host a tournament.
 
Georgia/Turkey/Austria were great fun to watch. Switzerland were as well until they scored against England.

The save from the Turkish keeper is an all time great save.

Spain v Germany was great.

But.....lots of teams were simply awful to watch. England/Italy/Portugal/France were all dreadful for the most part and the 3 teams going through diluted a lot of excitement in the final group game.

England with that muppet Trent in midfield were actually comically bad to watch in the group.

Spain by far were deserved winners. Not going to be too many moments that stick in the memory with this one similar to recent tournaments.
 
Spain is a super strong team. They would have won World Cup 2022 and Euro 2020 if they didn't lose at penalty shootout.
 
Most of the big teams played so negative and tried to crawl into a final.

Spain and Germany were the only big teams who played proper football. In some moments also Netherlands.
It was a good lesson that Spain won it, showed the rest how is done properly.

Georgia, Turkey, Austria, Switzerland played good football.
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia also were all decent, pleasant surprises.

The tournament started well but as it went along and the important games came, most of the teams parked the bus and hoped for the best. Not the greatest publicity for football.
 
The first round of games was fun, looked like teams were more willing to take risks, then it deteriorated afterwards.

Real lack of depth of quality worldwide up front and in creative midfield positions at the moment, and was apparent at the last WC and at club level as well recently, CL has been pretty crap for the last few years as well.
 
Tournaments like this have over the years got more defence minded, "if you think you might not win, play not to lose". So, Gareth was spot on with this idea.
Spain were the only team who knew, deep down, we can beat anybody and they did and it showed in their play.
The only other interest were teams like Georgia, new kids on the block, no fear, played their hearts out and entertained.
 
England getting beaten in the final was definitely the highlight of a fairly shite tourney.
 
It was mostly forgettable, I'd say. The teams, the players, the games.

No doubt that the best team playing the best football won the tournament though. That's sort of rare.
 
Diogo Costa must be very sad. From saving all 3 penalties in one shootout to not saving any of 5 in the next shootout.

What an amazing tournament.
 
I thought this tournament started well, but it was bogged down by the third group stage games and failed to improve in the knockouts. Far too many mediocre performances from the bigger teams.
 
The last two Euros have been a disappointment for me. England 1996 team would trash any of the last two Euro winners.
 
Overplayed players it's getting ridiculous. The world club cup gets expanded next season and the world cup is bigger than ever with more games

Injuries and quality of games will drop the players are fecked.
 
doubleohseven said:
It was bang average at best.

The final was awesome from 70 minutes onward, but otherwise a bog-standard football tournament. Not great, but not awful. Better than this Euros, yes.

I do worry some venerate the WC because of an adverse reaction to its protestors.
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Damn I loved those initial 70 to 80 minutes
 
It was fun, not the best, but had some very entertaining matches and some new guns making their proper global appearences as the new Gen to come.
 
It's rare now for any major international tournament to have any truly memorable moments. The sort of stuff you will see replayed over and over again for decades to come. Everything seems sterile.

The best thing about this Euros was probably some of the fans. The overall football quality wasn't necessarily low but it lacked risk and it's risk that brings the entertainment factor in football. This is of course a trend that has long plagued football. No spontaneity, no risk. Everything rigid and tactical. Boring.

The good news is that in 4 years time, Euro 2024 will start to look better as Euro 2028 plays out and is even more risk adverse, more boring and more sterile.

Footballs lucky it has over 100 years of history behind it and created some legendary moments because if it was just starting out today, I'm not sure it would have the appeal it does.
 
The disbursement of national team players around the top leagues has led to international football being crap, as they all play like a bunch of strangers.

That’s my 2 pints theory and I’m sticking to it
 
T00lsh3d said:
The disbursement of national team players around the top leagues has led to international football being crap, as they all play like a bunch of strangers.

That’s my 2 pints theory and I’m sticking to it
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So whats been our (England) excuse for the past 50 odd years? :lol:

The vast majority of English players have always played in England.
 
T00lsh3d said:
The disbursement of national team players around the top leagues has led to international football being crap, as they all play like a bunch of strangers.

That’s my 2 pints theory and I’m sticking to it
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This is an issue Brazil and Argentina has been dealing with since ages and some Mexican press thinks it would be the panacea. It takes more time, a harder work in the sellection of players to actually pull out a team when your best players are all over the world, in differente teams and many times some of them playing the same role.
At least the distances are shorter, but this is a REAL ISSUE few people can see it.
 
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Fobal said:
This is an issue Brazil and Argentina has been dealing with since ages and some Mexican press things it would be the panacea. It takes more time, a harder work in the sellection of players to actually pull out a team when your best players are all over the world, in differente teams and many times some of them playing the same role.
At least the distances are shorter, but this is a REAL ISSUE few people can see it.
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Am I right in thinking that because of this, both Argentina and Brazil started operating to some degree in Europe.
 
JagUTD said:
Am I right in thinking that because of this, both Argentina and Brazil started operating to some degree in Europe.
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I guess so, the distances are too much, by the time you get all of them together in SA they are wasted with jetlag and such, you gain a lot of time having places in Europe to train.
It's also pretty hard to make Euro teams come to our soil to play a friendly.
 
JagUTD said:
It's rare now for any major international tournament to have any truly memorable moments. The sort of stuff you will see replayed over and over again for decades to come. Everything seems sterile.

The best thing about this Euros was probably some of the fans. The overall football quality wasn't necessarily low but it lacked risk and it's risk that brings the entertainment factor in football. This is of course a trend that has long plagued football. No spontaneity, no risk. Everything rigid and tactical. Boring.

The good news is that in 4 years time, Euro 2024 will start to look better as Euro 2028 plays out and is even more risk adverse, more boring and more sterile.

Footballs lucky it has over 100 years of history behind it and created some legendary moments because if it was just starting out today, I'm not sure it would have the appeal it does.
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The last World Cup was full of moments, one of the best finals ever, and various Messi moments like destroying Gvardiol, scoring a stunning goal against Mexico with their tournament fading away, the assist against Netherlands.

If I'm thinking the best moments in football the past 4 years, I would say Real Madrid against Man City in 2022 CL semi-final and the World Cup final, as well as various Messi moments from the World Cup. Aside from United. What else in football stands out more than that? Not City winning Premier Leagues by beating everyone 2-0 with 60% possession anyway.
doubleohseven said:
It was bang average at best.

The final was awesome from 70 minutes onward, but otherwise a bog-standard football tournament. Not great, but not awful. Better than this Euros, yes.

I do worry some venerate the WC because of an adverse reaction to its protestors.
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The last World Cup was great throughout. The group stage had great stories like Lukaku missing 5 sitters against Croatia to put them out, Morocco beating Portugal and Spain in what was a great story, Croatia beating Brazil. Korea somehow going through in the group stage ahead of Uruguay and Cameroon. Japan beating Spain and Germany, Harry Kane missing the penalty against France.

Even the final you're not giving enough credit to, was some brilliant Argentina play before 70 minutes and if it ended there, it would have still been a good final, what happened after made it the best ever, but 1990 WC final it was not.
 
Overall it was quite disappointing after the group stages. They have to sort this thing with the third placed teams out before it bores everyone.

However, Turkey gave me hope and made me believe again and for that it will be a very memorable tournament for me.
 
Just as any tournament, there were both memorable games and memorable moments.

People act a little too much like every game was memorable in some other tournaments. No, it wasnt. I've been hooked since 1998, there were some extremely drab ones in every tournament. And small teams were not an issue this time, it was England, France, Portugal and Italy.

Anyway, there were lot of big highlight moments in this tournament as well.

Albania scoring deep in injury time to draw Croatia is a memorable moment. As is Zaccagni goal to knock Croatia out deep in stoppage time.

Georgia's performance throughout the whole tournament is full of big moments in almost every game they played.

Switzerland destroying Italy is also memorable thing, having completely outplayed them since minute one.

Whole group ending on 4 points each is also memorable, as is Jude Bellingham's goal against Slovakia.

Yamal goal, and not just the goal, but two kids, him and Williams, destroying teams left and right and dancing and laughing after, it is very memorable.

Turkey has also played great games, there is that memorable save by Gunok.

There is Šesko blunder against Portugal, also Ronaldo's missed penalty, trying free kicks from impossible angles and later crying like a baby.

These are just off the top of my head, I am sure you could find many more. I don't understand why people give much more importance to moments like these from earlier tournaments. Maybe nostalgia.
 
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