Efestivals Euro football thread

[sisco]

30 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

Maybe set up a page checker ? 

Problem is it’s constantly changing and adding tickets for all the games (from the little I looked this afternoon).  It will constantly be going off over and over

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, sisco said:

Problem is it’s constantly changing and adding tickets for all the games (from the little I looked this afternoon).  It will constantly be going off over and over

ah 😞 plan foiled .... not totally sure how they work but is it not possible to go more specific ? 

[Ryan1984]

One of my friends also got tickets for Tuesday. He’s been watching the site like a hawk and nabbed them. Said they’ve gone up sporadically over time so keep an eye out!

[Hugh Jass]

That 93rd minute Sweden goal has done my group winners bet.

Bastards!

[Hugh Jass]

One interesting facet to Spain fucking it up is that had they won the group they would’ve been our quarter opposition… win the second round and it’s either Sweden or a third place team in Rome.

[found home in 2009]

7 hours ago, Comfy Bean said:

To be fair, his Kilmarnock team finished 3rd in the SPL and were relegated this year.

Croatia are just at a different level. Got to the last World Cup finals and Modric is different class. Fan’s reaction at the end suggests they were happy with the progress Clarke is making.

Great to be back at a tournament after all this time and to see the whole Country getting behind them.

Hopefully not such a long wait till next time. I was at the Czech game and it was a great experience.....if not result 🙈

With Kilmarnock, is that not just because they had a shitty plastic pitch which was a leveller until the other teams got used to it? The same thing happened to Hamilton. Could beat teams at home due to more experience playing on a low quality plastic pitch, then the opposition got used to it and they get relegated.

Worth pointing out that McLeish did most of the work qualifying us for this Euros and Clarke's making a pigs ear of world cup qualification. Plus my main objection is the style of football. We genuinely have good footballers in Robertson(Liverpool CL winner), Tierney(Arsenal), McTominay(Man Utd), Gilmour(Chelsea CL winner), Gauld (how does the guy that won the most man of the match awards in the Portuguese league not even make the squad?), Cooper(Leeds), McGinn(Aston Villa) etc but we just resort to long ball football. Doesn't even make us difficult to beat, surely getting someone to man mark Modric is a no brainer. Or at the very least tell the players to be aware of stopping him shooting from the edge of the box. And playing O'Donnel at right back just because they were mates at Killie when he's so obviously out of his depth. Waits till the game is almost over to make changes in a must win game. 

Stuff this just happy to be at the tournament attitude. They increased the number of teams that qualified by 33% so it's no great achievement. Used to be 16 teams qualified, now 16 teams reach the 2nd round!

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

Has this Germany kit been modelled on the SS uniform? 

[kingcrawler]

33 minutes ago, found home in 2009 said:

With Kilmarnock, is that not just because they had a shitty plastic pitch which was a leveller until the other teams got used to it? The same thing happened to Hamilton. Could beat teams at home due to more experience playing on a low quality plastic pitch, then the opposition got used to it and they get relegated.

Worth pointing out that McLeish did most of the work qualifying us for this Euros and Clarke's making a pigs ear of world cup qualification. Plus my main objection is the style of football. We genuinely have good footballers in Robertson(Liverpool CL winner), Tierney(Arsenal), McTominay(Man Utd), Gilmour(Chelsea CL winner), Gauld (how does the guy that won the most man of the match awards in the Portuguese league not even make the squad?), Cooper(Leeds), McGinn(Aston Villa) etc but we just resort to long ball football. Doesn't even make us difficult to beat, surely getting someone to man mark Modric is a no brainer. Or at the very least tell the players to be aware of stopping him shooting from the edge of the box. And playing O'Donnel at right back just because they were mates at Killie when he's so obviously out of his depth. Waits till the game is almost over to make changes in a must win game. 

Stuff this just happy to be at the tournament attitude. They increased the number of teams that qualified by 33% so it's no great achievement. Used to be 16 teams qualified, now 16 teams reach the 2nd round!

If he only did well with Kilmarnock because of the pitch then why did Angelo Alessio and then Alex Dyer do so poorly in comparison with largely the same squad? I think there's much more to it than that. He did an outstanding job at Kilmarnock and I think the idea that they played awful football is a bit overplayed. Yes they were organised and hard to beat, especially against the bigger teams, but from what I saw they certainly didn't play like that all the time. Even if the football wasn't great quality you certainly can't argue with his record against the old firm, which was W6 D6 L6. A good stat that shows how well he did at Kilmarnock is that he was in charge for 67 league games and picked up 120 points. In the 67 games before that Kilmarnock managed 67 points and in the 67 games after that they only managed 63 points. I get some people aren't keen on him but you can't downplay the job he did at Kilmarnock. 

I agree with you though that Clarke made some pretty big mistakes during this Euros, which rightly deserve criticism. He got the team wrong against Czech Republic and while I was happy enough with the team last night, he was far too slow to make any changes and when he did finally make some they were odd to say the least. As you say, stopping Modric should have been the main plan but he had all the time in the world to dictate the game. I hope this tournament shows that while Dykes has his uses he shouldn't be our main tactic. Adams with a midfield containing the likes of McGinn, Gilmour, Turnbull and Jack when he's back seems a much better fit for me. It's also easy to forget that we managed to bottle the Nations League group by losing the last two games. 

It's frustrating, as Clarke took a fairly average Kilmarnock team and managed to turn them into probably the most organised team in the league, improving players and adding a bit of quality to make them the best of the rest. His record against bigger teams was generally good too. All of those things should be ideal transferable skills to international management but he hasn't quite shown that yet as Scotland manager. He's certainly an improvement on McLeish, while he won the Nations League group we weren't convincing and I don't think McLeish would have beaten Serbia, but overall he has been a slight disappointment for me. 

The triple header in September looks massive now. Two trips to Denmark and Austria and if we want to qualify for at least a play-off we probably need to win one of them given we've dropped points twice already. Not convinced we will do it though!

Edit: Hungary's form in this group isn't doing much to make me feel better about our performance.

Edited June 23, 2021 by kingcrawler

[Comfy Bean]

45 minutes ago, found home in 2009 said:

With Kilmarnock, is that not just because they had a shitty plastic pitch which was a leveller until the other teams got used to it? The same thing happened to Hamilton. Could beat teams at home due to more experience playing on a low quality plastic pitch, then the opposition got used to it and they get relegated.

Worth pointing out that McLeish did most of the work qualifying us for this Euros and Clarke's making a pigs ear of world cup qualification. Plus my main objection is the style of football. We genuinely have good footballers in Robertson(Liverpool CL winner), Tierney(Arsenal), McTominay(Man Utd), Gilmour(Chelsea CL winner), Gauld (how does the guy that won the most man of the match awards in the Portuguese league not even make the squad?), Cooper(Leeds), McGinn(Aston Villa) etc but we just resort to long ball football. Doesn't even make us difficult to beat, surely getting someone to man mark Modric is a no brainer. Or at the very least tell the players to be aware of stopping him shooting from the edge of the box. And playing O'Donnel at right back just because they were mates at Killie when he's so obviously out of his depth. Waits till the game is almost over to make changes in a must win game. 

Stuff this just happy to be at the tournament attitude. They increased the number of teams that qualified by 33% so it's no great achievement. Used to be 16 teams qualified, now 16 teams reach the 2nd round!

It’s very much against my nature to defend Kilmarnock but thought it was worth pointing out earlier the job he did getting them to 3rd.

I’m pretty certain the players were advised to get close to Modric, especially round about the box as you say but sometimes you’ve just got to hold your hand up. The guy was different class last night.

Lots of good players coming through and the majority of the team at a good age. A keeper and a striker coming through would be nice.

If not Clarke, who do you fancy to take us forward ?

[Hugh Jass]

Germany it is then.

They are beatable.

[Hugh Jass]

We’re going to get loads of shite about the wars in the tabloids, aren’t we?

[Chapple12345]

Genuinely after seeing Germany play this tournament Tuesday should be winnable for England 

[found home in 2009]

16 minutes ago, Comfy Bean said:

It’s very much against my nature to defend Kilmarnock but thought it was worth pointing out earlier the job he did getting them to 3rd.

I’m pretty certain the players were advised to get close to Modric, especially round about the box as you say but sometimes you’ve just got to hold your hand up. The guy was different class last night.

Lots of good players coming through and the majority of the team at a good age. A keeper and a striker coming through would be nice.

If not Clarke, who do you fancy to take us forward ?

Modric was great, but he had lots of space all game. We made it easy for him.

I do admit your last question is a problem. It's not a glamorous job and don't think the SFA have much money. Wish we had someone like Desmond and O'Brien with Ireland or Abrahamovic with Russia who was willing to fund their countries getting top managers.  

[waltere]

23 minutes ago, Hugh Jass said:

Germany it is then.

They are beatable.

Agreed, and asides from Germany our half of the draw doesn't particularly scare me at all, especially with Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy all on the other side

[Memory Man]

Whisper it but there is a plausible route to the final

germany > sweden > netherlands

each decent enough but equally not that daunting. Kind of like england themselves. 

winning the group has got us away from france, italy, belgium and was always the best course of action. Whoever wins that side of the draw likely wins the tournament

[Ryan1984]

30 minutes ago, Memory Man said:

Whisper it but there is a plausible route to the final

germany > sweden > netherlands

each decent enough but equally not that daunting. Kind of like england themselves. 

winning the group has got us away from france, italy, belgium and was always the best course of action. Whoever wins that side of the draw likely wins the tournament

I was going to say - potentially some cracking quarter finals in store on the ‘other’ side.

Nothing to fear from Germany. They feel like they’re in a bit of a transition phase and surely it’s written in the stars for Southgate to beat the Germans at Wembley 25 years (and 4 days) since that penalty…

[squirrelarmy]

Interesting chart showing the position changes during the last 2 games. 
 

[Ryan1984]

Has the ticket site been down for everyone else all day?

[balthazarstarbuck]

2 minutes ago, Ryan1984 said:

Has the ticket site been down for everyone else all day?

I mean there’s nothing on it, but I’ve checked it every hour and it hasn’t been down.

[jump]

20 hours ago, Hugh Jass said:

We’re going to get loads of shite about the wars in the tabloids, aren’t we?

Would you prefer it to be about Brexit instead?

[Hugh Jass]

18 minutes ago, jump said:

Would you prefer it to be about Brexit instead?

I suspect one will link into the other.

[nikkic]

21 hours ago, Hugh Jass said:

We’re going to get loads of shite about the wars in the tabloids, aren’t we?

Thankfully didn’t hear any of the “10 German Bombers” chant on Tuesday. 

Suspect it’ll get an airing next week unfortunately. 

[Hugh Jass]

Just now, nikkic said:

Thankfully didn’t hear any of the “10 German Bombers” chant on Tuesday. 

Suspect it’ll get an airing next week unfortunately. 

We’ll get the whole repertoire I’m sure.

Got my ticket through - Block 118. Colour me pumped.

[Hugh Jass]

Still hopeful of getting a ticket for the semi too. Originally had one but lost it in the ballot, hoping that those who did lose tickets are given first crack now the capacity has been upped.

[philipsteak]

21 hours ago, Hugh Jass said:

We’re going to get loads of shite about the wars in the tabloids, aren’t we?

And as much as I want England to win, they'll be fucking grim if we do. Some poor intern is editing a photo of Merkel as we speak