Day 11: North Macedonia vs Netherlands | Ukraine vs Austria | Russia vs Denmark | Finland vs Belgium

[Samid]

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Match 29
Monday 21 June, 18.00 CET @ Johan Cruyff Arena, Amsterdam
Group C
Ref: István Kovács (Romania)

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Match 30
Monday 21 June, 18.00 CET @ Arena Națională, Bucharest
Group C
Ref: cnut Çakır (Turkey)

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Match 27
Monday 21 June, 21.00 CET @ Parken Stadium, Copenhagen
Group B
Ref: Clément Turpin (France)

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Match 28
Monday 21 June, 21.00 CET @ Krestovsky Stadium, Saint Petersburg
Group B
Ref: Felix Brych (Germany)​

 

[hellhunter]

Ref: cnut Çakır (Turkey)
​

Love it

 

[Samid]

Love it

Never forget.

 

[BrilliantOrange]

Looks like The Netherlands will play with Gravenberch in stead of De Roon and Malen ins stead of Weghorst tomorrow..

 

[Pentagruel]

Looks like The Netherlands will play with Gravenberch in stead of De Roon and Malen ins stead of Weghorst tomorrow..

I think that’s a good choice. Don’t throw a completely new team on there but play a couple of younger/bench players with a competent spine of the team still intact. I like both of those options and hope they will become more primary players on the team.

 

[Ramos]

Ukraine-Austria has a draw written all over it. Both would with near certainty qualify with a draw, a loss means a serious chance of elimination. They both already know Switzerland's result too, which any of them would beat with a draw in the best third ranking. And both will have a difficult opponent in the R16 anyway, so no real incentive there either.

This feels like a serious flaw in the format.

 

[Eendracht maakt macht]

Ukraine-Austria has a draw written all over it. Both would with near certainty qualify with a draw, a loss means a serious chance of elimination. They both already know Switzerland's result too, which any of them would beat with a draw in the best third ranking. And both will have a difficult opponent in the R16 anyway, so no real incentive there either.

This feels like a serious flaw in the format.

The format is awful. Sixteen was perfect but I rather have 8 more teams although their quality would be low than this shit show.

 

[redshaw]

Hard to get invested into tonight's matches with only two third place teams being eliminated. We have to wait until all group games are completed then pour over the points and goal differences etc.

A lot of expelled energy so far to cut the 4th placed teams but at least after this it's all knockout.

 

[RoyH1]

The format is awful. Sixteen was perfect but I rather have 8 more teams although their quality would be low than this shit show.

It really makes the group phase less compelling. That said, another 8 teams would be awful for the quality on display. You might as well remove the qualifying rounds and playoff games of the competition.
16 teams was perfect for a continental competition. Only the World Cup should have more than 16 teams in the final stage in my opinion (but not 48 either!!)

 

[RobinLFC]

Should've given the best 4 group winners a bye in the next round, would've encouraged attacking play rather than being careful and teams being happy with a draw in this final round of group games.

6 groups of 4, 12 teams qualify. Best 4 group winners don't play the next round, the other 8 teams play a KO round, 4 winners advance to face the best 4 group winners in the quarter finals.

 

[do.ob]

Should've given the best 4 group winners a bye in the next round, would've encouraged attacking play rather than being careful and teams being happy with a draw in this final round of group games.

6 groups of 4, 12 teams qualify. Best 4 group winners don't play the next round, the other 8 teams play a KO round, 4 winners advance to face the best 4 group winners in the quarter finals.

So getting an easy group is even more beneficial?

 

[RobinLFC]

So getting an easy group is even more beneficial?

Apart from Group F, the margins between groups are very small imo. There aren't any that stick out as extremely bad or very competitive.

At least it gives top teams an incentive to play their best eleven in all group games and it removes this awful "best 3th" thing which means only the 8 absolute worst teams get eliminated after a total of 36 games.

 

[Ralaks]

UEFA's ticket system is real garbage. They released 2000ish tickets on general sale yesterday morning, I had 1 in basket going on to the payment site, and it was just stuck loading, until it kicked me out for not completing on time. Was so frustrated I ended up buying from Viagogo for a higher price, which sucks, but at least I got a ticket. Tonight has the potential to be such an epic game, I couldn't miss it..

Pretty confident of our chances, oddly enough I would almost consider us favourites still to get the second spot, which is absurd considering we lost the first two, but ignoring the results, our performance would indicate we should be able to beat Russia, only issue we might struggle to break them down, Belgium should take care of Finland, I hope.

 

[Zlatan 7]

Never forget.

Can’t forget!! I seen him as fourth official in a match the other day and couldn’t help myself pointing him out to my kid and explaining how much of a cnut he is in kiddy terms.

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Can’t forget!! I seen him as fourth official in a match the other day and couldn’t help myself pointing him out to my kid and explaining how much of a cnut he is in kiddy terms.

That's an interesting conversation. ' he's a right mummy's thingy!'

 

[Basso]

It is a flaw and incredibly unfair. Before the Euros started I had a look at the four previous 24-team tournaments.
1986,1990,1990 and 2016. Quickly concluded Group E and F will each have 3 teams qualified to the last 16.

 

[KirkDuyt]

It really makes the group phase less compelling. That said, another 8 teams would be awful for the quality on display. You might as well remove the qualifying rounds and playoff games of the competition.
16 teams was perfect for a continental competition. Only the World Cup should have more than 16 teams in the final stage in my opinion (but not 48 either!!)

I dunno, there are definitely some okay teams that didn't make the cut, like Norway or Greece. Sure they're not world beaters, but no worse than teams like Turkey, Macedonia or Finland. I'd rather see a few more minnows in the groups with only the numbers 1 and 2 qualifying intead of this crap. Imagine if Portugal lose to France and again qualify as a number 3. Failing in the group stages should mean you're out.

 

[Basso]

With 32 teams the 8 extra teams from the 2020 Qualifying groups would be Kosovo, Serbia, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Norway, Iceland, Greece and Slovenia.

 

[KirkDuyt]

With 32 teams the 8 extra teams from the 2020 Qualifying groups would be Kosovo, Serbia, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Norway, Iceland, Greece and Slovenia.

Ah, that clarifies things. By no means contenders these, but teams like Norway, Iceland, Serbia and Greece really don't look like odd ducks in such a tournament.

 

[Botim]

32 teams qualifying would make the EC qualifiers even more meaningless though. Thats like 60% of all teams going through. Would be equivalent to a World Cup with 120 teams

 

[Acrobat7]

The format is awful. Sixteen was perfect but I rather have 8 more teams although their quality would be low than this shit show.

It is truly horrendous. And i agree that they should either go for 16 or 32 but not this format.
All this tinkering and they still end up with Netherlands, Ukraine, Austria in one and France, Germany, Portugal in another group.

 

[massi83]

Last 7 games between Finland and Belgium. Finland 4 wins and 3 draws. Should be pretty easy for us.

 

[hellhunter]

32 teams qualifying would make the EC qualifiers even more meaningless though. Thats like 60% of all teams going through. Would be equivalent to a World Cup with 120 teams

Don't give them ideas, mate

 

[Sarni]

32 teams qualifying would make the EC qualifiers even more meaningless though. Thats like 60% of all teams going through. Would be equivalent to a World Cup with 120 teams

55 associations in UEFA but that includes:

Andorra
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Cyprus
Estonia
Faroe Islands
Georgia
Gibraltar
Israel
Kazakhstan
Kosovo
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Montenegro
Moldova
San Marino

19 teams who have one major tournament qualification between them (Latvia in 2004). Out of those 19 only Israel and Montenegro have occasionally been competitive against bigger teams but still losing convincingly on most occasions.

So essentially you are giving 32 spots to 36 teams + maybe 2 or 3 from the above list occasionally coming close. Pointless. 16 was perfect in maintaining high quality of competition, 24 is good in terms of giving broader access to major tournaments to smaller, developing teams who normally have little chance to make it into World Cup as well due to limited number of spots. The format however is tough to manage where you are allowing 4 out of 6 third placed teams go through...

 

[AjaxCunian]

Matter of time until de Jong overtakes Kimmich in my book.

 

[Samid]

Surely no offside?

 

[Eurotrash]

I want to see the lines on that call

 

[VorZakone]

I feel like my spatial awareness is worse than I thought. Some of these offsides don't look offside to me.

 

[Reiver]

Looked onside on the replay

Maybe not.

 

[UDontMessWith24]

A bit disgraceful that Arnautovic is allowed to play

 

[kidbob]

A bit disgraceful that Arnautovic is allowed to play

What did he do?

 

[hellhunter]

What did he do?

Racially (?) abuse the mother of Macedonias Alioski

 

[kidbob]

Racially (?) abuse the mother of Macedonias Alioski

Oh right. Yeah should've been banned for the tournament so.

 

[Foxbatt]

Tarkowski wouldn't look out of place in this Macedonian side.

 

[The Firestarter]

Heading the ball should be outlawed eventually. Every game at least two incidents when players bump heads. Eventually something really bad will happen on the pitch.

 

[Tom Van Persie]

A bit disgraceful that Arnautovic is allowed to play

Agreed. He should've been banned.

 

[Godfather]

Get the feck in. Deserved as well we started brightly

 

[Tom Van Persie]

Off the post for North Macedonia. Unlucky.

 

[The Firestarter]

Racially (?) abuse the mother of Macedonias Alioski

It was ethnic, not racial. Probably why only one game ban.

 

[hellhunter]

It was ethnic, not racial. Probably why only one game ban.

My bad, didn't want to imply something I wasn't sure about. Still a twat.