The Official EURO 2012 thread

[Leeds Spur]

Just browsing through and thought I'd reply with my thoughts as to why they are so good (as I live here).

In my opinion the main thing is that there are so many facilities for every sport here (much more facilities than demand) that it seems engrained in society that sport is a cheap / fun activity. Basically anyone interested in sport can practice it for free / cheap and with great facilities / coaches.

For example, I play football once a week on an amazing quality synthetic grass pitch that we can use for free and is fully maintained every day - the same thing in London would cost a fortune to hire + prob be booked out. The same applies to coaches, who are much more accessible (less difference between amateur setup + pro setup). I went to my local tennis club the other day as I heard they do circuit training - found out it's run by a fairly well known tennis coach and a couple of pro 19 year old russian tennis players go there - crazy as only a handful of people use it and anyone can go along.

The main reason for this is that the government basically dish out free money to any sports projects - as far as I can tell pretty much every project gets money if they ask. As an example, a town near me cannot afford to pay for police cars to be serviced so the police have to walk and take the bus, yet, they are building a brand new kids adventure area with tennis courts and football pitch. Crazy!

The thinking is that the priority of the government is to provide for the people & the relative cost of this projects + benefits they bring is nothing compared to the money wasted on inefficiency and general government guff. They have a point.

Another consequence is that the average joe (or average Juan) prob does more sport as facilities are around you all the time.

See no reason why the same thing wouldn't work in the UK. Could prob organise it better there too, to ensure a better spread of facilities.

The weather is a huge factor.

People go out and exercise when it's sunny and pleasant.

The fact it tinkles down all the time goes against us.

But we still have far more global sporting success than Spain....

 

[Modric THFC]

Technical players in Britain and Ireland are told at a young age to play out the wing.
In south America and Southern Europe they are trusted to play in the centre.

That is why we never seen these type of players here.

 

[Rorschach]

Technical players in Britain and Ireland are told at a young age to play out the wing.
In south America and Southern Europe they are trusted to play in the centre.

That is why we never seen these type of players here.

I think some of it is to do with the age they put the kids into competitive matches. It's way too early. The Barca kids don't play competitively until they are 12-13. This delay allows the smaller kids to flourish and brings technical ability to the fore over physical attributes. I see it with my own kids that the 'big for his age kid' can dominate the matches. At a young age a kids speed and size can overcome his technical deficiencies.

The coaches have to break out of this 'get it up the pitch' bollox that is shouted from the sidelines. Until that happens things will remain as is.

 

[indianspur]

Seen it yet?

 

[Jurgen the German]

Do people honestly think Terry, Gerrard, Lampard, Cole and Barry WONT be in the squad for the World Cup? We have this discussion every time England get knocked out, should we discard the older players, but nothing changes. I'd put money on all of them being in the squad at the very least.

And I really don't buy the notion that Jack Wheelchair is going to solve all of our problems. He's one player!! Not saying he isn't a decent player but would the English media be raving about him if he wasn't English? People are already comparing him to Iniesta and Pirlo!!

Some of the other players that others have mentioned aren't going to make much of a difference either; Rodwell, Welbeck bascially just runs around, same for Milner, Walcott still isn't consistent enough for club or country.

 

[Mumorn]

The reason Wheelchair was probably compared to them was because during Arsenal's win over Barca a few years back, he ran the show in the midfield which consisted of Xavi and Iniesta, I believe both gave him there shirt too after the match due to how good he was.

 

[Modric THFC]

Do people honestly think Terry, Gerrard, Lampard, Cole and Barry WONT be in the squad for the World Cup? We have this discussion every time England get knocked out, should we discard the older players, but nothing changes. I'd put money on all of them being in the squad at the very least.

And I really don't buy the notion that Jack Wheelchair is going to solve all of our problems. He's one player!! Not saying he isn't a decent player but would the English media be raving about him if he wasn't English? People are already comparing him to Iniesta and Pirlo!!

Some of the other players that others have mentioned aren't going to make much of a difference either; Rodwell, Welbeck bascially just runs around, same for Milner, Walcott still isn't consistent enough for club or country.

They'll do well to qualify.

 

[Jordinho]

 

[chancer]

I take it that's meant to be complimentary? fudge me.

 

[Leeds Spur]

Yeah, King Kong anyone?

No wonder he left Italy.

 

[punk_is_back`]

I think some of it is to do with the age they put the kids into competitive matches. It's way too early. The Barca kids don't play competitively until they are 12-13. This delay allows the smaller kids to flourish and brings technical ability to the fore over physical attributes. I see it with my own kids that the 'big for his age kid' can dominate the matches. At a young age a kids speed and size can overcome his technical deficiencies.

The coaches have to break out of this 'get it up the pitch' bollox that is shouted from the sidelines. Until that happens things will remain as is.

Also the coach/dad always tells you to break that flash little git if he tries a stepover. When it comes to football we try and drain all the creativeness from our players and teach them to get it forward as quick as possible instead of nurturing brilliant ball skills.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Also the coach/dad always tells you to break that flash little git if he tries a stepover. When it comes to football we try and drain all the creativeness from our players and teach them to get it forward as quick as possible instead of nurturing brilliant ball skills.

Good analysis. Completely agree. It's the same at all levels of English football, all the way from grass roots to the premier league.

 

[Mumorn]

Did you all know that Gomez has been on the ball for 22 seconds the whole of Euro 2008 and scored 3 goals!?

 

[elltrev]

Am I the only one who thinks the Pirlo-toss-fest is getting a bit out of hand? A BBC article said that he "destroyed" us ... the score was 0-0 after 120 minutes! They didn't score! They didn't create that many good chances, and their two best ones from the second half onwards came from set pieces, and had nothing to do with Pirlo.

Everyone is saying that we couldn't get near him; it seemed to me like we weren't trying to. We focused on reducing space around the penalty box instead by sitting deep. And it worked pretty well overall in defensive terms. Of course we were awful in possession, but that's a different story...

I thought Pirlo played well, and showed that he's a classy player. But in part we let him pass the ball around, without really damaging us. Jamie Redknapp said in the Mail that it was one of the best midfield performances he'd ever seen! Seriously?!

 

[liquid_football]

Am I the only one who thinks the Pirlo-toss-fest is getting a bit out of hand? A BBC article said that he "destroyed" us ... the score was 0-0 after 120 minutes! They didn't score! They didn't create that many good chances, and their two best ones from the second half onwards came from set pieces, and had nothing to do with Pirlo.

Everyone is saying that we couldn't get near him; it seemed to me like we weren't trying to. We focused on reducing space around the penalty box instead by sitting deep. And it worked pretty well overall in defensive terms. Of course we were awful in possession, but that's a different story...

I thought Pirlo played well, and showed that he's a classy player. But in part we let him pass the ball around, without really damaging us. Jamie Redknapp said in the Mail that it was one of the best midfield performances he'd ever seen! Seriously?!

He played some absolutely amazing balls to Balotelli,had more passes than the whole english midfield together and scored the crucial penalty in the shootout.
He could have had a hattrick of assists if his team mates were more accurate

 

[elltrev]

He played some absolutely amazing balls to Balotelli,had more passes than the whole english midfield together and scored the crucial penalty in the shootout.
He could have had a hattrick of assists if his team mates were more accurate

You say he would have had a hat-trick of assists, but what chances did he actually create? Maybe my memory is failing me ... I remember the long pass for Balotelli, whose shot was then blocked by Terry.

He made a brick load of passes, but that's largely because we didn't press him. We chose to sit deep and give him time on the ball, protecting the penalty area instead. Which as I recall we did pretty well overall. We were hardly ripped apart defensively.

The penalty was exquisite!

 

[liquid_football]

You say he would have had a hat-trick of assists, but what chances did he actually create? Maybe my memory is failing me ... I remember the long pass for Balotelli, whose shot was then blocked by Terry.

He made a brick load of passes, but that's largely because we didn't press him. We chose to sit deep and give him time on the ball, protecting the penalty area instead. Which as I recall we did pretty well overall. We were hardly ripped apart defensively.

The penalty was exquisite!

Watch the highlights again on 101greatgoals,he created alot of chances.2 brilliant balls to Balotelli over the english defence,then the great ball to Cassano which he headed to Balloteli and I think Lescott blocked it. That's just off the top of my head,I m sure there is even more.

 

[ess]

You say he would have had a hat-trick of assists, but what chances did he actually create? Maybe my memory is failing me ... I remember the long pass for Balotelli, whose shot was then blocked by Terry.

He made a brick load of passes, but that's largely because we didn't press him. We chose to sit deep and give him time on the ball, protecting the penalty area instead. Which as I recall we did pretty well overall. We were hardly ripped apart defensively.

The penalty was exquisite!

England definitely didn't protect the penalty area well. Pirlo, Montolivo and Marchisio all opened up their defence brilliantly more than once, and Italy really should've won that game before the penalty shooutout. Regarding Pirlo, he dominated the game completely even though he didn't create more than two or three big chances. It was a great performance, but I do agree that he didn't "destroy" England, because you don't destroy a team 0-0.

 

[T-C]

Am I the only one who thinks the Pirlo-toss-fest is getting a bit out of hand?

Same here.

He didn't create that space through particularly clever movement, it was that England simply dropped back without any attempt to put pressure on him.

Should have told Rooney to go tight on him as soon as Carroll came on.

 

[Mumorn]

That ball from Pirlo to Cassano was one of the best passes I've seen, perfect precision.