Match Day Thread Euro 2016 Thread

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That Portugal team is terrible. It is on par with Greece winning the thing 12 years ago, only saving grace for them is that Portugal have a few known players, but they played worse than that Greece team.
 
All this talk is a bit harsh on Portugal. They weren't overly negative in final, France were hardly going full throttle, and remember they lost their main goal scorer after 20 minutes.

Yeah ah in other games they weren't great, but apart from France's big win over Iceland they only got through with some last minute goals in their games.

Portugl gal have a population of 10m people. Everyone is banging on about them like they are some European power house but there pool of selection is pretty similar to a lot of the other European mid table teams is inagine. They certainly haven't got the pool to pick from like Spain, France, Germany, England do. Everyone loves Iceland and Wales for being similar and plucky..
 
All this talk is a bit harsh on Portugal. They weren't overly negative in final, France were hardly going full throttle, and remember they lost their main goal scorer after 20 minutes.

Yeah ah in other games they weren't great, but apart from France's big win over Iceland they only got through with some last minute goals in their games.

Portugl gal have a population of 10m people. Everyone is banging on about them like they are some European power house but there pool of selection is pretty similar to a lot of the other European mid table teams is inagine. They certainly haven't got the pool to pick from like Spain, France, Germany, England do. Everyone loves Iceland and Wales for being similar and plucky..

The main thing I dislike about Portugal winning is it massively highlights what a total joke the group games are under the new format. Not Portugal's fault though.
 
Hold on, look tbf to Portugal they didn't stick 10 behind the ball and play negatively. Their ONE big problem was they lacked a proper Centre Forward and focal point for their attacks. They were the underdogs in the final, but prior to that game they went forward in EVERY game but just didn't have the spark in the final third. Had they had the same tight defence but with a recognised CF they would've displayed a much better attacking flair than they were able to muster in many games.
This seems to be a thing at the moment, lack of quality centre forwards. Look at the lack of strikers at the tournament for the semi-finalists.
Portugal; zero strikers, played with Nani and Ronaldo
France; Giroud (cack) and Gignac (cacker). Of course they would have had Benzema if he wasn't a blackmailing ****
Germany; Only Gomez (ouch)
Wales; Kanu, Vokes etc Championship standard, and then Bale (obviously not a striker)

There was only really England and Belgium that took a group of strikers with good scoring records.
 
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All this talk is a bit harsh on Portugal. They weren't overly negative in final, France were hardly going full throttle, and remember they lost their main goal scorer after 20 minutes.

Yeah ah in other games they weren't great, but apart from France's big win over Iceland they only got through with some last minute goals in their games.

Portugl gal have a population of 10m people. Everyone is banging on about them like they are some European power house but there pool of selection is pretty similar to a lot of the other European mid table teams is inagine. They certainly haven't got the pool to pick from like Spain, France, Germany, England do. Everyone loves Iceland and Wales for being similar and plucky..
I agree.

The point was made before the final that Portugal had had as many attempts on goal in the tournament as France, and yet were viewed as being dull.

The difference was merely that they didn't have a player bang in form up front.

I thought their back 5 were magnificent last night, the 2 full backs pushed on when they could but were also defensively solid, Pepe and Fonte had Giroud in their back pockets and the keeper made a couple of very good saves.
 
This seems to be a thing at the moment, lack of quality centre forwards. Look at the lack of strikers at the tournament for the semi-finalists.
Portugal; zero strikers, played with Nani and Ronaldo
France; Giroud (cack) and Gignac (cacker). Of course they would have had Benzema if he wasn't a blackmailing ****
Germany; Only Gomez (ouch)
Wales; Kanu, Vokes etc Championship standard, and then Bale (obviously not a striker)

There was only really England and Belgium that took a group of strikers with good scoring records.

But we mainly played Kane and Belgium mainly played Lukaku

[HASHTAG]#bottledit[/HASHTAG]

[HASHTAG]#doingalukaku[/HASHTAG]
 
This seems to be a thing at the moment, lack of quality centre forwards. Look at the lack of strikers at the tournament for the semi-finalists.
Portugal; zero strikers, played with Nani and Ronaldo
France; Giroud (cack) and Gignac (cacker). Of course they would have had Benzema if he wasn't a blackmailing ****
Germany; Only Gomez (ouch)
Wales; Kanu, Vokes etc Championship standard, and then Bale (obviously not a striker)

There was only really England and Belgium that took a group of strikers with good scoring records.

I think the lack of wingers across Europe, as we've seen in various leagues, is an even worse situation. Lack of full-backs as well. If you can't break a team down through the middle, it's no surprise that opposition teams are now focusing precisely on stifling the middle of the pitch.
 
Hold on, look tbf to Portugal they didn't stick 10 behind the ball and play negatively. Their ONE big problem was they lacked a proper Centre Forward and focal point for their attacks. They were the underdogs in the final, but prior to that game they went forward in EVERY game but just didn't have the spark in the final third. Had they had the same tight defence but with a recognised CF they would've displayed a much better attacking flair than they were able to muster in many games.

I'm going to have to disagree, they were the masters of pragmatism and by that i mean they hardly went forward. It's smart football but they moved the ball about slowly and it was always the safe option side to side and back. They were brilliantly tactically and defensively though so kudos to them for their euro win
 
I agree.

The point was made before the final that Portugal had had as many attempts on goal in the tournament as France, and yet were viewed as being dull.

The difference was merely that they didn't have a player bang in form up front.

I thought their back 5 were magnificent last night, the 2 full backs pushed on when they could but were also defensively solid, Pepe and Fonte had Giroud in their back pockets and the keeper made a couple of very good saves.

The shots on goal is a bit misleading as Ronaldo was shooting from like 30 yards in the group games, think he'd had more shots than most teams after the 3 games.
 
One of the ****test tournaments I've seen in all honesty.

Poor Quality.
**** format that promoted defending for the draw.
Players under performing in most teams, making teams like Wales and Iceland look good.


Only positive was that the Ref's had a good tournament and Ronaldo got injured by a moth.
 
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One of the ****test tournaments I've seen in all honesty.

Poor Quality.
**** format that promoted defending for the draw.
Players under performing in most teams, making teams like Wales and Iceland look good.


Only positive was that the Ref's had a good tournament and Ronaldo got injured by a moth.

It was sucking his tears away <ok>
 
That Portugal team is terrible. It is on par with Greece winning the thing 12 years ago, only saving grace for them is that Portugal have a few known players, but they played worse than that Greece team.

They're better than that Greece team.

Greece were fill of unknown names. Portugal have a few worldwide known players.
 
That Portugal team is terrible. It is on par with Greece winning the thing 12 years ago, only saving grace for them is that Portugal have a few known players, but they played worse than that Greece team.

Before the final yesterday, Portugal had just as many shots on target throughout the competition as France. That doesn't strike me as being overly negative.
 
Before the final yesterday, Portugal had just as many shots on target throughout the competition as France. That doesn't strike me as being overly negative.

Then you didn't watch them play.

It's like saying Chelsea scored outscored most teams in the first mourinho years and played super attractive attacking football.

They had one great game, the one against Hungary else the rest of the portugal match involved both teams sitting back and portugal passing it between the midfielders and defenders in pretty triangles (to be fair so did most of the opposition they played). I felt Portugal was more negative than most.

All there shots came from ronaldo having pot shots from anywhere really imo