Group C & D match 3: Ukraine/Poland, Northern Ireland/ Germany, Czech Republic/Turkey, Spain/Croatia

[Criston of House Shapper]

7 minutes ago, Notone said:

I don't really mind. But really watching the Sweden games had just been painful; Sweden versus Ireland was particularly awful. And there were a great many awful games. 
The England games were not particularly high quality stuff. It was somewhat entertaining, but really not quality. 

I agree about those two particular examples, but then again, if you look at the qualifiers, many teams that won their groups really haven't been great, particularly: the Czechs, Belgium, England, Northern Ireland, Austria and Portugal. They all sucked, and you would still have them with the old format. You would not have Hungary, who proved that they deserve to be here.

Edit: The Northern Irish actually didn't suck, they exceeded expectations by winning a match.

[Melphis Amekia]

Out of all the teams, Croatia was the one that positively surprised me most and have perhaps been the best team of the tournament. That said, I have not watched absolutely all games, so I may be wrong.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

54 minutes ago, Criston of House Shapper said:

I agree about those two particular examples, but then again, if you look at the qualifiers, many teams that won their groups really haven't been great, particularly: the Czechs, Belgium, England, Northern Ireland, Austria and Portugal. They all sucked, and you would still have them with the old format. You would not have Hungary, who proved that they deserve to be here.

Edit: The Northern Irish actually didn't suck, they exceeded expectations by winning a match.

Against the Ukraine, which has been one of the weakest teams in the entire competition, I think only Russia was even worse. And you ought to mention, that if Germany had been somewhat effective to put away at least some of their high quality chances, N. Ireland could have walked away with a Brazilian scoreline. And Poland was not particularly great at converting in their encounter with N. Ireland either.

Belgian hit an off day against Italy and got schooled. Which can happen, especially to a realtively young side. Their second game was somewhat better - not great, but better. Austria was a disappointment, no doubt about that. The Czechs were not great, but they probably hit the toughest group with Spain, Croatia and Turkey. I did and do not rate the English site highly. I mentioned that back when the squads were announced. Looks good on paper, but lacking any player with playmaker quality.

[Criston of House Shapper]

8 minutes ago, Notone said:

Against the Ukraine, which has been one of the weakest teams in the entire competition, I think only Russia was even worse. And you ought to mention, that if Germany had been somewhat effective to put away at least some of their high quality chances, N. Ireland could have walked away with a Brazilian scoreline. And Poland was not particularly great at converting in their encounter with N. Ireland either.

That's why I included them at first. But you get the idea, with 16 teams they would've gone out with 0 points.

10 minutes ago, Notone said:

Belgian hit an off day against Italy and got schooled. Which can happen, especially to a realtively young side. Their second game was somewhat better - not great, but better. Austria was a disappointment, no doubt about that. The Czechs were not great, but they probably hit the toughest group with Spain, Croatia and Turkey. I did and do not rate the English site highly. I mentioned that back when the squads were announced. Looks good on paper, but lacking any player with playmaker quality.

I included the Belgians based on their match against Italy, which probably wasn't that representative. But, all in all, you agree that a tournament with just those awful teams would've been pretty dreadful?

I mean, last time we had plenty of bad teams as well. I remember the style of play in group A as particularly poor, yet exciting.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Personally I found Goup B to be really bad in terms of footballing quality, but somewhat exciting. I mean I could not fault England for not trying/giving 100% - they were just so limited as a tean. If you say, but England - Wales was fine, I will say no, it wasn't. The second half was okay, but the first half was really poverty. And then there were the Russians, who were hands down the worst team in the entire competition. So it was basically a showdown between Wales, England and Slovakia to see, which was the least inept team. With Wales (one of those lone star teams) winning the group.