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Mark

Group E: Spain, Sweden, Poland, Slovakia

By Mark, in General Football and Sport

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AjcW

AjcW

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

I've always had sympathy for teams in Spain's situation last night. They're always criticised for the game being boring or not breaking the team down. 

 

Sweden spent 90 minutes with all eleven players parked in or just outside the eighteen yard box holding shape and refusing to engage. 

 

I think the average fan overlooks how ridiculously difficult that is to beat. 

 

There are a small handful of teams in the entire world (and they're all domestic club sides worth billions) capable of breaking something like that down reliably and consistently. 

Emma Hayes did about 5 minutes worth of explaining how Slovakia broke down Poland's block after the red card (yes slightly different I know but actually it's tough to break down 10 men).

 

It was all about driving through the middle of the field in pairs, being direct with vertical runs into the box. The problem with Spain and why I struggle to sympathise, is that they showed no desire to be direct at all, because it's just so against everything they believe in. Sideways.... sideways....sideways.... over and over again with no success but still continuing in the same way.

 

I love 'good football' and I love teams that play the right way, but to me Spain just didn't try hard enough to break from their norm last night.

 

It's not like they couldn't switch it up either, they have a useless lump up front who could at the very least have been used as a target man to provide knockdowns for their pacey wide men.

 

You are right though, it's ridiculously difficult to beat, but they had the players to do it, they're just completely constrained by manager after manager refusing to play any other way but the 'Spain way' 

 

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Finnegan

Finnegan

Posted
Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, AjcW said:

Emma Hayes did about 5 minutes worth of explaining how Slovakia broke down Poland's block after the red card (yes slightly different I know but actually it's tough to break down 10 men).

 

It was all about driving through the middle of the field in pairs, being direct with vertical runs into the box. The problem with Spain and why I struggle to sympathise, is that they showed no desire to be direct at all, because it's just so against everything they believe in. Sideways.... sideways....sideways.... over and over again with no success but still continuing in the same way.

 

I love 'good football' and I love teams that play the right way, but to me Spain just didn't try hard enough to break from their norm last night.

 

It's not like they couldn't switch it up either, they have a useless lump up front who could at the very least have been used as a target man to provide knockdowns for their pacey wide men.

 

You are right though, it's ridiculously difficult to beat, but they had the players to do it, they're just completely constrained by manager after manager refusing to play any other way but the 'Spain way' 

 

 

Yeah but there's three major differences here, 

 

1. Slovakia are set up and well practiced to be direct, Spain aren't. More so than VDB's era but still not quite the same. 

 

2. Poland never really stopped trying to come forward. Even at 1-1 and down to 10 they were more adventurous than Sweden. 

 

3. Sweden are 10x better at that low block than Poland are and were. Sweden are a ridiculously hard working and well organised team. They're drilled to perfection and graft for each other. Poland were dreadful. There's no cohesion, no organisation, they're a complete mess. Even Leicester playing 352 could have broken them down. 

 

Slovakia could have played Sweden until August and not scored. 

 

And despite all that, Spain's "less direct" approach did create what should have been two or three match winning chances thanks to technical brilliance from Pedri, Oyarzabal and Sarabia but they were butchered by shit finishing. 

Edited by Finnegan
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AjcW

AjcW

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Finnegan said:

 

Yeah but there's three major differences here, 

 

1. Slovakia are set up and well practiced to be direct, Spain aren't. More so than VDB's era but still not quite the same. 

 

2. Poland never really stopped trying to come forward. Even at 1-1 and down to 10 they were more adventurous than Sweden. 

 

3. Sweden are 10x better at that low block than Poland are and were. Sweden are a ridiculously hard working and well organised team. They're drilled to perfection and graft for each other. Poland were dreadful. There's no cohesion, no organisation, they're a complete mess. Even Leicester playing 352 could have broken them down. 

 

Slovakia could have played Sweden until August and not scored. 

Fair enough


To be honest I think we will see a completely different Sweden against the other two teams.

 

Yesterdays result, and probably a few more that we will witness, is more a direct result of the farcical qualification rules in this tournament that basically mean you need about 3 points to get through lol 

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Finnegan

Finnegan

Posted
Posted
Just now, AjcW said:

Fair enough


To be honest I think we will see a completely different Sweden against the other two teams.

 

Yesterdays result, and probably a few more that we will witness, is more a direct result of the farcical qualification rules in this tournament that basically mean you need about 3 points to get through lol 

 

I'm not attacking Sweden. The idea of playing for a draw offends me on every level, I hate unambitious football. But in the context of these group stages, where 3 pts might be enough to advance? I can totally appreciate why they'd play that way and it worked. 

 

It was dull af but I doubt their fans care. 

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Bert

Bert

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Koke said:

 

I disagree regarding Barcelona. They were sensational during the Pep era. Yes they kept the ball a lot but they played with a purpose. Plus they had Messi. If you go back and watch the Barca games from 2008-2012 you will see that they were so ahead of the times. Greatest club side in history IMO. 

I’m talking after pep. 

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shen

shen

Posted
Posted
22 minutes ago, The Bear said:

Ludicrous display from Spain.

 

What was the manager thinking bringing Sarabia on that early? 

 

The thing with Spain is they always try and walk it in. 

If Spain won that game by two or three goals, I don't think many would've complained. Reminded me of their defeat to Switzerland at the 2010 World Cup.

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trabuch

trabuch

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

This is the first proper garbage game of the tournament. I can appreciate Sweden in a game like Spain away where they handled being under constant pressure really well. But this is crap. It's like Burnley v Fulham.

Absolutely. The dullest match so far.

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Bert

Bert

Posted
Posted

Yeah worst game of the tournament so far. Slovakia more than happy with a point. Sweden struggling to create anything. Don’t seem to have anything to break anyone down. 

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