*Official Euro 2008 Qualifying Thread*

[LuckyLloyd]

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Enough about England, lets look at the teams that made it and their seedings for the draw on Dec. 2 in Vienna:

Pot 1: Switzerland (hosts), Austria (hosts), Greece (holders), Netherlands

Pot 2: Croatia, Italy, Czech Republic, Sweden

Pot 3: Germany, Romania, Portugal, Spain

Pot 4: Poland, France, Turkey, Russia

Possibility of a real "group of death" with Netherlands, Italy, Germany and France all in the same round robin group.

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Can someone with more firsthand knowledge of Netherlands fill me in? I haven't watched any of their qualifiers, but they have really struggled to score. On paper they should be one of the favorites.

Portugal are always a dangerous team with Ronaldo, Quaresma, Nani, Deco, etc, but they lack a top-class striker which I think will prevent them from making a deep run.

Unless the Dutch can find a formation and play-style that suits them or unless the Portuguese somehow develop a striker in the next 6 months, then the cream of the crop has to be Italy, Germany, France and Spain.

If they only had Nesta and Totti, Italy would be clear favorites, but even without those two they have depth and balance at every position. Totti has never played as stunningly with the Azzuri as he has in Rome and Nesta was injured during the World Cup.

Germany don't seem to have as many world-class stars as other top European nations but their results in tournaments speak for themselves. In 2006 they shed their defensive image and played some of the most beautiful, attacking football at the World Cup.

France are really loaded. I'm shocked that anyone would say they are overrated. They are well represented at the finest clubs in the world, Arsenal, Barcelona, Chelsea, Manchester United. In addition, they are brimming with young domestic talent such as Benzema and Ben Arfa who are becoming stars. Trezequet, a top striker in Serie A, has routinely been left of the roster. France took 4 points from Italy in qualification and were only ever in trouble due to two fluky results against inferior Scotland.

Although Spain have such a history of ineptitude in major tournaments, this generation will be able to match every opponent in talent. Their style of play at the best of times can be a joy to show. At the worst of times they can dominate a match yet fail to produce a result. They have a world-class goalkeeper, Puyol anchors the defense, Xavi, Cesc, etc headline the midfield and they have plentiful riches up front with David Villa, Torres, etc.
As is always the case, the Euro field is well balanced, and knockout tournaments produce high variance, but there is a good chance of the champion coming from one of the four above powerhouses.

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Nice post. But before EVERY championship I get sick of hearing about how talented Spain are. So what. There is nothing within the current squad in terms of motivation or mentallity that wasn't there in previous years. Why the following is true I don't know, but:

- Spanish teams consistently go to major championships and produce less than the sum of their parts in terms of talent; dashing hype and expectation.

- German teams consistently go to major championships and produce much more than the sum of their parts in terms of talent; exceeding expectations and overachieving.


I just feel very comfortable writing them off. Portugal will be much more of a factor. But will again be let down by their traditional lack of a dominant frontman as noted in above posts.

[THAY3R]

You guys probably don't care but in my Football Manager 2007 franchise England lost to Ireland in the finals of Euro 2008 in shootouts and then lost to Columbia in the World Cup 2010 finals.

And yes Lampard missed a PK in 08 and got a red card against Columbia ;-P

[LuckyLloyd]

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You guys probably don't care but in my Football Manager 2007 franchise England lost to Ireland in the finals of Euro 2008 in shootouts and then lost to Columbia in the World Cup 2010 finals.

And yes Lampard missed a PK in 08 and got a red card against Columbia ;-P

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[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] Football Manager.

[Fallen Hero]

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Nice post. But before EVERY championship I get sick of hearing about how talented Spain are. So what. There is nothing within the current squad in terms of motivation or mentallity that wasn't there in previous years. Why the following is true I don't know, but:

- Spanish teams consistently go to major championships and produce less than the sum of their parts in terms of talent; dashing hype and expectation.


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There's a huge ammount of variance that comes into play here, I'm surprised how many of you are making this type of comments about Spain and Germany.
In 2002, for example, Spain was playing the best football of the tournament the only team that was even close was Italy, yet both those teams ended up being knocked out basically by the refs against Korea.
In 2004 they were knocked out in the group stage but their group included the two finalists, this is the type of thing people don't usually notice.

A team as talented as spain has to be one of the front runners.

PS: Just remembered in 2000, they lost to france because Raul missed a penalty in the last minute.

[LuckyLloyd]

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Nice post. But before EVERY championship I get sick of hearing about how talented Spain are. So what. There is nothing within the current squad in terms of motivation or mentallity that wasn't there in previous years. Why the following is true I don't know, but:

- Spanish teams consistently go to major championships and produce less than the sum of their parts in terms of talent; dashing hype and expectation.


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There's a huge ammount of variance that comes into play here, I'm surprised how many of you are making this type of comments about Spain and Germany.
In 2002, for example, Spain was playing the best football of the tournament the only team that was even close was Italy, yet both those teams ended up being knocked out basically by the refs against Korea.
In 2004 they were knocked out in the group stage but their group included the two finalists, this is the type of thing people don't usually notice.

A team as talented as spain has to be one of the front runners.

PS: Just remembered in 2000, they lost to france because Raul missed a penalty in the last minute.

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94? 98? 2006?

We'll have to agree to disagree about 2002 I'm afraid. They were very lucky to sneak past us in the second round. And IMO, South Korea don't get enough credit for the quarter final victory.

[Fallen Hero]

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94? 98? 2006?

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94 - Eliminated by Italy. Italy lost the final in penalty kicks to Brazil

98 - Poor performance, couldn't go past the group stage.

2006 - Eliminated by France, France lost the final to Italy.

So you have one truly disappointing performance in the 6 or 7 tournaments we've mentioned so far, not bad at all.


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And IMO, South Korea don't get enough credit for the quarter final victory.

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Probably because Spain scored two obviously good goals that were disallowed [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I think South Korea played very well in that WC, but "very well" should only have gotten them past the group stage.

[Droogie]

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On Greece vs Netherlands:
The Dutch just don't seem comfortable with the efficient style they are supposed to play and quite frankly I want to see them play their amazing offensive football, too. Make no mistake they are one of the best teams if it comes to pure skill but something just seems wrong with the way they have played during the qualifiers.


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Van Basten has literally no clue what he is (supposed to be) doing.

With a competent manager we'd have a shot, with van Basten we have a 0,1% shot. Unless he gets lucky again and we get a really weak group (we arguably had (by far) the easiest qualification group and still struggled) he might (might!) make it past the group round.

PLEASE [censored] OFF TO AJAX ALREADY YOU USELESS SACK OF [censored]!

[THEOSU]

one thing i'm not really seeing enough of:

england really aren't very good. their #1 goalie has had a crisis of confidence for a year now. their top defender has been alternately injured, off form, and scheming in the backroom of his club. their top striker didn't score internationally for two years, then got hurt. their best right wingers either play in mls (lol) or can't get a game for their club. their best central midfielders can't work together, and haven't been in the best of form for their club (lampard last year, gerrard this year).

i mean, there's a theme here. you'd thnk with stuff like this that the manager would be willing to experiment more in earlier qualifiers, becasuse obviously the first choice eleven aren't going to get the job done.

then again, you'd think that the manager wouldn't revert to beckham-lampard-gerrard-cole in the midfield when it hasn't worked for the past 3 years.

[Pontuan21]

I was debating whether to start a new thread for this but I figure this is probably the best spot for now.

Here's the European pots for World Cup 2010 qualifying:

Pot 1

Italy
Spain
Germany
Czech Republic
France
Portugal
Netherlands
Croatia
Greece

Pot 2
England
Romania
Scotland
Turkey
Bulgaria
Russia
Poland
Sweden
Israel

Pot 3
Norway
Ukraine
Serbia
Denmark
Northern Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Finland
Switzerland
Belgium

Pot 4
Slovakia
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Hungary
Moldova
Wales
FYR Macedonia
Belarus
Lithuania
Cyprus

Pot 5
Georgia
Albania
Slovenia
Latvia
Iceland
Armenia
Austria
Kazakhstan
Azerbaijan

Pot 6
Liechtenstein
Estonia
Malta
Luxembourg
Montenegro
Andorra
Faroe Islands
San Marino

I'm not an England supporter but its pretty unfair that they got leapfrogged by Greece into the 1st pot.

I guess FIFA decided against the old rules where they would take team's past experiences in World Cups when deciding the seedings. For England, who were a penalty shootout away from making the World's final four in 2006; this is a disaster as only one team automatically gets through without needing a playoff.

Also, take a look where Switzerland (who had a good 2006) and Austria are. They both got penalised big time for not playing big games having had a bye to host Euro 2008.

[thesilkworm]

I was considering starting a new thread for this too, but since you've posted it here, I'll keep it in here.

As a Scotland supporter, my ideal (easiest) group would be:

Greece
Scotland
Northern Ireland
Moldova
Azerbaijan
San Marino

My "group of death" (like we got for Euro 2008) would be:

Italy
Scotland
Ukraine
Hungary
Austria
Liechtenstein

What are everyone else's thoughts for their own teams?