I like the shirts a lot. They are a throwback to the cycling team from the 50s and 60s which dominated cycling.Hideous, and there is zero connection to their colors.
At least Portugal could say that green is a national color, even if it isn't glow in the dark green.
I guess I see better where you are coming from but I just don't agree. Yes, this may be their best chance for a while but any objective analysis says that they aren't so much better than a team like Poland that they should not lose to them. Poland have a bunch of players who play for osme of the best teams in Europe. Not just Lewandowski but also Blascykowski and Pisczek at Dortmund.( all spellings likely butchered). Krychowiak is a very good player at Sevilla. I can't say I've watched much of Torino but Glik plays in Italy. The keepers in England. There's a spine there that is every bit as cultured and experienced at the highest club levels of football as what Belgium can put out. We venture into Anglo-centrism with Belgium because so many of their players are stars in England....
It wouldn't be a "major" disappointment in the sense that "major" is not strong enough of a word. This is by far the best squad in their history and the only time they could have a legit claim to best XI on the continent. For this team to lose to the likes of Poland would be "everybody's getting fired" levels of disappointment.
Another way to put it: even the English, people raised to expect failure, would be massively disappointed by being knocked out by Poland.
Good clarification, and they do look like cycling shirts. I still don't like 'em.I like the shirts a lot. They are a throwback to the cycling team from the 50s and 60s which dominated cycling.
Hazard was spectacular, he has been talking about the net game forever. To play at Lille again is very special. I am worried it might be too special.
I don't know what the team could have done to get more respect from Keller and Martinez. They missed a lot of chances, bu that is football.
I think he's played 3-5-2 everywhere he's been, so you would think he would. Not sure if he has the players for it though (yet).I suppose I've never thought about it but I wonder if Conte will play 3-5-2 at Chelsea? Will be interesting to see how EPL fans take to him.
Also I'd give almost anything to have Florenzi on United.
It´s true that he has to do better on the 1st save. But his defenders were sleeping as well. There were like three Italians and one Spaniard in the 6y box, which is essentially what this match has been like: Spain looks flat and one step behind, Italy wants it more, looks more stable in everything and is swarming the ball when Spain has it.New De Gea hasn't had a great tournament
I think everyone who watches regularly has a clue about this. He did not do well on the free kick. If the knuckling is a problem he's worried about he's supposed to push it wide. He felt he could handle it and he didn't do a good job of that. He has done well in the match overall.I don't think you guys have any clue how difficult the modern ball is to handle when it's rocketing and knuckling.
It doesn't matter. If he's concerned about it the last thing he should do is spill it forward. He will have trained that specific shot probably a trillion times in his career. Yes it was moving hard and from a dangerous location. He's trained to deal with exactly that. He really can't leave that ball in front of his goal. HIs teammates should have done better to deal with it after he did, for sure, but De Gea did not handle that well at all.Disagree wholeheartedly. That's one of the hardest shots to do more than simply stop. It was a rocket with late movement. It was in the pocket between a driven, extending dive (easy to sweep away), and a collapse dive where he's fighting gravity to get his arms and body behind it. You don't have any forward arm extension to provide a cushion. It's a bastard of a shot and your defense has to do more than simply watch.
If you could get the best keeper in the world (or one of them at any rate) to spill a rebound like that 50% of the time (or any kind of reasonably high percentage) simply by hitting the ball hard, low, and square, then guys would shoot straight at the keeper all the time. The reason you don't see that is because top keepers are expected to deal with that ball quite consistently, either catching or palming it around the post.As a former keeper, I side with SocrManiac. If a shot is close enough to him that he can drop his knee into the path as a backstop, then maybe you can say his hands should be good enough to catch that. But if it's wide enough that he has to dive, then he has no Plan B - proper technique is to get in front of it first, and make sure it can't get over your outstretched body or take a funny bounce over your hands. From the angle he was at, he had no reasonable way to dive AND punch it away, unless you're going to take an outsized risk of missing it entirely. De Gea probably catches that in his hands a majority of the time, but it's not the 90%+ that some people are acting like it should be.
It looked like he did, but the reaction of -- scream, scream, writhe in agony -- stop -- look at my stomach to see if there is a mark -- resume writhing in agony -- certainly seemed like he was being dramatic about it.Lol @ the ref. Pique absolutely destroyed Eder there.
He's had to wave off a lot of simulation but that certainly wasn't one of them.
If Spain does lose this, in spite of my opinion on the goal, De Gea will not be the reason why, he's certainly made a bunch of saves that maybe even his counterpart in this match doesn't make.
Leave him alone, he's Italian. It was world class writhing, gesturing and gesticulating...worthy of this fine match.It looked like he did, but the reaction of -- scream, scream, writhe in agony -- stop -- look at my stomach to see if there is a mark -- resume writhing in agony -- certainly seemed like he was being dramatic about it.
Yeah, was definitely a foul and possibly yellow card. But I thoroughly enjoy seeing some of these drama queens take a beating every now and then.It looked like he did, but the reaction of -- scream, scream, writhe in agony -- stop -- look at my stomach to see if there is a mark -- resume writhing in agony -- certainly seemed like he was being dramatic about it.
He's given a few ticky tacky fouls too that were questionable. Just poor refereeing rather than a conscious decision to raise threshold of contact required, I thinkThe ref has basically decided "okay, you guys want a no-blood-no-foul game? Here you go." And then both sides elect to complain about it.