Euro 2016 Opponent Watch (Group E - Sweden, Belgium & Italy)

These threads are pretty handy, right? Sweden beat Finland 3-0 in a strangely timed friendly today. Presumably the vast majority of their usual team were unavailable. Something that I haven't seen mentioned at all, and had kind of forgotten myself, is that Sweden are the reigning UEFA U-21 champions. They'll surely have a gem or two unearthed from that side by the time the Euros come along, if they haven't already? We seemed to take Serbia's underage success far more seriously when the WC qualifying draw was made for some reason.

Yesterday? Are you sure...Whats the young one doing in the black top, she must be freezing!

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

Yesterday? Are you sure...

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Yeah, they must be experimenting with some fringe players from their domestic league or something while they're in the off-season. The played Estonia a few days ago also and drew 1-1.

Some more on the Finland game.

Nasty injury for Vertonghen, although you'd imagine he should be okay for the summer.

up to 8 weeks for the Vertornater.

It seems De Bruyne's injury isn't as bad as first feared.

Indeed. 6 weeks:

https://twitter.com/HLNinEngeland/st...23841735475201

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Originally Posted by Deckydee

Indeed. 6 weeks:

https://twitter.com/HLNinEngeland/st...23841735475201

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balls

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Originally Posted by Deckydee

Indeed. 6 weeks:

https://twitter.com/HLNinEngeland/st...23841735475201

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Reported as 10 weeks now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35425113

Confirmed as ten weeks by the player himself: https://twitter.com/DeBruyneKev/stat...18956743229440

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Just got back from the specialist. I'll be out for around 10 weeks.

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I wonder is that 10 weeks and he is back playing or is that 10 weeks and he can resume training?

Kilbane: "Ireland as good as Italy"

Oddly enough, the article is about making tomato sauce.

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Originally Posted by DeLorean

Kilbane: "Ireland as good as Italy"

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Enough of the 6 Nations, what does he think about the Euros?

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Originally Posted by DeLorean

Kilbane: "Ireland as good as Italy"

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He picks out only two players where we might be stronger: Darmian — he’s not as good as Seamus Coleman and up front, Pelle is not as good as Shane Long (although the Italian has a better scoring record at Soton) but he is silent on the rest. Being better in 2 positions and weaker in 9 doesn't make us as good as them. Strangely enough, the bookies don't agree with him. They're 18/1 for the tournament and we're 125/1

I was thinking the same thing myself, two marginal calls in our favour is hardly a significant sample size to enforce his point. One thing is for certain I think, if we were in their qualifying group instead of them, there would have been zero chance of us winning seven and drawing three of our ten games. They aren't the most formidable looking Italian side of all time but they're comfortably better than us. Given Germany's relatively average form since the World Cup and Spain losing their invincibility tag, 18/1 could be fairly decent value.

Kompany went off early last night with a recurrence of the calf injury which kept him out for so much of this season. BBC Sport

Vertonghen is hoping to be involved in Tottenham's trip to Anfield on the 2nd April. Evening Standard

Benteke not certain of Euro 2016 place. ESPN.com

http://youtu.be/j1jaw4ICP2U

Player ratings from Italy's 1-1 draw with Spain last night.

Sweden lost 2 -1 to Turkey, somewhere away from Istanbul.
FFs to the Swedes for going there despite possible security issues.
Not much to report (as Zlatan did not play) the Swedes were rearguardish from the turkish tv highlights I saw. They started with 3 relatively new senior internationals, including Guidetti who is pushing Marcus Berg for a starting spot.