Match 40: Belgium V Portugal - 8pm (BST) ITV live from Seville

[Marius_R]

This is what Baggio said about pundits a few months ago. 

“I don’t like to judge the others, I don’t go on TV. I see former colleagues who act as professors, but I remember they couldn’t  do three kick-ups even with their hands.”

He's right about some of them, and this Euro has seen a s**tload of bad punditry. Everywhere, by the sound of it. I can't even get myself to watch any of the pre and post-match show, because it's just cringeworthy. 

 

 

 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Marius_R

[Weezer]

Premier League defences must be worse than we thought, Bruno and Jota look different players for Portugal. And not for the better.

[Tikka Mezzala]

I was hoping to see more background to all the countries on the build up to the first games in the group stage. I really like learning about the history of football in different countries. In terms of punditry, there can be valuable input that makes you think, but most of it just feels like it's passing the time. "What about that first goal, Rio?" "Oh yeah, terrific finish. Poor defending, but take nothing away from the striker. Hitting it on the turn like that's not easy." Sure. Sure. That's not intended to reflect solely on Rio Ferdinand, btw. Just an example of some of the banal **** you get in an average half-time/full-time analysis. 

I know SkySports have gone all out for the Premier League games and you can get over an hour of build-up and analysis, with Neville and Carragher messing about with a big screen, trying to work out how every goal could have been stopped by the defending teams. Some people enjoy it. No problems there. These things can be big opinion shapers. 

I used to like the La Liga coverage on Sky Sports with Mark Bolton, Guillem Balague and the rolling guests (usually with Graham Hunter too). Loved to watch the 'Guapa' section on Revista de la Liga every week: the best skills from the weekend's games. Then you'd hear about all the crazy **** Mourinho had been up to that week and everyone would wax lyrical about Xavi, Iniesta and Messi (understandably). 

 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Tikka Mezzala

[Yuko]

12 minutes ago, Weezer said:

Premier League defences must be worse than we thought, Bruno and Jota look different players for Portugal. And not for the better.

Club football has deteriorated significantly over the years. 

This also allows players at top (wealthy) clubs to have a lot more chances all the time, more time on the ball and as a result, inflated stats. 

PL defenses were never really a strong point, but international football is somewhere you still find some sort of parity or at least challenge. Defenses all over Europe are getting worse as well, not just a PL trait and if anything PL doesn't look as bad as the leagues of Italy or Germany these days. 

[VamPook]

Not really bout the defences right, Jota just been missing really clear chances

[DJ]

1 hour ago, Yuko said:

Club football has deteriorated significantly over the years. 

This also allows players at top (wealthy) clubs to have a lot more chances all the time, more time on the ball and as a result, inflated stats. 

PL defenses were never really a strong point, but international football is somewhere you still find some sort of parity or at least challenge. Defenses all over Europe are getting worse as well, not just a PL trait and if anything PL doesn't look as bad as the leagues of Italy or Germany these days. 

As financial unfair play has concentrated the best players at fewer clubs, the rest of the clubs look worse. 

And with VAR, defenses look worse because they no longer get away with the absolute dirt they used to (if a completely out of form Brych isn't the ref, that is).

[The_jagster]

2 hours ago, Tikka Mezzala said:

I was hoping to see more background to all the countries on the build up to the first games in the group stage. I really like learning about the history of football in different countries. In terms of punditry, there can be valuable input that makes you think, but most of it just feels like it's passing the time. "What about that first goal, Rio?" "Oh yeah, terrific finish. Poor defending, but take nothing away from the striker. Hitting it on the turn like that's not easy." Sure. Sure. That's not intended to reflect solely on Rio Ferdinand, btw. Just an example of some of the banal **** you get in an average half-time/full-time analysis. 

I know SkySports have gone all out for the Premier League games and you can get over an hour of build-up and analysis, with Neville and Carragher messing about with a big screen, trying to work out how every goal could have been stopped by the defending teams. Some people enjoy it. No problems there. These things can be big opinion shapers. 

I used to like the La Liga coverage on Sky Sports with Mark Bolton, Guillem Balague and the rolling guests (usually with Graham Hunter too). Loved to watch the 'Guapa' section on Revista de la Liga every week: the best skills from the weekend's games. Then you'd hear about all the crazy **** Mourinho had been up to that week and everyone would wax lyrical about Xavi, Iniesta and Messi (understandably). 

 

If my trial subscription to The Athletic taught me anything, it's that in depth features about players I don't particularly care about can be incredibly dull.

But I would have liked a bit more from ITV about the Czech team, for a nationwide broadcast I do accept "it's difficult".

[Weezer]

2 hours ago, Yuko said:

Club football has deteriorated significantly over the years. 

This also allows players at top (wealthy) clubs to have a lot more chances all the time, more time on the ball and as a result, inflated stats. 

PL defenses were never really a strong point, but international football is somewhere you still find some sort of parity or at least challenge. Defenses all over Europe are getting worse as well, not just a PL trait and if anything PL doesn't look as bad as the leagues of Italy or Germany these days. 

Maybe so. I find it strange though that international managers seem able to organise defences better in a few weeks than clubs, with better squads and individuals on paper, manage when the players are together most of the year?

Or maybe the defences just look stronger in international football because the attack they’re facing is similarly disorganised from lack of time together, and also not as stacked with talent as top clubs.

[skybluedave]

Maybe building a stronger defence in a short time is easier then building a fluid attack. Hence we are seeing a few conservative sides (England, Portugal, Belguim etc) as opposed to Brazil 1970 anymore. 

[ArsenalFan7]

Embarrassing attack by Keane, Joao Felix was probably Portugal’s biggest attacking threat towards the end, they definitely looked better when he came onto the pitch.

Maybe don’t give him his first minutes of the tournament when you’re chasing a tie in the knockouts if you want him to be at his very best? Finally, he’s 21 and had the confidence to actually step up and take that final shot, so he can sod off slating the kid, it wasn’t even a bad attempt.

[Lucas]

3 minutes ago, ArsenalFan7 said:

Maybe don’t give him his first minutes of the tournament when you’re chasing a tie in the knockouts if you want him to be at his very best? Finally, he’s 21 and had the confidence to actually step up and take that final shot, so he can sod off slating the kid, it wasn’t even a bad attempt.

Felix has literally been in the Portuguese squad for 2 years now already and moved for over £100M. Hardly a kid fresh off the block.

[ArsenalFan7]

But still, fair dos for going for it in that moment instead of passing the responsibility onto Ronaldo or another like so many others would.

[GunmaN1905]

6 minutes ago, skybluedave said:

Maybe building a stronger defence in a short time is easier then building a fluid attack. Hence we are seeing a few conservative sides (England, Portugal, Belguim etc) as opposed to Brazil 1970 anymore. 

It's all about the type of players you have at your disposal and the way kids are taught football these days.

It's all about tactics and minimizing the risk taken.

Noone can convince me that a Portugese team with all those class players couldn't have played better.
Or even France that plays a style stereotypical for Italy.

Even Spain at their peak was an extremely conservative team that mostly cared about not conceding, it's just that they did it by not losing possession, instead of defending without the ball.

2006-2014 Germany was probably the most attacking team out of all actual contenders in the last 15 years.

It's way easier to win consistently with more conservative tactics than going attacking. I don't think NT coaches have enough time to establish an attacking style of football unless the players have been together for a long time, like Belgium or if most of them are from the same couple of teams, like Spain was.

Mancini did great over the past few year establishing an attacking culture. Even if they fail this tournament, they're going to be back to where Italy usually was over the next 5-10 years.

[Yuko]

17 minutes ago, Weezer said:

Maybe so. I find it strange though that international managers seem able to organise defences better in a few weeks than clubs, with better squads and individuals on paper, manage when the players are together most of the year?

Or maybe the defences just look stronger in international football because the attack they’re facing is similarly disorganised from lack of time together, and also not as stacked with talent as top clubs.

It's a level playing field. 

 

When a team like Manchester City has 20 of the 100 best players, that means that their opponents more likely do not have even 1 top 100 player, maybe barely a couple or top 200 players. 

With national teams you don't have this. You have De Bruyne playing against his teammates Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, but you had him playing with a Vermaelen that plays in Japan and Ruben Dias was playing next to a 38 year old Pepe. The subs were guys like Carrasco, Sergio Oliveira, Dendoncker and Andre Silva. Not Mahrez, Aguero, Gundogan and Ferran Torres. 

 

Depth matters a lot and most of these NTs aren't that deep..

You can also see with Europe how the geopolitical change has inflated stats of players. Almost all scoring records are from players that are active or were active until recently. In the past you had Cyprus, Luxembourg, Albania, maybe Turkey, Finland and Norway to batter. Now even these countries have someone else to batter with the San Marino, Andorra, Faroe, Gibraltar teams and contenders like Yugoslavia, Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia have been broken up, making it easier to score against Bosnia and Slovenia in one game than it was to score against Yugoslavia in 3 games. And I'm not even going in depth about the toughness of marking, we saw both Palhinha and Pepe use 70s style defending last night. Imagine that being the norm, 4/5 of the viewers were probably appalled by that

 

The same reason why Messi doesn't score a ton of goals for Argentina as he does for Barcelona. South American football has been constant, whereas the European stars now enjoy having to face more minnows and some tend to play a lot more games than their predecessors.

[Tikka Mezzala]

51 minutes ago, The_jagster said:

If my trial subscription to The Athletic taught me anything, it's that in depth features about players I don't particularly care about can be incredibly dull.

But I would have liked a bit more from ITV about the Czech team, for a nationwide broadcast I do accept "it's difficult".

I don't mind it. I read a good article in the Athletic about that Canadian striker that moved to Belgium. I think he might be at Lille now? Quite enjoyed learning about what it's like trying to make it in Canada. 

 

[Baptista_8]

3 hours ago, Barry Cartman said:

Keane's argument seemed to be, if you hit the target theres a chance the goalkeeper ****s up, but if you aim for a corner and put it wide, you should be shot 

If so, that's an even worse argument. You have a much higher chance of scoring aiming for a corner than hoping for a keeper **** up.

[cyclonus1010]

Well, a shot on target has a significant chance of going in compared to a shot off target

[sc91]

3 hours ago, Weezer said:

Premier League defences must be worse than we thought, Bruno and Jota look different players for Portugal. And not for the better.

That was the Jota we know, just so happened that his injuries meant Liverpool got him in his purple patches, watching him play for Portugal was a reminder of 'ahh, there's Jota.'

[Baptista_8]

2 hours ago, cyclonus1010 said:

Well, a shot on target has a significant chance of going in compared to a shot off target

What? Did I say a shot off target?

If you aim shots 10 powerful shots towards the corner and 10 powerful shots at the keeper, yes, some towards the corner may go off target, but I'd say you'd score more aiming for the corner.

[Weezer]

3 hours ago, Yuko said:

And I'm not even going in depth about the toughness of marking, we saw both Palhinha and Pepe use 70s style defending last night. Imagine that being the norm, 4/5 of the viewers were probably appalled by that

I’m all for that tbf. I love defenders like Pepe and Ramos. Absolute ****-house *****  They’re a dying breed unfortunately.

The game needs more players like them. Not enough characters in the game now, it’s becoming very boring. Pepe smashing attackers last night is the only entertainment you get from boring sides like Portugal.

[Yuko]

10 minutes ago, Weezer said:

I’m all for that tbf. I love defenders like Pepe and Ramos. Absolute ****-house *****  They’re a dying breed unfortunately.

The game needs more players like them. Not enough characters in the game now, it’s becoming very boring. Pepe smashing attackers last night is the only entertainment you get from boring sides like Portugal.

You would like the Libertadores, the Sudamericana and lucky you, the Copa America is on. Last night's game was a tribute to a match up between a fringe side from the Peruvian and Paraguayan leagues.

[Weezer]

I would normally watch Copa America but with the Euros on as well it’s just too much football  

[GunmaN1905]

30 minutes ago, Weezer said:

I would normally watch Copa America but with the Euros on as well it’s just too much football  

Groups have been useless, 2 groups of 5 teams with 4 qualifying from each group.

Knockout phase will be good.

[craigcwwe]

He seems to like doing this.