Board 8 > 2024 Premier League (Football General) Topic II

(+) Yeah! (+)

Switzerland will likely get either Italy or Croatia.

Well, yeah, only a third possible option and that one requires pretty specific results. I don't believe in Croatia unfortunately.

Also a nice thing is that neither Croatia nor Albania winning (drawing is fine) which is likely means that we would be guaranteed advancement with even a draw.

Group B 3rd matchdays ongoing now. Croatia and Albania need wins to remain in the tournament. Italy need just a draw to secure their advancement.

This has got a late Croatia winner written all over it to maybe knock Italy out.

I just realized that with Scotland not winning yesterday we are already guaranteed advancement with a draw tomorrow.

4 points guaranteed advancement yet again already, what did I tell you all.

Penalty save!

Omg Modric immediately made up for it

I said to someone the other day Croatia are probably the most dangerous team in international football when they're on the ropes.

ctesjbuvf posted...

I just realized that with Scotland not winning yesterday we are already guaranteed advancement with a draw tomorrow.

Oh wait, unless Albania turns it around that is. But seems unlikely, so still great!

How nice is that Spain away kit

Damn, 8 minutes was way too much too, and Croatia gets penalized for it.

Extremely likely this group will not have their third place advance, the goal score is trash.

Obviously the back line of Croatia was imploding and it was surprising they didn't concede earlier but man that +8 was grotesque.

If we manage to get to Italy now i really hope we knock them out.

Croatia are now relying on England and Serbia to both win 3-0 or they're going home.

Neither of those results will happen lol. Should have really gotten the three against Albania.

Nah i messed up they just need an England 3-0 and a Denmark win seeing as only the 3rd placed team matters.

Also need Portugal and Turkey to win. Portugal likely beats Georgia even with nothing on the line, but Turkey/Czechia feels like a coin flip.

England getting a 3-0 result seems like the least likely of these, for sure. I think Slovenia would have to get a hefty number of yellows for a 4-1 result to work out in Croatia's favor since disciplinary points would be the tiebreaker there.

Brazil has drawn Costa Rica in their Copa America opener lol

19 shots, 3 on target, no goals. Nearly out-possessed them 3-1.

If this holds, I am legitimately hoping we get third place.

That top half of the knockouts bracket has just become super spicy.

France sucks.

Decent chance Netherlands get the group C winner.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/75d7433a.png

bruh

Spain isn't going to have to face the fuckin Netherlands are they? I dont know how it's determined which 3rd place team everyone plays

That is in the extremely unlikely event in which Croatia moves on we talked about yesterday.

KommunistKoala posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/75d7433a.png

bruh

Spain isn't going to have to face the fuckin Netherlands are they? I dont know how it's determined which 3rd place team everyone plays

From what BBC said, they will play England as it stands. Looking at how the table for 3rd place teams, Netherlands are top. I don't know if it's done by placement but if so, seems unlikely they will change from their current position

Edit: Oh looking at it, it's way more convoluted than that. It depends on which 3rd place teams qualify it seems since only certain groups can go to certain positions

Here is a table that shows the possible combos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2024_knockout_stage

England need to beat Slovenia tonight to avoid Holland.

Well, not winning that would be the easiest way to avoid them since they only can as group winners lol.

But it mostly depends on the last two groups.

It's kinda crazy how 3rd place in group c might end up getting the easiest last 16 tie out of the 3.

Serbia with a yellow after 3 minutes, nice

Well, status quo works but it's stupid how much better third is than second.

https://twitter.com/NoContextBrits/status/1805689898592030793

We're not scoring. Only way we top this group is if Denmark do us a favour.

Could we not have gotten some yellows to get that damn third

I think most of the criticism of Southgate over the years has been unwarranted (even as recently as 2022 we were fine, mostly played well and lost narrowly to a good side in a badly-refereed game that included a freak penalty miss - not Southgate's fault) and based more on him not being a big-name manager. Like if 2010ish-era Jose Mourinho was producing this there'd be a large contingent saying "yeah but only results matter, we topped the group". The idea that Southgate has done a bad job when he's clearly better than e.g. England legend Bobby Robson (4 tournament campaigns, two of them disasters) has always been laughable to me.

I think the issue here is he's lost some of the stuff that made him a good England manager in the first place. The whole thing about "attacking the tournament" e.g. in 2018 when there was more freedom with much worse players is gone. In 2018 England had a clearly-defined formation and style before the tournament too, a weird formation (a kind of 3-5-1-1 or something) but one that the players were somewhat comfortable with. Here we've got these TAA midfield experiments and so on.

So I think the Southgate era might be over after this tournament only because he's finally lost that it seems. It's now starting to give that Sven or Capello 2010 vibe where we were making things up as we went, buckling under pressure, and putting square pegs in round holes. But anyone who wanted him gone after 2018, 2021 or even 2022 was simply not living in reality.

That said, still in it. 4 games to prove me wrong.

So we're now in a situation where we need the Czech's to beat Turkey but not by more than 2 goals to avoid Holland. Or you know have Georgia beat Portugal which ain't happening.

France and England might the most disappointing favorite two in a long time.

Seriously though, second being worse than third here is a goddamn underlining of how much the format sucks.

Fuck it, give us the Dutch, I say.

That matchup might actually force England into playing better due to how aggressive Netherlands can be in knockouts. If we survive that, it might be the kick up the backside we need.

Our record against the big teams is worse than our penalty record. The only one we've beat is Germany last Euros and that was a very questionable German team.

Not like the Dutch have been setting things alight anyway

Missed us drawing France for a concert but that was perhaps the most predictable Poland result of all time. Rooting for Austria to do well at least, they look a very exciting team.

Belgium join the side of death

shane15 posted...

Belgium join the side of death

Deserved.

De Bruyne looked livid at the Belgian defense refusing to come up for the last two corner kicks out of fear Ukraine could score one at the last minute to send Belgium home.

Was hoping Ukraine would nick it at the end.

Depending on how things play out later we could be guaranteed one of Romania, Slovenia, Austria or Turkey/Czechs in the semi finals.

Yeah, it's beginning to look like the possibility of another Denmark/Greece run to the title is on the cards. If Hungary advance, I could see Austria making the Semi-Finals.

Also, Georgia already leading against Portugal.

Why the hell are they playing Ronaldo?

shane15 posted...

Why the hell are they playing Ronaldo?

Only guess aside from trying to help him reach 1000 goals scored is that the Portuguese FA are too scared to drop Ronaldo.

paulg235 posted...

Only guess aside from trying to help him reach 1000 goals scored is that the Portuguese FA are too scared to drop Ronaldo.

Probably both tbh. He plays for himself the most even though he should save his strength. I did think in the first match, they were too afraid to drop him when he was invisible. He played quite well in the second match though.

So, is it still possible for England to avoid Netherlands in the knockouts?