Maximus Decimus
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Posts posted by Maximus Decimus
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2 hours ago, gingerjon said:
16 really is too small for the Euros now though - and 32 would make it just a little bit ridiculous.
There must be something better format-wise but football would be unlikely to ever move from having standard groups of 4.
I know, I'd love to see a 20 team tournament where each teams plays 4 times but you just know they never would.
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I watched the game last night in a pub, and one of my mates came who is a non-football fan and he pointed out some obvious flaws with the format. Then I heard Linekar this morning make a different point about the format.
I've never been a fan of the 24-team Euros, although I think this has been the best one. My point has been that it dilutes the quality and makes it too easy to qualify for many big teams. For instance, Netherlands should now be out for finishing third; now they'll end up knocking us out and making the final. England should have been facing at least some jeopardy last night etc
The obvious flaw pointed out by my friend was that two of the groups winners have to face 2nd place teams just because of luck of the draw. Then last night demonstrated the advantage Slovenia had over teams in Group A and B because they knew they could get a draw and qualify.
This feels a little like a smaller version of the old West Germany vs Austria situation in 1982.
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24 minutes ago, 17 stone giant said:
The book isn't finished yet. The first three chapters haven't been great, but chapter 4 against (probably) the Netherlands might be different. Win that and who knows where it will lead.
What I'm saying is, let's at least give England the opportunity to be knocked out, before we write the tournament off as being terrible.
My point way back was never to say that I thought Southgate was awful or a disaster. I was just giving my opinion that, all things considered, I didn't feel that what he had achieved was as praiseworthy as some people seem to think.
I felt that it was much closer to being what I've seen from England over many years, rather than some absolutely golden period where we've been doing things never seen or heard of before from any England team.
I've never thought it was golden in terms of play, but IMO it was largely different than what we've seen this time and the tournaments prior.
We've always had the odd game like this (Scotland, USA) and overall played conservatively but interspersed it with a mix of decent performances and solid games. I'll come back to games like the 6-2 against Iran or 4-0 against Ukraine. The 2016/2024 England teams would be struggling and maybe grinding out results in games like that.
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1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:
Southgate has managed to get the Spanish league's top player, the English League's top player, and the top scorer in Germany all playing in a system that apparently suits none of them.
I think the problem is that he isn't brave enough to drop one of them if the system isn't working.
They were talking on the Rest Is Football today, and Micah Richards gave his preferred team but as soon as he realised Bellingham wasn't in it, backtracked.
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5 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:
For the record I don’t think we’re going to win the thing and never have.
We might have good individual players on paper, but this is a team sport and we just don’t look effective as a team. The truth is we haven’t gelled in the run up either.
I just would invite you to see some positives from the situation we are in: strong squad, injury free, no major discipline problem and a route to the latter stages avoiding the better teams.
Things have definitely opened up. I'll feel better if we avoid the Netherlands. Yes they aren't a top side by their standards but they're always going to be a challenge even if we are playing well.
I actually thought last night was a minor improvement and defensively we've looked better than expected. Southgate has to be brave enough to learn the lessons from last night, rather than stubbornly trying to persist. I suspect he's much happier with how it's going than the rest of the country.
My main concern is that even with the open draw, we'll get a minnow and because we're not creating much, we'll get dragged into extra-time and the lottery of penalties.
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1 hour ago, Gerrumonside ref said:
On the flip side we do have a strong squad with options off the bench even if we’ve not come together as an XI yet.
Also we’ve avoided injuries or any disciplinary problems so far which is a big plus.
We may have been unimpressive but we’ve won the group expending the minimum amount of energy.
Does seem that the tournament itself is quite open with no standout teams so far, even if they may have played better than England so far.
I admire your positivity, but this is far more likely to end in tears than anything else.
We went into this tournament with an amazing attack, the best of the tournament, and have scored 2 OK goals in 3 games.
There's a decent chance we play Holland next and if we do we're out IMO. The German player pundit on Bild.de, laughed at the idea we could do well and said we're out next round regardless of who we play.
I came into this as a great Southgate defender but not only have we not done well, it can be clearly pointed to him why we haven't. It'll be a shame if he ends on this note.
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We're now basically in the situation I feared. The system that Southgate has persisted with clearly doesn't work and now we're faced with the dilemma of sticking with it or changing it for the knockouts.
What a disaster.
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13 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:
Alphabet!
Qualification record.
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Yeh... so that was a massive improvement.
It's almost like the system doesn't work, not just swapping one player...
We've won the group (very unconvincingly) but there's a chance we now face the Netherlands. That'll be fun.
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1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:
I don't see him changing anything too much.
Part of me is also wary of changing the team system to fit Foden in a bit better, especially when Bellingham has been so good this season.
One thing has been clear, Foden-Kane-Saka hasn't worked and is still likely to be a problem tonight.
It comes back to the old do you find a place for your best players, or build around one or two in the correct position. The latter seems obvious but I can understand how Southgate is scared of leaving Foden out, and scared of moving Bellingham out of his best position.
The result however has been a disjointed and confused looking England.
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8 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:
I think the only other change they could make is Watkins for Kane. TAA has made some good passes, but otherwise has been a total passenger in midfield as the games have passed him by.
I just think above anything the performance needs to be better and have more energy and impetus. We can't scrape by Slovenia.
Worryingly, as it stands we could be heading for an on paper pretty good run to the (semi) final...
Based on the Denmark game, there's no such thing..
We'll know more tonight, but I wouldn't be confident of putting anyone to the sword, and probably ending up on penalties.
Nearly every pundit I've heard has been saying that we need to move Foden into the middle and Bellingham back with Gordon on the left. We brought Gallagher on against Denmark and it changed next to nothing. The issues seem far more fundamental than a one-in, one-out.
I'm hoping we see a reaction tonight, but what we gonna do if it's not working again? Stubbornly persist, or change it in the knockouts?
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1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:
The messages out of the England Camp have suddenly gotten very defensive.
This is going to end in tears.
Word is that they're only going to switch Trent for Gallagher.
If that's the level if change they think is necessary, then it definitely is.
One good performance could switch it all around, but it isn't going to happen magically. If as expected we play the same tonight, what then? Go into a knockout game trying to change the system?
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18 minutes ago, Sidi Fidi Gold said:
England will play a 3rd placed team in the last 16, probably Slovakia or Austria, then probably Italy in the Q/F
I looked at it the other night, it's basically a bit of a free for all. All that's guaranteed is that we play Germany if we come second.
Other than that it very much depends on which groups teams finish 3rd from. It could be any team from DEF if we finish top. At the moment that's Austria, Slovakia and Czechia.
If we come 3rd, Portugal is looking likely, but it could be the top of Belgium's group.
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Fair play that they actually went for it at the end. I hope England will do that if we're behind in the knockout stages.
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If only all football was like that last 15 minutes.
They had the chances just lacked the serious quality.
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2 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:
Yes, there’s going to be much chaff alongside the wheat in the knockouts.
England?
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At this stage, it's hard to argue either deserve to go through.
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One for the purists...
Hungary look rubbish, they feel like a team that have had issues off the pitch. The Liverpool player who begins with S (Szobosli...) looks disinterested and almost bored.
The question is can Scotland get a goal. Over 2 and a half games, I'm not sure they've created anything you'd call a clear goalscoring chance.
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4 hours ago, gingerjon said:
Scotland have played in tournaments where best third place qualified and they failed to do so.
They have but they've also been in competitions that were harder to qualify for, with a presumably higher standard of teams.
In 1990, there were 13 qualifying spots for European teams, in a 24 team tournament, compared to 23 spots in 2020 and 2024.
I'm not trying to denigrate it, and I'll be made up for them, but I suspect much of press will be presuming it's the same achievement and they've finally done it.
Tbh, I'm not sure why I felt the need to make the point
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2 hours ago, Tommygilf said:
I don't think it is shameful, I just think it's a unique position native English speakers are in.
Let's be real here to speak any language other than English, for most native English speakers, means you have to speak a foreign language better than the person you are communicating with can speak English. Nearly the whole world now learns English as a second language (even Russia who tried to implement Russian as the lingua franca across the USSR and Eastern Bloc).
As English speakers what do we learn as a second language?
French - most common but frankly rarely used as even anecdotal evidence will demonstrate how in France they'll speak English back to you with a rather tired expression. Unless you're planning on going to Haiti or West Africa it's not very helpful either and even then unless you have an ear for a creole you'll struggle.
Spanish - possibly the most helpful 2nd language, but has a very "American" focus with obviously lots of Latin America. In the hubs of international tourism of Spain and Mexico, English is more widely used.
German - Great in Germany and Austria, pretty naff all use anywhere else. Likewise Italian in Italy or Greek in Greece or Polish in Poland. They can help with learning other Germanic, Romance, or Slavic languages but again they are other languages not just different flavours. That's before we get onto Hungarian or Latvian!
Arabic, Persian/Farsi, the various Indian subcontinent Languages, even Japanese and most insanely Mandarin - all have lots of potentially enormous uses. A knowledge of many help you not get scammed in some countries for sure!
However this brings us back to the original point, English, in all sorts of accents and levels of broken speech, is the lingua franca of the world. Between anyone of different nationalities, save some historically multi linguistic regions, it's almost expected to be the common language of communication. Being a native English speaker just means everyone wants to communicate how you already do.
(Outside of France) I've always found people do genuinely appreciate it when you try with their language, so we should never stop trying or use our ability in English as an excuse to not learn anything else.
This is very much my opinion. As somebody who has tried quite a few times to learn French, it is incredibly hard and requires a great deal of time and effort. Without the necessity of needing to, most people won't. Some people get a cheat code, like a foreign partner or the opportunity to work abroad and learn that way but for most it's nothing more than a hobby.
The reality is that most of the world wouldn't learn it either if they didn't have to or have far more opportunity to do so.
As a teacher, I don't really believe in teaching MFL other than as a bit of fun. We do it as a half an hour a week thing, which is pointless, but there is no justification in doing it for any longer like they do on the continent.
I was introduced to an AI music app the other day, and my first thought was that in time this will see a dramatic decline in the numbers of people learning instruments. If you eliminate the need to learn an instrument to create a decent song, people won't bother. It'll become a niche activity for purists.
Being born with English as a first language is like this in many ways.
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3 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:
Duolingo is how I have learnt German to a competent level. I've been doing it for years, probably about 8 years now, only 15 minutes or so each morning but it's enough to get to a decent level of understanding. Doing it on a screen as opposed to actually speaking it is maybe why I'm much better at reading it than actually listening to someone speak it. Of course one of the main problems with listening to natives speak a language is how fast they speak it and how many local dialect words, and abbreviations and other little tweaks they make that a foreigner wouldn't understand.
I wish you'd never told me this lol. I think I did 5-600 days and realised how far away I still was from even being able to hold a simple conversation, and came to the conclusion I'd have to go to classes or do much more immersive stuff.
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1 hour ago, The Masked Poster said:
Having watched a few games of this tournament, I think the reason for England being poor is being overthought. They are simply not playing as a team, not even close. Who was captain on Thursday? (I do know but...) Did they even have one? They just looked like 11 guys on a pitch doing their own thing. Keep this up and they'll be going home soon.
It's easy to blame the manager but I can't imagine a team playing so lackadaisical under a manager like Clough or Jack Charlton.
Finally, come on Hungary
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I'm in a quandary, as I genuinely want Scotland to qualify but I don't think they will so I want to bet on Hungary. If I bet on them, I'll end up wanting them to win.
On a slightly different point, if Scotland do qualify I'm fully expecting to hear the plaudits about how they're the first team in 70 years to qualify through the groups and what a great achievement it is etc
Whilst this would be true to an extent, it'll also be because it is much easier than ever to do so. I somehow suspect this will barely get a mention.
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I'd love to have learned a language, and have tried to learn French a few times.
I went travelling when I was 22 and did a bit then. I was demoralised when I plucked up the courage to speak French and the guy responded in English.
During lockdown, I did Duolingo for ages and came to the conclusion that to learn it in any way I'd have to go to totally different lengths. I naively hoped if I used an app long enough, I'd get to a point where I could read it or watch stuff.
That's my personality sadly. There are quite a number of things I can do better than your average Joe (piano, guitar, darts), but none I am expert in. I just haven't got the discipline required.
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God, wouldn't you love to see England play like this?
Euro 2024
in Any Other Business / Any Other Sports
Posted
Yeh Czechia-Turkey it is in my house.