Football: Alisson Wonderland

[Corvinus85]

38 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

France, Belgium, Portugal and England all have better teams than Spain so they were probably dark horses anyway. Mancini is doing a better job for Italy than Enrique is doing for Spain imo so I'd put Italy above them too. And obviously you can never discount the Germans at a major tournament.

That's true, but if there is some fuckery from the coach, and dysfunctionality in the team, that's basically the recipe for crashing and burning in the group stage, like France at the 2010 World Cup. 

[ljkeane]

57 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

And obviously you can never discount the Germans at a major tournament.

Spain beat Germany 6-0 about 6 months ago so if they end up being worse than them that’ll probably be a bit of a disappointment.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

54 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

France, Belgium, Portugal and England all have better teams than Spain so they were probably dark horses anyway. Mancini is doing a better job for Italy than Enrique is doing for Spain imo so I'd put Italy above them too. And obviously you can never discount the Germans at a major tournament.

Germany is not a favorite or even a darkhorse in this race - a lot of things have to fall in place for Germany to win it. This really isn't the team from 5-6 years or so.

France, England, and maybe Belgium. Those are the favorite this year. I'd pick Spain over Italy. I simply don't rate this generation of Italian players.Portugal is a darkhorse imho. I don't expect them to win it, but if the stars allign for them, who knows.

[Consigliere]

18 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

That's true, but if there is some fuckery from the coach, and dysfunctionality in the team, that's basically the recipe for crashing and burning in the group stage, like France at the 2010 World Cup. 

I'm not sure that there is any dysfunctionality there. It could be that Enrique simply has his favourites and picking them because of that rather than form. Southgate has a habit of picking his favourites too but there's no suggestion of dysfunction within the England camp. 

[Consigliere]

2 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Spain beat Germany 6-0 about 6 months ago so if they end up being worse than them that’ll probably be a bit of a disappointment.

That's why I said at a major tournament. Remember that time England pumped Germany but which team got to a WC final? 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Spain beat Germany 6-0 about 6 months ago so if they end up being worse than them that’ll probably be a bit of a disappointment.

Yeah, that's why I said, they aren't favorites or a darkhorse this year. However, the recall of Müller and Hummels might provide that team with some more leadership/experience.

[ljkeane]

4 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

That's why I said at a major tournament. Remember that time England pumped Germany but which team got to a WC final? 

That was old school grind out results Germany though (plus they had a relatively easy run through to the final). That's not really Germany's thing any more, if they're not good they're not a find a way to win while playing shit kind of team.

[Consigliere]

1 minute ago, ljkeane said:

That was old school grind out results Germany though (plus they had a relatively easy run through to the final). That's not really Germany's thing any more, if they're not good they're not a find a way to win while playing shit kind of team.

I don't think Germany are favorites or anything and I never said nor implied that they were. Just that historically Germany has a very good record at major tournaments and cannot be discounted. The current team does have enough individual quality in there to cause anyone problems on their day. 

[Corvinus85]

Dechamps must feel a little desperate, too, to lift Bezema's ban. Was there pressure on him to bring back a striker who is in great form, behavior be damned, or is France plagued with injuries?

[Consigliere]

33 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Dechamps must feel a little desperate, too, to lift Bezema's ban. Was there pressure on him to bring back a striker who is in great form, behavior be damned, or is France plagued with injuries?

There's no injury crisis up front for France. Deschamps did confirm that he fully intended to select Martial for the tournament. I haven't seen anything to suggest that things were patched up with Benzema because of Martial's injury though. 

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

That's true, but if there is some fuckery from the coach, and dysfunctionality in the team, that's basically the recipe for crashing and burning in the group stage, like France at the 2010 World Cup. 

 

In fairness, it's quite possible that the fuckery from the coach is intended to address some dysfunctionality in the team we don't know about- it's possible he decided that with several Madrid options unfit or injured, the remaining few aren't worth the headache if he thinks there's gonna be clashes between them and Atleti/Barca boys.

 

If true that would be in the long run for the Spanish FA to think about whether he's the right guy for the job, but I can certainly think of a squad or two in the past that might have done better if they'd been able to cut out some personal disharmony.

[Raja]

22 hours ago, Mexal said:

That was fun. It had to be like 10 years ago now. Insane.

Man, can't believe it's been that long! Give us a shout if you're back in London.

[Daemon the Leaner]

4 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Dechamps must feel a little desperate, too, to lift Bezema's ban. Was there pressure on him to bring back a striker who is in great form, behavior be damned, or is France plagued with injuries?

Well, IIRC France will be (I should say: we will be) in the group of death for these Euros. And most of French forwards haven't been in very good form lately, Mbappé aside. Giroud barely played this season (despite qualifying Chelsea against Atleti...). I didn't follow Barça season very closely, but I think Griezmann's had up and downs. Coman and Dembele had good seasons but they've never been consistently good when playing for the national team so far.

So, it looks like a technical decision from Deschamps to improve his 2018 squad and be a less predictable side.

[Consigliere]

I see reports saying that Bruno Lage is close to completing a deal with Wolves to take over from Nuno. This could be interesting - Lage is similar to Nuno in that he's stubborn and unwilling to adapt but the polar opposite in that he's a very attack minded coach. I recall him getting Benfica to play some beautiful football for a time before crashing and burning.

[Mark Antony]

Milan buying Lille’s keeper, gigio must be off and for free too. Sucks for Milan fans. He was the brightest spark of their banter era 

[baxus]

18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not really trying to change it to be more like eggball, just saying toughen the fuck up. And an aversion to change isn't a good thing. Baseball was my first sporting love as a child. Today one of the most common topics on a slow Wednesday for sports radio is how to fix baseball. Not make small changes, fix the entire sport. There's near universal agreement that with basketball the court needs to be widen and the three point line moved back. You can't compare today's eggball stats with those from 20 years ago because the rules have changed so much. There are plenty more examples. Sports almost always have room for improvement and we should embrace that rather than be incredulous old heads.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have an opinion on the game or a suggestion on how to improve it, but from what I've seen recently you are comparing it too much to handegg (I hit a guy in the head and didn't get sent off, this business model works for NFL/NBA/etc. so why not European football etc.).

Every single one of us has an idea or two they think would improve football significantly. My favourites are:

• banning everyone other than captain from talking to refs unless spoken to - would remove a lot of disrespectful behaviour
• having a 2x30 minutes of active gameplay (or whatever is calculated to be the equivalent of 2x45 minutes as we have it now) - would significantly reduce time wasting by rolling on the ground, knocking the ball out of bounds etc.
• attacking player going down in the penalty box and asking for a foul leads to either a penalty (and a card for a defender, if needed) or yellow card for attacking player who went down if it was a dive - would reduce diving in the box

These would be quite big changes, obviously, and would require a fair bit of work to both implement them and break old habits but I think it would be in the game's best interest.

Sure, sports change and evolve. Guess what? Football evolved quite a bit, too. It's definitely not the same it was at the turn of the millennium. The thing is that it changed mostly due to optimizing players' performance, not so much with rule changes. Football is very different in that regard - changing rules effect all competitions in all the countries in the world. NFL can change rules yearly because those changes affect 32 clubs (was it 32?) taking part in NFL and that's it. All those clubs have stadiums that are in a pretty good condition, have the infrastructure to follow all these changes. Football, on the other hand is played in Wembley, Allianz Arena, Maracana etc. but also in some fields in villages in remote parts of the world. That was a pretty big reason for such a slow adoption of goal-line technology and why VAR is where it is right now.

[Yawron]

4 hours ago, baxus said:

attacking player going down in the penalty box and asking for a foul leads to either a penalty (and a card for a defender, if needed) or yellow card for attacking player who went down if it was a dive - would reduce diving in the box

If they could start to reward penalties (and free kicks) when players stay on their feet, when fouled, players wouldn't go down all the time.

Aguero was a huge victim of this and needed to learn to go down before he was rewarded penalties. 

[baxus]

20 minutes ago, Yawron said:

If they could start to reward penalties (and free kicks) when players stay on their feet, when fouled, players wouldn't go down all the time.

Aguero was a huge victim of this and needed to learn to go down before he was rewarded penalties. 

I don't object one bit. Attacking player thinks he/she has been fouled? Go down and see what happens. If he/she's right and there was a foul, then it's a penalty. If they are wrong, they get booked. Wrong twice? Well, that's unfortunate.

Also, the rule change I said I'd like to see in no way implies that refs should award penalties only when players go to ground.

[Corvinus85]

So from the 33-man provisional squad, who is a guarantee, barring injuries, and who are likely to be cut.

Goalkeepers: Dean Henderson (Manchester United), Sam Johnstone (West Bromwich Albion), Jordan Pickford (Everton), Aaron Ramsdale (Sheffield United).

Defenders: Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), Ben Chilwell (Chelsea), Conor Coady (Wolves), Ben Godfrey (Everton), Reece James (Chelsea), Harry Maguire (Manchester United), Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa), Luke Shaw (Manchester United), John Stones (Manchester City), Kyle Trippier (Atletico Madrid), Kyle Walker (Manchester City), Ben White (Brighton & Hove Albion).

Midfielders: Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Jesse Lingard (Manchester United), Mason Mount (Chelsea), Kalvin Phillips (Leeds), Declan Rice (West Ham), James Ward-Prowse (Southampton).

Forwards: Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Everton), Phil Foden (Manchester City), Jack Grealish (Aston Villa), Mason Greenwood (Manchester United), Harry Kane (Tottenham), Marcus Rashford (Manchester United), Bukayo Saka (Arsenal), Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund), Raheem Sterling (Manchester City), Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa).

[Soylent Brown]

It's not always as clear cut as that though. There are times that players lose their balance or are barged over where it's not a foul and shouldn't be a card either.

I agree that it would be nice if players didn't always have to go down to get something, but at the same time I can kind of understand why it's that way - referees will look to play advantage where possible, and while someone is still standing, there's always the possibility they'd be killing a shooting chance by stopping play.