OT: European Championships - Group C and D Final Day, 12:00pm and 3:00pm EDT ESPN and ESPN2
Croatia - Spain is a battle for 1st place. Germany - N Ireland is an interesting match since a NI win could jump them from 3rd to 1st. Ukraine hasn't shown much of a pulse and should provide Poland a victory which would keep them in 1st.
In the Czech - Turkey match, a Chech win would put them through to the knockout rounds.
Croatia-Spain maybe a preview of the semis or finals, depending on the brackets.
Croatia may have the most talented midfield in the world. La Armada is picking up steam (and haven't conceded in like 7 matches now), De Gea is outplaying Neur in the "best keeper of the world".
Rest of today's matches are snoozers.
La Armada is picking up steam (and haven't conceded in like 7 matches now)Didn't Spain lose its final pre-tournament game?
sorry should have stated competitive matches (euro, WC qualifying) and not friendlies.
Maybe the standings I'm looking at are wrong but the one I see shows Poland in second since Germany has a better goal differential.
Correct - both Germany and Poland have 4 points but Germany GD of 2 puts them in 1st. I think Poland has the easier path to 7 points, and an eventual higher GD.
Germany, Spain, and Italy may be the class of the tournament though. I don't think France has looked dominant enough to pull out a home team tourny win
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I think some of that is the expanded field and the fact that some 3rd place teams are moving on. Teams are being more cautious knowing that they don't need to take the same risks to move on. Desperation leads to open matches which lead to exciting matches.
I hope the knockout stages will be better. I'm almost sure it will be better.
You are seeing a lot of the lower-ranked teams "parking the bus" and trying to hit a lucky counter.
England-Slovakia comes to mind, as does Germany-Poland. 70% possession for one team, lots of shots, few quality chances.
England/Slovakia is the perfect example. They were basically playing 5-4-1 the entire match. And it worked.
"parking the bus" and trying to hit a lucky counter
Don't knock it. It's our (USA) only hope tonight.
Park the bus, play long ball, hope for a couple of lucky breakthroughs that lead to set-pieces, play for Penalties.
Just like the good old USA days.
Where have you gone Jozy Altidore?
Not knocking it, it just makes for...less than exciting matches. Except if you watch Italy do it; those fuckers are the absolute masters of strangling the life out of your attack, and hitting you on the counter.
by saying I don't follow soccer as close as some of the people on the blog, but with the expansion to 24 teams it doesn't seem like there's a lot of 'marquee' matchups in the group stages. In 2012 you had one group with Portugal, Germany and the Netherlands. In 2008 you had Netherlands, Italy and France in one group.
Also with the expansion to 16 teams advancing to the knockout stage, there are only 8 teams that don't advance. To me the big incentive in the group stage now becomes just don't lose.
The Netherlands not qualifying has something to do with that as well.
not to mention the matches are terrible due to 2/3 of teams advancing. I stopped watching after a few games and i won't watch any more group stage of any tournament where more than half the teams advance
*sweating bullets about tonight's USA match*
I may do a blyve blog for the USA game tonight...
Why?
US is playing with house money. We are in the semis, Mexico crashed out looking horrible, up against the top team in the world.
Everyone expects the US to get creamed (including myself). Keep it close, it's a win for the US. Pull off an upset, a win for the ages for US soccer, especially in a major tournament.
True - just don't want to get Brazil'd or Mexico'd
Chile-Mexico was glorious.
But also terrifying. Wish Wood wasn't suspended; him and Deuce up front could have really put some pressure on the only weak spot Argentina has; their back 4.
MESSI DOESN'T STAND A CHANCE!
. . . of playing the whole match.
...of not playing in the finals.
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Watching what Argentina did to Venezuela and Chile did to Mexico, we can take a lesson: Don't try to be who you are not (yet).
We are not going to press forward on those teams. Forget it. We're not going to run with them.
Play defense and counters and hope for set pieces. Like it or not, that's where we are against those particular teams. No shame in that, so is 99% of the world.
Mexico just didn't realize it.
I hate tournaments that start with 24 teams and then play the group stages just to get down to 16, it makes the group stages boring and relatively meaningless. You play 36 games to go from 24 teams down to 16 teams. Then you play 15 games to go from 16 teams to 1 team. Makes no sense.
A better format is to go from 24 all the way to 8, so that only group winners and top 2 non-winners advance. This would make the group stages awesome and more cuttroat.
Another option would be to go down from 24 to 12 (top 2 in each group advance) and let the best 4 group winners (based on points with GD tiebreaker) get a bye. That would be cool too to introduce byes.
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I don't have a problem with this format. Entering the final game of group play, 22 of the 24 teams had something to play for, as only one team (Italy) had clinched its group and one (Ukraine) had been eliminated. If you only allow eight or 12 teams to advance, you end up with a lot more deadweight matchups now.
It's true that there haven't been a ton of great games (though there have been many great finishes). One factor that hasn't gotten a lot of mention (at least not in the English-language press, from what I can tell) is the terrible condition of most of the fields. The French-language media is making a huge deal of this. Almost every field has divots and dead areas, and footing is a problem for a lot of players. (The main exceptions are the Parc des Princes in Paris and the Lyon stadium.) France built/renovated a bunch of stadiums for this event but didn't bring in quality groundskeepers. Crazy.
maybe mathematically clinched, but some 79/81 teams with 4 points have advanced in this format. So teams with 4 points knew they'd advance and used subs like england, teams with 3 points (other than wales) just parked the bus, and ultimately it's crap to see a 1-2 team move on. That right there is why i don't watch pro sports seasons. In fact it's even possible to see a team that scores 0 goals advance (3 ties)
No, I mean that Italy clinched first place in its group. They weren't the only team to have clinched qualification (several other teams had also done that) but were the only ones who knew where they'd be placed in the round of 16. The rest had yet to determine where in their group they'd finish.
There can be a big difference between finishing first and second; Spain and England just found that out the hard way.
it'd be more defensible if there were 24 quality teams, but there's not. Hell, i doubt there's even 16 worthy. Most of the knockout games will be solid (italy-spain!), but there's still teams left like N ireland that just look the shit. Did they even get a single shot *attempt* today?
Something weird is going on with embedding or I've lost my mind. This is pretty great from the NI fans the other day
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The Northern Ireland federation is the successor to the old all-island federation, which wore green.
They've historically had green/white home jerseys. The blue strip across the chest had people all upset.
Low is a weird dude
C'mon, who wouldn't do this in front of 50,000 people? S'fun!
Perhaps his balls, like mine, take on the soothing aroma of pine needles under stressful conditions.
Yes. You can also find a youtube of him smelling his ass during the same game.
Here is a vine of Loew picking his nose, and then immediately shaking the hand of Christiano Ronaldo.
This could be 3-0, 4-0.
Germany's midfield is absolutely shredding apart the N.Ireland defense. Two posts, scuffed shot by Gomez with a wide-open net.
Germany played its last game (against Poland) on one of the worst playing surfaces in the tournament - the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. They are now playing on one of the best - the Parc des Princes in Paris. They look much crisper today. Now obviously, they're playing a different opponent and the stakes are different. But it's interesting nonetheless.
Poland-Ukraine is OTOH being played on another terrible field, at the Velodrome in Marseille, and it's a typically sloppy mess of a game so far Unfortunately, the Velodrome and Stade de France are going to host a bunch of the knockout games.
We're the Ulster boys... Makin' all the noise!
Everywhere we goooooooo!"
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I'd pay ESPN for a fan cam on their end. Incredible support.
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Pulling for the underdogs.
Go USA
Croatia wins the Group.