We interupt this conference liveblog for me to talk about something that's been bothering me. The group stage of Euro 2016 qualification finished this week. England were the first team to qualify, and have become I think only the sixth team ever in European Championship qualifying to notch a 100% record. However, pretty much all discussion of England's campaign has been met with "well, they had an easy group". And, while I'm not claiming they got a hard group, I don't think this really stands up to scrutiny.
Showing posts with label Football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Football. Show all posts
Thursday, 15 October 2015
Monday, 25 June 2012
Italy 0 - 0 England
So, as I predicted before the tournament began, England fell at the last eight. I've also explained previously why that's not a very bold bet. In the end, the old failings doomed us; an inability to keep possession or take penalties.
As for the game itself, few of England's players performed well. Rooney looked consistently off the pace and lacking match practice (as he is). Young had another bad game to round out a bad tournament for him. Gerrard has had a good tournament, but didn't do much tonight. England's back five did manage to show up. Johnson in particular put in another excellent performance to justify his place in the team, and had probably England's best chance of the match early in the first half.
For Italy, Pirlo was unsurprisingly the maestro, pulling all the strings. Balotelli was unpredictable, but ultimately ineffectual.
The problem I find is that as much as I don't expect England to win games like this, I do hope that they might. And that hope, that stake makes watching them play very tense. Indeed, I had to pass on the shoot out, and just look up the result later!
As for the game itself, few of England's players performed well. Rooney looked consistently off the pace and lacking match practice (as he is). Young had another bad game to round out a bad tournament for him. Gerrard has had a good tournament, but didn't do much tonight. England's back five did manage to show up. Johnson in particular put in another excellent performance to justify his place in the team, and had probably England's best chance of the match early in the first half.
For Italy, Pirlo was unsurprisingly the maestro, pulling all the strings. Balotelli was unpredictable, but ultimately ineffectual.
The problem I find is that as much as I don't expect England to win games like this, I do hope that they might. And that hope, that stake makes watching them play very tense. Indeed, I had to pass on the shoot out, and just look up the result later!
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
England 1 - 0 Ukraine
Sadly, I wasn't able to see the last match of the group stages, because I'm at work. So I can't offer any meaningful thoughts on the game itself. But we see that England have qualified for the quarter-finals, as I predicted, and won the group, as I did not.
In the build up to the tournament, there was a lot of pessimism about England's chances. In particular, many people seemed to predict that they would fail to make it out of the group. My prediction was bold in that it went against that consensus, but conservative in that it followed history. In the nine European Championships since the finals were expanded to eight teams, England have reached the last eight six times; only Germany, the Netherlands and Spain have a better record (and France and Portugal an equal one). The problem with England has always been getting beyond that stage, which we only managed in 1996. The five other teams I mentioned have all made the semi-finals at least three times, with the exception of Spain who only managed it twice (again, only counting finals since 1980). In short, getting to the quarter-finals is the "typical" English performance.
In the build up to the tournament, there was a lot of pessimism about England's chances. In particular, many people seemed to predict that they would fail to make it out of the group. My prediction was bold in that it went against that consensus, but conservative in that it followed history. In the nine European Championships since the finals were expanded to eight teams, England have reached the last eight six times; only Germany, the Netherlands and Spain have a better record (and France and Portugal an equal one). The problem with England has always been getting beyond that stage, which we only managed in 1996. The five other teams I mentioned have all made the semi-finals at least three times, with the exception of Spain who only managed it twice (again, only counting finals since 1980). In short, getting to the quarter-finals is the "typical" English performance.
Thursday, 14 June 2012
Ignorant Commentators
I've been watching the Germany-Netherlands game on TSN, and the commentator has on several occasions talked about the importance of goal difference.
The first tie breaker in European competitions is head to head results. In particular, in the relevant cases for Group B---where Germany, Portugal and Denmark end on 6 points; or the Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark on 3---the scoreline in this match will only be relevant if either Denmark beat Germany 3-2, or the Netherlands beat Portugal 3-2, and the other results go appropriately.
I mean, this is only the way UEFA has done things for at least a decade, I can see why it might be hard to figure out.
The first tie breaker in European competitions is head to head results. In particular, in the relevant cases for Group B---where Germany, Portugal and Denmark end on 6 points; or the Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark on 3---the scoreline in this match will only be relevant if either Denmark beat Germany 3-2, or the Netherlands beat Portugal 3-2, and the other results go appropriately.
I mean, this is only the way UEFA has done things for at least a decade, I can see why it might be hard to figure out.
England 1 France 1
I know I'm a bit late, but I thought I'd comment on England's Euro 2012 opener. In general, I though England's performance was okay; not great, certainly room for improvement, but not bad either. In particular, it was good to see England play like a team rather than eleven individuals. I also thought Gerrard had one of his better performances in an England shirt for a while. Defensively, England were pretty solid. Despite the French dominating possession, they had few real clear chances and only scored through a moment of brilliance from Nasri. Offensively, England did not show too much but did have probably the best chance of the match, when Milner was put through by Young.
Friday, 8 June 2012
Euro 2012
The European Championships start tomorrow (in my time zone). I've been looking forward to this for some time; for one thing, international tournaments are easy for to find (legally) online. (In contrast, my home team -- Plymouth Argyle -- aren't easy to watch regularly in Vancouver). Also, the last European Championships four years ago was one of the best tournaments I've ever seen, only beaten by Euro 96 for personal reasons. So, with everything about to kick off, I thought I'd offer a few predictions to embarrass myself with later.
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