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Football Discussion

Has a team ever won a tournament group in less convincing fashion than England?

Two goals scored but top because no-one else could score either. Apparently Germany scored more than all group C teams.
 
Has a manager ever managed to get so little out of such talent? He can't even put players in their proper positions.
 
QTXAdsy said:
Denmark and Slovenia go through without winning a single game apparently. Has there been a time in which both group games ended 0-0?
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Portugal won it without winning a group game.

I saw some improvement tonight. It’s clear the left hand side is hampering us. Shrinks the pitch meaning all the focus is on the right. Either drop Foden or change formation.

Still looks a positive draw, Netherlands - then Switzerland or Italy and a semi against Austria/Hungary/Romania/Turkey

Did Southgate purposely tell them to hold back trying to get this draw?

As a united fan I’ve said many times Rangnick is a good manager - I fancy Austria as outsiders to go far. Seem a very impressive side. Austria vs Germany final ?
 
John_P said:
Bobby Robson
Graham Taylor
Terry Venables
Glenn Hoddle
Kevin Keegan
Sven Goran Ericsson
Steve McLaren
Fabio Capello
Roy Hodgson

All done much worse.
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Getting further into tournaments doesn't always mean better (for me anyway). There is a value for me in the way football is played and how that can get the fans onside and for the enjoyment of watching and supporting the team. Once again we've lucked out on a decent starting group and now we've ended up on the opposite side of the draw to the supposed most dangerous teams (by winning the group that we should comfortably have won, which incidentally we only won after playing poor football and getting a lucky win against a poor Serbia team and then 2 lifeless draws after that). We looked a bit better after Palmer and Mainoo came on last night. We really need to get a left footer who can whip a good cross in on that left hand side just to give us that option and make opposition defenders worry about what we might do. 99% of the time they know there's unlikely to be an overlap and that the ball will very predictably come back inside.
 
Left side will hamper because Southgate thought he could get away with 1 natural left back who is currently unfit to play.

The rest of it is just the way it's set up. Against 10 behind the ball low block there's no chance of doing anything against it.
 
NuttySquirrel said:
Dunno, I had fallen asleep by then!
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Likewise...I was one of the lucky ones who fell asleep around half time, and spent most of the first half reading the paper in my lap.
Top of the group, er...good defence, so far.
But otherwise rather poo.

Edit...I was going to put an r in there, but I won't bother.
 
Benzin said:
Left side will hamper because Southgate thought he could get away with 1 natural left back who is currently unfit to play.

The rest of it is just the way it's set up. Against 10 behind the ball low block there's no chance of doing anything against it.
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I think Foden going home could be a blessing. May be forced to change things.
 
In another slice of uncanny tournament luck, instead of almost certainly getting Netherlands in the next round, we now get Slovakia as Georgia beat Portugal in the last group game. This after ending up on the lucky side of the draw already. Even Southgate can bore us into the quarters with this kind of fortune.
 
Some very minor justice for Scotland as not only would a draw not have been enough for them to progress (they'd have been 6th in the 3rd place table), Georgia have ensured Hungary's late winner wasn't enough to send them through.

Ukraine meanwhile have every right to feel robbed after being eliminated on 4 points, apparently the first time this has ever happened in the Euros. Under slightly different rules they might have advanced in place of Slovenia (3rd on 3pts in group C). They even managed more points than 2nd place Denmark. I guess it's the nature of the format that you're always at least partially relying on the performance of teams around you but this is a very extreme example
 
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In the NFL, the play off spots are for the best teams who didn't win their division (group) and whoever has the best record after the division winners gets a play-off berth regardless of where they finished. So you could have a 3rd place team go ahead of a 2nd place team if their record is better

Just to give you an idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_NFL_season#Regular_season_standings Under these rules, Ukraine would have qualified
 
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