EURO 2012

There will be a England player in the "team of the tournament", there nearly always is, no matter what

EBJT

stevie g still joint leader with 3 assists

I''m sad that Tomas Mueller hasn't made more of an impression this time; he was my favoruite player at the WC2010, reminded me of Rudd Gullit with all his running and passing, passing and running, and goalscoring. I preferred him to Ozil back then but he's been a bit of a bit-player.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, June 28, 2012 3:06 PM (2 minutes ago)

yeah i sympathize with all that, but he was also in uncanny goalscoring form at the world cup

he has been alright though, and will be interesting to see how he does vs chiellini who is supposed to be playing leftback tonight

just goes to show how good mcgeady really is

          given 
g johnson   k papadopoulos    sivok    Ignashevich
robben      milner      nasri     ronaldo
     van persie   rooney

almeida >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> twp

ach ken my fuckin eyes

a bit harsh for cron to be in that team tbh but then, MESSI :*

Is Reus not favored to keep his place after excellent game v Greece?

Milner didn't play in the middle either so that seems a tad unfair

Be close but Loew trusts Mueller more I think, especially defensively. LB for Italy got a lot of joy vs England.
xp

Thought G Johnson had a decent tourney (although I would stan for him I guess)

left a permanent gap for italy to attack iirc

but then that could have been the whole defence tbf

i haven't seen any rumours about the team selection vs italy

i'd probably favour muller for his track record and combination play, reus on this form has higher upside but not the same solidity if things get difficult and he is denied space

nah Johnson was one of the better Englishes imo

Seemed like he was out of position a lot. Played Sweden onside for their first goal

              Given
O'Shea   Vlaar    Mykhalyk  Willems
        Andrews    Rezek
Robben        Gerrard        Nasri
             Kerzhakhov

like if it is chiellini and he can take care of reus (which is possible cuz he is agile for his size) then reus becomes an underused outlet ball whereas muller can drift around and play 1-2s as well as being better defensively

Maybe have Rooney in a 4-4-2 and drop Rezek (just like he was in that first game amirite?)

Andrews was Ireland's best player fwiw

I'd play Reus left actually, Podolski has been disappointing and Abate's not fully fit, Maggio more wingback than fullback, etc.

I still like Schurrle more generally but he wasn't very good last match.

Ireland had a best player? I only saw 11 stallians running around trying not to be shot in the face and taken away to make glue

andrews is trash, not that #0 might not be right

reus lw makes more sense but poldi seems pretty much a fixture at this point

maggio is suspended, if abate is still injured who steps in?

yeah i agree with reus over poldi.

No idea but I suspect Thiago Motta could do a job there. (xp)

Reus has been great

andrews was prob ireland's best player. Certainly the only one to emerge with a better rep than when he entered. If he makes yr worst xi then they're all wearing green

Are these worst XIs based on performance-to-reputation-gap, or just performance?

i've always rated him, at least above the likes of whelan who offers nothing. andrews has character if not any great ability. he had a string of decent attempts against croatia cos he kept at it.

xpost to dmac

he was v good in paris against france that night too.

whelan offers a lot more ito movement and passing, andrews good in big games, better in the air and in the tackle.

Both combined are maybe good enough

ok ok i should have had whelan over andrews.

nick - a bit of both. nasri didn't have a bad game v england or ukraine but he didn't exactly look inspired either and caused the backroom shit that got france knocked out i guess

(and considering he is one of the few players supposedly worth 25m on the last year of his contract - you'd think he'd be one of the lynchpins on a team).

biggest gap between reputation and performance is robben

rooney

But he only played 2 games, and scored in one, so.

biggest gap between reputation and performance is robben

Yes, or maybe Wazza imo xp

Actually I don't think Xavi is having that good a tourney tbh. But still, he's Xavi.

Xavi's looked a lot less productive because he keeps having to take pointless corners.

biggest gap btwn rep and performance is always rooney

Van Persie.

Van Persie at least had spells where he tried and hit the post twice iirc

he keeps having to take pointless corners.

Considering possession and number of corners, I was shocked at how ineffectual Spain's corners have been

I reckon if you force Spain into taking 60 corners a game you've a good chance of a 0-0, or better if you're half decent on the break. They have two players who can attack a crossed ball and have to take both of them out of defence to try it.

The crowd would boo them even more for it but they'd be better taking them all short and continuing to pass and probe.

punting the ball into the stand behind your own goal at every opportunity is a tactic i'd like to see enacted.