Euro 2012 General Discussion

No, that game was dull. Like Trap's football, with a lot more skill. But essentially dull.

Unless Spain play with strikers, hope the Deutsch come out on top in the next 2 games. And do it with flair.

Here's a pretty extreme negative view on last night's game

http://euro2012.irishexaminer.com/an...ht-198999.html

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Originally Posted by geysir

The first penalty missed last night is not at odds with those statistics.
Those stats go up to 2006.
The missed first penalties from last night would be part another batch of statistics, which may or may not read different to the stats I posted :)

A cricket aficionado (and I am not one) would tell you that a penalty shoot out is not cricket. A cricket commentator would be baffled trying to make head or tail out of what transpires at the end of a drawn semi final. The batting order in a game of cricket is based on certain principles which do not necessarily apply to a penalty shoot out.

Offhand I don't know if there is any particular outstanding approach a team uses towards penalty shoot outs. I certainly have no definite opinions, just an interest. I only suggested a reason as to why Ronaldo went for the 5th one. i don't know why he did, but I doubt if it was that he picked the 5th straw :)
Does a team generally put out their established top penalty taker first, in a penalty shoot out?

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Of course you are assuming that the people who decide the batting order in cricket know what they are talking out.


I think you will frequently find in like that the people who decide such thing know feck all about feck all and are simply their because of who they know.

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Originally Posted by tricky_colour

Of course you are assuming that the people who decide the batting order in cricket know what they are talking out.


It think you will frequently find in like that the people who decide such thing know feck all about feck all and are simply their
because of who they know.

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tricky, it grows darker still for you I see, do you have some tales of misfortune from your time wicketing perhaps? Unburden yourself man.

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Originally Posted by boovidge

It's not quite as simple as that. You have specialist opening batsmen who are good at playing themselves in, steadying the ship and building a platform for the rest of the team. They're not necessarily regarded as the best batsmen in the side. Sometimes tail-enders are promoted up the order so as to protect the wicket of a higher order batsman overnight if a wicket has been taken late in the day.

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Depends on how you define a good batsman, these are the players considered least likely to miss, ie get themselves out.

There is some difference in cricket though because the ball and the conditions change.
The open batsmen generally face the fastest bowling.
If you don't put your best men in here, well you might be 8 wickets down for about 30 runs.

Likewise promoting tail enders up the order might seem like an good idea to protect a better
batsman, but it does not look so clever when the are bowled out and the higher order batsman
has to bat that evening anyway.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

I found it interesting watching how Portugal set out to stop the Spanish. It seemed to me that they were well disciplined without the ball, taking up lines across the pitch, but over and above that they also always had one guy breaking the line to put pressure on the guy in possession. If he didn't make the tackle he went back in to his line and let the next guy along do the pressing as Spain moved it sideways.

The Portuguese also anticipated the next move well, something you need footballing intelligence to do.

We overly rely on just keeping our lines and we're too easy to get through. Even Slovakia got between our lines easily by playing simple one-twos in Dublin.

Can anyone else try and articulate what it was Portugal did that made it effective? How would you describe what to do to your players if you were the coach?

PS: Strachan wasn't fully sure of the Portuguese coach's name on the ITV panel last night. He had to get confirmation on air that it was Bento. Good research Gordon.

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To me it looked like they marked up to cut out passes, I noticed they did not directly mark the wide men, we didn't either
but the difference is they got close enough to their wide men to make a pass to them dangerous, we didn't we left them
plenty of room.

I think someone else said they only marked 2 of their central three, but it may be more the case they marked
such that midfield passing was difficult.
But ultimately if you have better players you will do better whatever system you use.

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Originally Posted by tricky_colour

Of course you are assuming that the people who decide the batting order in cricket know what they are talking out.


I think you will frequently find in like that the people who decide such thing know feck all about feck all and are simply their because of who they know.

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The "thread count whoring" cold turkey has kicked in with a bite.
It's going a bit rough for you Tricky? Just another 6 days to go, will you survive? will we survive?

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Originally Posted by geysir

The "thread count whoring" cold turkey has kicked in with a bite.
It's going a bit rough for you Tricky? Just another 6 days to go, will you survive? will we survive?

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Well I have survived so far.

I have an account on the YBIG forum now anyway so if you are missing me you will find me and (some of) my threads
over there, see if you can spot me ;)

So Italy V Germany, Germany are strong favourites but historically Germany do badly against Italy W0 L3 D4
However I am still struggling to make a case for Italy after drawing with England, however they should have won that
match, so maybe that is the case, they will get a bit of luck an nick it?

Gonna watch the first 10 minutes before deciding on whether to have a small flutter on them though.

Actually I put a small bet on before I started on Italy at 4.5 (7/2)

Be interesting to see if Germany do any better than us!!! :rofl:

My new forum name is Bally O Telly by the way!!

Seems a good choice now!!

Ah we are as bad a Germany.;)

So, after all of the hysteria about our performance, it seems we didn't achieve anything in a group containing the two form teams in Europe.

Shame Germany got one back we can't say we are as bad as Germany now, however Italy could have had a couple more.
We may not be as bad as some think.

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Originally Posted by John83

So, after all of the hysteria about our performance, it seems we didn't achieve anything in a group containing the two form teams in Europe.

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Originally Posted by tricky_colour

Shame Germany got one back we can't say we are as bad as Germany now, however Italy could have had a couple more.
We may not be as bad as some think.

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So the two finalists came from our group just like they did in '88. Unlike in '88, however, we failed to really compete in any match and were pretty much disgracefully awful for probably 240/270 minutes of play.

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Originally Posted by theworm2345

So the two finalists came from our group just like they did in '88. Unlike in '88, however, we failed to really compete in any match and were pretty much disgracefully awful for probably 240/270 minutes of play.

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I don't think it's fair to compare this team to the one from 88, when the finals were much smaller, and so just by qualifying Ireland proved itself a much better side than the current team; of course we could compete - just like any of the quarter-finalists this year could compete.

Well it's still better to look rubbish against the finalists than teams which went out in the quarter finals, every team goes through a bad spell where it plays bad and gets a bit of bad luck, OK we may not be world beaters but then again we may not be quite as bad as some think.

We're easily better the 4th best team in the tournament considering Croatia might have made the semis had they made it out of the group as they were easily better than the losing quarter-finalists. Tongue in check of course :p

If we were drawn in Group A or D, we still might not have made it out of the group but probably would have gotten a few points.

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Originally Posted by John83

I don't think it's fair to compare this team to the one from 88, when the finals were much smaller, and so just by qualifying Ireland proved itself a much better side than the current team; of course we could compete - just like any of the quarter-finalists this year could compete.

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I think the 1/4 finals were lopsided, the top 4 are in the clear. I'd put Croatia in 5th place, ahead of any of the losing 1/4 finalists.