None of them have really fired have they? It's actually not been a classic tournament with a lot of defending and cheating and flopping about. Spain were direct and exciting at times. France desperate. Such a waste of talent. Dutch incompetent at the back, probably a round further than they should be. England have been absolutely desperate. Absolutely horrid.
Ironically for you... If Gakpo scores another goal you lose five points because you won't get it for the German lad as well.
Looking at previous tournaments this century. 3 would be a pretty low tally to earn a golden boot. Five looks about the norm. 2000: Patrick Kluivert (Netherlands) and Savo Milošević (Yugoslavia) - 5 goals each 2004: Milan Baroš (Czech Republic) - 5 goals 2008: David Villa (Spain) - 4 goals 2012: Fernando Torres (Spain) - 3 goals (tiebreaker: played fewer minutes) 2016: Antoine Griezmann (France) - 6 goals 2020: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) - 5 goals (tiebreaker: more assists) and Patrik Schick (Czech Republic) - 5 goals
So I need mbappe to bang in a hat trick v Spain and then a couple more v England in the final to clean up
Shows what a boring defensive tournament 2024 has been. ... Unless England win, then it's the best ever.
The approach to football by the sides is "too similar" and there is rarely "flair" players on show. Let's fact it. The most exciting players were a Turkish kid, a Spanish kid and Williams. England's one's are all hamstrung as are france's. They are all well able to run hard and keep shape but there's a lack of modric,, infestation, xavi types.
Doesnt help that you can’t really implement any decent tactics at international football. It’s a bunch of players used to playing different ways brought together to play under another manager who has a way of playing. This is why I think you’ll get better standard if you clumped all international friendlies/qualifiers into a 2 month period at the end of the season. Gives managers actual time on a training pitch to work on tactics and implement ideas. Instead get a couple of days to do it and then send them out there. No surprise that the Spain team from 10 years ago were so dominant because their whole 11 was pretty much made up of Barca/madrid players so had so much understanding of each other and the tactics used. Tournament football also lends itself to defence first approach. Portugal won the euros by drawin nearly all their games. France are into the semis having scored 1 goal from a pen and a couple of own goals. In the league you can dominate a game and be hit on the counter and lose 1-0 and it’s annoying but it is what it is. In tournament football that puts you out so teams will be far more inclined to sit back knowing if they keep a clean sheet, worse that’ll happen is it’ll go to pens.
I don't know. It's not like Croatia for example are not the same old players all the time. They have tactics. I just think a lot of these are very samey type of players and they are quite drilled at defending more than anything else. There's a lot of 2 banks of defenders sitting deep and denying space to the opponent. We them put ultra caution where for example England took a short corner them ended up back with pickford and even not risking kicking it long until an opponent actually closed oickford down. We are literally killing the game
“Trent Alexander-Arnold's winning penalty against Switzerland was ranked as the second most powerful strike in the entire tournament clocking in at 78MPH.” I said it was the best thing about the game.
On another note - "In a 115 minutes vs. Switzerland, Phil Foden failed to score a goal, register an assist, have a shot on target, create more than a single chance & lost the ball 19 times". This is one of the brightest young stars in the PL. Southgate just seems incapable of coaching talent.
Still following my ideal scenario of barely squeaking by each game en route to the cup. This is my dream, my ambition for England, to win the trophy while looking terrible each game.... So far my ambition for Britain is being met.
Foden plays in a dominant City team, maybe he is not all that good when he has lesser quality players around him so gets less time on the ball and space to play in?
