that lack of experience can work both ways zark, those young french can go all out without fear and let themselves be carried by the crowd

as always the fitting explanaton will be found after the ec is over of course

I dont see why portugal couldnt go further than italy.

Dont underestimare croatia btw guys

I agree. If they get their shit together, it's very possible that they'll end up being the "surpise" of the tournament and have a good run.

Spain have the best squad, same as in 2014. They could be a dark horse in this tournament if they can get the striker position sorted out. At the world cup Spain only got rekt so bad because they were trying tiki taka football when Casillas and Xavi were past it and Iniesta not too far behind them. Del Bosque should have gone after the wc

thats being said for decades ^^

Casillas had a good season with Madrid tbf (dispite his mistake in the CL final, he kept many clean sheets throughout the season and had some really good saves/games which helped lead to the club's first double in 25 years).

I think the problem was much more physical. Madrid, Barça and Atlético finished the season wrecked. All 3 of them dropped many points in the last games (it seeemed like none of them wanted to win La Liga ) because they were phycically finished. Then the WC preparation was absolute shit, with the national team touring around North America, flying from one place to the other, ony to reach Brazil a few days before their game against Netherlands.

I agree that he should have left though. He promised to make deep changes, and he has only made half assed attempts. It's a good thing several players volountarily stepped down, otherwise he'd call up even more past-it players.



fair enough

When does the group play start and the knock out stages? I currently live in nz and will try to go up at nights to watch the big games

At that (Higuain) moment, you had another 2 excellent playmakers in Ozil (although massive fail big games) and especially Di Maria.
As for the sweden game, i consider sweden nearly as bad as Portugal and overall a meh team. Ronaldo qualified them, true enough, but if the score went other way around no-one could arguably complain not fair.



Fully agreed. Same thing i feel about Del Bosque, although i always rated him a good coach, especially in his Madrid days.

This post was edited by B4al on Mar 28 2016 04:53am

England always loss every decent goalkeeper available before an international tournament ....
It's a curse