Euro 2012 Draft Match 3: Coletrickle88 vs Eagle Eye

G.K.

This match is Coletrickle88 vs Eagle Eye. The match will last for 48 hours, in which time the participants will need to outline their team, basic strategy, and strategy against their opponent.

Also, the voting will take place during this 48 hour period. There will be a poll but only votes with answers developed in a post will be taken into consideration. This development doesn't have to be paragraphs long, even a single sentance is fine. But don't vote until the competitors have had a chance to outline their teams.

Guys, whenever you are ready, begin.

Jax Teller

My formation is 4-2-3-1 .

Goalkeeper
Rui Patrício has been Sportings number 1 keeper for the last 5 years and he is only 24 years old . One of the top up and coming goalkeepers in europe at the moment .

Defence
Arguably the strongest in the draft
Boateng a cb at trade but more than capable of playing rb as he has shown for Germany many times .
Hummels and Kompany are without doubt 2 of the best cbs around right now . No need to explain these picks at all
Jordi Alba only made his debut for Spain last october but they would no doubt be worse off without him in the team . Loves getting forward and that he will be doing .

Midfield
My midfield Deschamps & Cabaye, has 2 hard working players both solid in the tackle .
Deschamps a World cup and Europen championship winning captain kept Makelele out of the french team for yearst that for me proves how good he was. A player once described as a water carrier by Eric Cantona . Basically his job is to protect the back 4 and give the attacking players the ball to play with .

Cabaye
An all round box to box midfielder . Solid defensively and decent enough going forward a very good set piece taker whether its corners ,free kicks or penalties .
It is no coincidence that when he left Lille their forunes changed for the worse and Newcastle changed for the better .

Attacking Midfielders

Alan Dzagoev , Andrei Arshavin & Mesut Özil .

My 3 attacking midfielder will pop anywhere cross the pitch . Here i have 3 very tricky clever footballers who can play that all important through ball or take a chance when it falls to them .
People will say they are too similar but good players can adapt there games to play with other good players and these are very good .


Forward
In Huntelaar i have prolific goal scorer for club and country with 31 in 56 for Holland and a 248 goals in 348 a club level so its safe to say he knows where the back of the net is.

I will wait till eagle eye posts his team before i start arguing for my team.

CSF

Coletrickle88 wrote: »

My formation is 4-2-3-1 .

Goalkeeper
Rui Patrício has been Sportings number 1 keeper for the last 5 years and he is only 24 years old . One of the top up and coming goalkeepers in europe at the moment .

Defence
Arguably the strongest in the draft
Boateng a cb at trade but more than capable of playing rb as he has shown for Germany many times .
Hummels and Kompany are without doubt 2 of the best cbs around right now . No need to explain these picks at all
Jordi Alba only made his debut for Spain last october but they would no doubt be worse off without him in the team . Loves getting forward and that he will be doing .

Midfield
My midfield Deschamps & Cabaye, has 2 hard working players both solid in the tackle .
Deschamps a World cup and Europen championship winning captain kept Makelele out of the french team for yearst that for me proves how good he was. A player once described as a water carrier by Eric Cantona . Basically his job is to protect the back 4 and give the attacking players the ball to play with .

Cabaye
An all round box to box midfielder . Solid defensively and decent enough going forward a very good set piece taker whether its corners ,free kicks or penalties .
It is no coincidence that when he left Lille their forunes changed for the worse and Newcastle changed for the better .

Attacking Midfielders

Alan Dzagoev , Andrei Arshavin & Mesut Özil .

My 3 attacking midfielder will pop anywhere cross the pitch . Here i have 3 very tricky clever footballers who can play that all important through ball or take a chance when it falls to them .
People will say they are too similar but good players can adapt there games to play with other good players and these are very good .


Forward
In Huntelaar i have prolific goal scorer for club and country with 31 in 56 for Holland and a 248 goals in 348 a club level so its safe to say he knows where the back of the net is.

I will wait till eagle eye posts his team before i start arguing for my team.

Excellent team

Jesus Wept

Arshavin is a spoofer.
And that Alan lad cost me 3k by not winning top goalscorer.

I like the rest of the team though. Not familiar with the goalkeeper.

Jax Teller

Andy Carroll wrote: »

Arshavin is a spoofer.
And that Alan lad cost me 3k by not winning top goalscorer.

I like the rest of the team though. Not familiar with the goalkeeper.

Five of Russia's last seven goals at major tournaments have been scored (one) or assisted (four) by Andrey Arshavin.

:pac:

Moneymaker

There's going to be a lot of pressure on your defence, none of those front four are renowned for a high work rate, Cabaye does have decent defensive attributes but he's wasted in a deep position. You need him closer to the opposition goal(i'm a Newcastle fan and this comes from watching him all season long) to utilise his range of passing and shooting.

Alba, while great going forward has some question marks over his defensive qualities and he'll have next to no protection from Arshavin. He has always had the very strong defensive qualities Mathieu possesses at Valencia to help him out too. The Spanish team dominate possession and he is rarely tested defensively. This won't be the case with your side.

Hummels and Kompany are a sick good pairing but they're going to have a lot of pressure put on them. Deschamps is going to have his work cut out.

That said you will score goals but I don't think your defence is as watertight as it appears at first glance. Question marks over the goalkeeper.

EE will have his work cut out to beat you though all the same. Think it will be close.

eagle eye

Firstly I'd just like to say good luck to Coletrickle88, may the best team win.

My formation is a variant of 4-2-3-1 with de Jong sitting deep and covering all across in front of the back four with Shirokov sitting a little further up the field around the center circle most of the time.

The Team

Stekelenberg: I don't think there any doubt that he is one of the top goalkeepers in the world right now and has been for a couple of years.

Piszczek: Poland and Dortmund's attacking full back is for me one of the top 5 right backs in Europe.

Rami: Starter for the French team and for Valencia. After an impressive season in Spain there are a lot of the really big clubs looking his way apparently.

Baresi: For me the best centreback to play the game in the last 35 years. I couldn't really rate anybody prior to that time but this guy was just awesome.

Poulsen: I didn't know much about Poulsen before the 2010 World Cup where I thought he played really well and I haven't seen much of him in the meantime up until the Euros. I have been very impressed with him in the Euros though and he was huge value as a final round pick.

de Jong: Everybody knows him I'm sure. A guy who just locks down midfield and probably the best in the game at that job.

Shirokov: I knew nothing about him before the Euros but have been hugely impressed with him. He plays in a role similar to Frank Lampard although he doesn't shoot from distance very often. An impressive distributor of the ball.

Eriksen: An exciting young player with an eye for goal. He just goes at defenses with pace and power.

Silva: I think everybody knows about David Silva now.

Hamsik: I think he is a fantastic player who makes others around him look great. He will be playing just off of Benzema.

Benzema: Coming off a great season for Real Madrid he has looked in the same form at the Euros so far.

Unfortunately I don't know how to do the arrows thing so I'll explain here instead.
I think the biggest strength in my team is defense. I think its going to be extremely hard to break down my back 5. I've got de Jone in front to break anything up and to cover my full backs getting forward. With Baresi behind de Jong its going to be almost impossible to thread anything through as de jong will be pressuring and breaking up play and Baresi is a master at the reading the game and covering anything that comes in. Through the air I have both Baresi and Rami who are really strong as well as my giant keeper Maarten Stekelenburg.

In front of those I have Shirokov who will pass and move but won't go too deep into the opposing half. The reason for that is I've got two full backs who will be getting foward to support a front four that I think will cause problems for any defense.

I've got Silva who will be given a license to roam around the pitch. Poulsen will be asked to get forward when Silva moves off the left. I've got Eriksen who is full of energy and will stick down the right side of the pitch and work with Piszczek to try and open up a defense. Then theres Hamsik who will play very central just outside the box and get in there to try and get on the end of any crosses. Then theres Benzema who is a very intelligent and complete striker who can score from anywhere but is also excellent at setting up others.

For this game I will be concentrating on the one big weakness in Coltrickles team and thats Boateng playing at right back for him. He was very poor at Manchester City in that position. I seen him play on the other side for Germany and he was average at best so I think he is a huge weakness in that defense. I can see Silva causing havoc over there with Poulsen getting wide to confuse Boateng. Jordi Alba likes to get forward too but I don't think he will get much change from Poulsen and Piczczak or de Jong should it be on the break with somebody out of position.

As far as his attack is concerned, I really think Ozil will struggle in that central attacking, he seems far more suited to the right side for me. I'm not a huge fan of Arshavin who played well for Russia in two games but looked like the Arsenal player that was let go in the other game. Dzagoev is a good one for sure but he will be expected to do too much I think. I don't rate Huntelaaar even though he had a great season with Schalke. He will get no change out of my CB pairing imo.

Thats all I got to say. I won't be around until late tomorrow night so I probably won't be posting in this thread again. Once more good luck to my opponent although I fancy I will take this game by a score of 2-0.

Jax Teller

Best of luck to Eagleye also .

Writing isnt my strongest so forgive me if this isnt pretty to look at .

I Think he overestimates a lot of his players and underestimates a lot of mine.

My biggest strength is my defence no doubt about that but i have also got a very strong core to my team .



Stekelenburg is an average keeper if anything he has gone backwards in the last few years there was talk of him going to loads of top teams a few years ago but hes ended up at Roma not a bad club but not one the top top teams around wouldnt be surprised if Krul or Vorm replace him soon enough

With Piszczek hes got a very good attacking fullback but i think i will get get a lot joy when he gets forward and when they lose the ball we can counter them .

Rami is average at best imo and Baresi is regarded as one of the best around but he was only 5 ft 10 1/2 thats is very small for a cb i think that can be exploited from set pieces with Kompany Hummels Huntelaar and Boateng i have got four six footers who are more than capable of getting on the end of a cross.

Poulsen hasnt looked amazing at the euros think Nani did a number on him the other night . Can easily see one of my midfielders doing the same . Where was he for Germany's winner goal ?

De jong for me is a liabilty he is useless on the ball and this line" probably the best in the game at that job " thats the funniest thing ive ever read on here Gareth Barry keeps him out of the Man city team for god sake i wouldn't be surprised if he got sent off the game finished . I think Ozil would make mince meat of him , i dont know where you get that Ozil will struggle in cam that is his position thats where he made 27 assists and scored 14 goals from all last season. You must have mistaken him with someone else .

Shirokov isnt bad not much between him and Cabaye tbf hes maybe more of a goal threat but Cabaye makes up for this with his set pieces.

I think with Silva Hamsik and Erksen he has got 3 pretty similar ams to me not much in it to be fair . Eriksen probably the worse of the lot he has got lots of potential but only potential at this stage im not sure how he would do the right anyways.

Benzema is very good no doubt but i just wonder can he do it on the biggest stage ?

---

I think Boateng is well capable at Rb he kept Ronaldo quiet the other night everyone else should be easy from now

Hummels & Kompany 2 absolute beasts i would expect between them 2 to keep Benzema relatively quiet to be honest .

My midfield is a lot more calmer than his Deschamps isnt a pyschopath like De jong he will do all the donkey without feeling the need to decapitate anybody.

Much of a muchness between the 2 ams really but i think Ozils might just give me the edge .

Huntelaar is a real goal threat his is an excellent finisher and loves a header .

---

I dont think there will be much in this but i expect to win maybe through a Headed goal .

Jesus Wept

Sounds like it's going to be a 0-0 draw.

Trippie

COletrick has an excellent defense and an excellent attack, two banks of 5, i just cant see it working better than the sum of its two parts. I can see space developing between the two groups.

EE was obviously hampered by missing out and a few iffy picks but did well considering what he had to work with. a front three of silva, hamsik and benzema would work well, eriksen seems the odd man out, maybe if he had someone to play deeper it would work a whole lot better.

I really cannot decide who takes this. flipped a coin and EE took it

SomethingElse

The number of matchwinners in Coletrick's XI shades it for me. The creativity and pace of the attacking midfielders would cause some major problems for Eagle Eye's defence. With a better striker this team would be quite a formidable unit. Huntelaar is a weakness here imo.

Dickerty

Coletrickle for me. That is a very solid defence, and with a classic holding CM like Deschamps, he can let his front 4 really express themselves.

I like eagle eye's team, but I think his attack could mis-fire, Hamsik is still patchy, as is Eriksen. Just falls short of Coletrickle in a few positions...

Junior D

In the end, I've had to vote for Cole.

Eagle Eye said he thinks the best part of his team is his defence, but I'd have to disagree and think it looks quite suspect, apart from Baresi, who I think would have Huntelaar in his back pocket all day.
But he does have a better front 4 than Cole which makes it a tough choice.

But overall I think Coles defence will be steady enough to bring him through.

2-1 victory:
Cole: Huntelaar (to play crap, but still manage a goal) and Cabaye
EE: Benezma

LuckyLloyd

Eagle Eye, would you not be somewhat concerned at how narrow you might be at times without any natural wingers?

Richard Hillman

Ive gone for Eagleeye as i feel they have more chance in scoring. 2 great defences.

GavRedKing

Coletrickle88, just.

Very hard to choose between two excellent teams.

both backlines are top quality with some excellent players, but Coletrickle's front 4 would win this game for him I reckon, hence why he won my vote.

Eagle eye has a brillant team though and could have beaten a few other lines up if he hadnt been pitted against Coletrickle.

Jax Teller

Trippie wrote: »

COletrick has an excellent defense and an excellent attack, two banks of 5, i just cant see it working better than the sum of its two parts. I can see space developing between the two groups.

EE was obviously hampered by missing out and a few iffy picks but did well considering what he had to work with. a front three of silva, hamsik and benzema would work well, eriksen seems the odd man out, maybe if he had someone to play deeper it would work a whole lot better.

I really cannot decide who takes this. flipped a coin and EE took it

Does this count as a vote for Ee? A flip of a coin isn't a way to decide a match IMO

Big Pussy Bonpensiero

Coletrickle for me. He has a better team overall, and that front 4 look very dangerous. Also his defence is just excellent, best back four in the draft for me.

Moneymaker

Coletrickle for me, Ozil is just going to have a field day and I don't think EE has enough firepower to damage that defence. He doesn't have the width to exploit the space that will be there with those front four not the best defensively.

The key to beating Coletrickle is pulling his defenders out of position and a team that's so narrow and a team that's lacking top quality full backs to provide that width just isn't going to create enough. Maybe if he had another striker it would be different but he's not going to have enough bodies forward with the players available.

Coletrickle by the odd goal.

elefant

I really like both teams, but I'm going to go for eagleeye on this one.

I think both defences are excellent, but I'd have more faith in Hamsik, Silva and Benzema to sneak goals than Arshavin, Dzagoev and Huntelaar. Ozil is the key player for coletrickle here, and I don't think he'd be good enough on his own to be overly problematic for De Jong, Rami and Baresi.

I'm also unimpressed by Rui Patricio, and from what I've read the Portuguese aren't too confident about him either.

But yeah, eagleeye for me in a low-scoring affair.

Ferris_Bueller

Toughest one to call so far, but I will give it to ColeTrickle just about, I think his attacking 4 will be too much to deal with for EE, his team is also very good, but don't think they will have as much width and I have never been convinced by Hamsik whenever I have seen him play.

Unlucky EE as I think he would have bet a lot of the other teams in this round.

redzerdrog

coletricke just edges it for me as it is slightly better balanced

Bounty Hunter

Coletrickle edges it here. I really like EEs side but think Hummels/Kompany is just an awesome CB pairing that only helps highlight a great spine with Deschamps in DM, Ozil in AM and Huntelaar CF

Samich

Gone for Cole.

De Jong is playing really bad, and the full backs are weak imo.

Huntelaar would get lots of chances with the 3 players behind him and would score a few.

IncognitoMan

went for Coletrickle88. Arshavin is the weak link for me aswell here even if he has been involved in Russia's last 5 goals . The hunter is an excellent striker IMO and I really like your defence. ozil is class aswell but we all know that. cabaye is a joy to watch some good link up play between those two

kryogen

ColeTrickle for me

The only negative I see in the team really is Cabaye, maybe you would want a more defence minded player but its compensated by the fact that the back four, particularly the centre back pairing is unbelievably strong, and I dont think EE team could generate the width required to cause them too many problems, low scoring affair here imo, 2-0 Coletrickle, they make the break through and then catch them out when they are pushing for an eqaulizer.

Jax Teller

Why IsCabaye a negative ? He's perfect for what I want someone who can put himself about and also get forward and score goals . He's also great a set pieces .

machiavellianme

I've gone Eagle eye as I think both defences are awesome but I just cant see how Arshavin or Huntelaar can be reled on to best Stekelenberg. Silva and Benzema just have that little bit extra going the other way. A close 1 nil and probably a defensive snore-fest but Eagle for me.

kryogen

Coletrickle88 wrote: »

Why IsCabaye a negative ? He's perfect for what I want someone who can put himself about and also get forward and score goals . He's also great a set pieces .

As I said, you might want someone more defensively minded, Cabaye does his best work in a more advanced role imo. The midfield is a little light defensively, but the great defense makes up for it I think.

eagle eye

Looks like Coltrickle wins this pretty handy. Well done sir. I have to admit I'm very surprised at how one-sided the voting is but I've no complaints.

Lloyd I don't think that I'm too narrow given that I've got de Jong who will cover all over in front of the back four, I've also got Shirikov who will move around as well. I said in my post that he will not be moving deep into the opposition half. And the same would apply to Coletrickle's team in this match too as he is playing a very similar formation.

Jax Teller

You've still got over 24 hours left .

G.K.

Still 24 hours+ to go.

LuckyLloyd

This is difficult to pick. EE, you are correct that Cole will also be somewhat too narrow, but I have doubts about the patterns provided by Benzema / Silva / Hamsik / Eriksen. You aren't short on talent, but I think an opposing team could settle in comfortably against you as you will spend the game looking for that intricate move through the middle. And that is something Cole is very wells set up to combat with a great protecting midfield and super center back pairing.

Cole I think. Man, I'd love to see these sides play though! Lots of talented players on both.

EE, you deserve a lot of credit for picking very well when you took over the team by the way.

yomtea98

So close to call.I have gone to eagle eye because I favour his attack more than coles.Both sides great

G.K.

Right, a quick overview.

Keepers are probably comparable.

Coletrickle's defense is excellent, especially that centre-back duo. It's probably stronger than Eagle's defense even though Piszczek and Baresi are better than their counterparts in Coletrickle's team.

Midfield - I've spoken at length on coletrickle88's AM's before, I think they'll occupy too much of the same space. Deschamps/Cabaye behind them though is very solid. I worry that Eagle's AM's won't provide enough defensive cover to the solid pair of de Jong and Shirokov either. This could be an open match in the middle.

Up top, both are excellent players, Benzema's the better imo due to his superior movement. Very little in it though.

So, to examine the teams against each other.

I think it's going to be another 50/50 in terms of posession, it looks as though it will be very open. No dominant team in set plays either.

Eagle Eye attacking:

Silva I think has the beating of Boateng (Yes I _know_ Boateng played well against Ronaldo), even if it suits Boateng's game by moving inside as well. With Dzagoev unlikely to track back I think Poulsen's excellent engine creates a great outlet on the left. With Alba attacking at every given opportunity and Arshavin not tracking back, I think an Eriksen/Pizczsek combo down the right works well. Obviously the big problem is getting past those CB's (and the DM's in front of them). I think the front 4 have it in them to create chances against them but it sure as hell won't be easy. Eagle's team can score, but I don't think he'll be breaking any records.

Coletrickle88 attacking:

The biggest problem here is that Arshavin, Dzagoev, Cabaye and Ozil will all look to occupy the same attacking space and are likely to be unproductive. Eagle Eye has 5 central bodies (And probably a fullback) to deal with them and Huntelaar, which means that they are outnumbered. If there were wider players on the flanks able to stretch play more, the team would have better balance. As it is, the centre will get too clogged up and the effectiveness of all the central attacking players will be reduced - they won't get the space to work in that they like to have. Piszczek is capable to marshall Alba, as is Poulsen against Boateng. Huntelaar won't win much in the air against Rami, and is likely to struggle movement-wise against Baresi. As good as the names look, as a team I'm not sure they'll create that much.

Conclusions:

While the names are impressive I think Coletrickle hasn't quite drafted a cohesive team here. The wide men aren't ones who tend to cover their fullbacks (Not a good move against Poulsen and Piszczek), and there are too many central creative players here who'll be looking to use the same space to the detriment of the team. I also think Huntelaar will struggle against the CB pairing. Eagle's attacking players are all skilled but all are slightly different styles of players (Compared to Arshavin, Dzagoev and Ozil who all, when at their best, have a very similar role), and as such are capable of scoring past Coletrickle's defense, even though it is excellent, especially with the FB's bombing on and no cover from Arshavin/Dzagoev.

Narrow win for Eagle Eye, 1-0 maybe.

Jax Teller

No dominant team in set plays gk ? I think my team would get the better of eagle eyes at free and corners kicks Kompany Hummels Boateng & Huntelaar are all huge guys who's going to pick all these up for Eagle eye ?

G.K.

Rami, Benzema, Baresi, Steklenberg are all strong aerially.

There's quite a few more 6 footers in the team, and height isn't the only factor in set pieces - jumping and heading as well.

This is of course just my view - you are getting a lot of votes from others, and they all count just as much as me.

Jax Teller

I make it 13 -6 to me , is that right ?

G.K.

14-5 to you, I thought.

So, Coletrickle88, you're through to the quarter finals, congratulations. Best of luck to you as we go on.

Commiserations to eagle eye, but thank you so much for stepping in after Floyd pulled out.

G.K.

14-5 to you, I thought.

So, Coletrickle88, you're through to the quarter finals, congratulations. Best of luck to you as we go on.

Commiserations to eagle eye, but thank you so much for stepping in after Floyd pulled out.