Euro 2024 AH thread

What a save by the Dutrch goalie

Great block by Dumfries

Dutch Gold

England v France final would be a fckin nightmare to watch

Either of them in the final, ditto

I honestly had to google that year. Correct!

The Dutch will take care of business in the semis.....

Wet blanket Southgate

…>

2010 World Cup was the nadir for me.

Though you could blame the ball which was like a kite in that event.

All things considered Euro 2024 is a strong contender.

This is very much it. They are coached to a very specific way with their clubs. Think Mann City and Liverpool for example.

It’s almost impossible for players then to gel with the way the current clubs are coached.

I also think that come big tournaments in Summer time, the players are fcuked after a long season with not far off 70 games

A cohesive, fresh England team with proper manager will already have won a tournament in the last 6 years

UUm... the NFL and NBA don't have draws at all, let alone fix them.

They have seeded placings which almost sports do. Wimbledon is seeded. Darts us seeded. Snooker is seeded. Pretty any sport that has post-season playoffs uses seedings.

Euros is mo different. If a top.team finishes lower in their group, they're seeded lower.

You're not "communicating" your proposal very well, in the first instance because you initially raised the concerns because of the impact the loss of Germany would have on sponsorship markets. Is this a factor in how the draw should be re-balanced? So what was its relevance? It is not a factor in how the NFL approaches its seedings.

This is what you posted:
"Why do the NFL and NBA fix their competitions to keep the strongest teams apart? The same reason they do anything- money."

Nope, it is not to do with money. The San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys are much bigger franchises than the Seattle Seahawks. The seeding has nothing to do with the size of the market the franchise plays in. The 49ers and the Cowboys cannot play each other in the Superbowl no matter if they are the best 2 teams in the land, or the biggest i.e. based on how much 'money' their markets would bring. Because they are locked into the same conference.
And if the smaller Seattle Seahawks has a better regular reason record than the Cowboys, even if they both topped their divisions, it is the Seahawks who get the higher seeding. It is not re-drawn to take into account that the Cowboys are more popular or if they are the current Superbowl champions.

In the second instance, you haven't explained what would be the fair and transparent system by which the draw could be balanced after the group stage, and how that would have consistently avoid lop-sided draws. Simply looking at how many points a team gets in a group would not be reliable, because it could just mean the group has a tougher composition of teams.

The articles you linked certainly don't attempt to do so, and the NY Times calls attention to the complexity that UEFA are running an international competition in a short space of time, in a host nation, having to balance stadiums and accommodating international supporters to attend - which limits options to suddenly redraw things.

There are 16 teams in the UEFA playoffs, to be run off in 2 weeks.

The NFL for example had 14 teams in their playoffs, to be run off over almost a month (January 13 – February 11) with every match except the Superbowl as a home game for one of the teams involved. The NFL rankings are based over 17 regular season games.

It's the quarter finals - theres always the possibility if something like that happening.

Germany and Spain weren't when the the top two teams coming into the tournament - so unless you're suggesting redoing the seedings every round, this is a random possibilty that sport throws up all the time.

I think the last thing I want is spomsors having a say in who plays who.

The issue about teams being defensive is a tricky one to deal with.

Nonsense - I repeatedly said that this quarter-final could’ve happened naturally my point is that it on this occasion it happened because of the system.

I didn’t ignore that the journalist was English because nobody mentioned it . But mea culpa! I assumed a journalist writing for the New York Times was an American. Obviously, if I knew he was English, I wouldn’t have trusted a word he wrote 😇🤣

If you think the global sponsors don’t care that Germany were knocked out in the quarter-finals, you understand absolutely nothing about money in sport. Of course they accept that sport throws up unexpected results but they won’t accept Systems that throw the best teams together in the quarter-final. Sponsors don’t mind if the games are crap so long as the viewership hold up.

Who gives a **** about the sponsors? Plenty of them knocking about.

The games haven't been great and there will be sponsors at the next one.

I think Spain could beat England handily if they perform as they have been, France could too but that would be 50 50 for me with England in a complete bore final.

Tonight's result who knows, France will probably just bore spain into submission.

I think the Dutch will give it a good lash tomorrow but can't see them beating England.

Ye he is a great host. Him and Shearer on MOTD are alwas good.

For tonight, i actually have a feeling you'll see a better, more attacking French side. I fancy them to beat Spain, only on a hunch. Mbappe is too good a player not to come good at some stage and you know come big games he turns up

Will the French finally wake up from their jammy and very boring slumber journey to the semis tonight?

Will they score an actual goal?

The world awaits…😴