This board is getting more and more weird. On its other side, among the favourites at the start, there is only Belgium. And that was an "error" that compensated Spain and England.
I must say that this Spain is not as impressive as it was until 2012, even without considering the false step in 2014 WC (which would make it less fearsome). But it will be anyway a tough match, and if we make it to the quarters it will be a great result.
Croatia, Croatia, Croatia! Spain didn't concede a goal on tournaments since 2012, and Croatia has scored against them. Spain didn't lose for 12 (!) years on tournaments, and Croatia has stopped that run. And all that happened when I didn't believe in Croatia. I don't know why, maybe because of their disappointing WC experience from 2 years ago. This is really a surprise, maybe a bigger one than England not finishing first in their group. Now I have a headache to decide who will go through - Italy with their defence or Spain with their possession.
I feel really sorry for @Pecca - everytime you believed in Czechs, and everytime they disappointed... Congrats to @TStael, though, you were the only one who guessed the result about Turkey.
Results in this tournament have been hard to predict so far, as the table shows:
Slovakia and Northern Ireland are sure to progress to the round of 16. Turkey and Albania have to hope that the following happens:
Group E: Ireland doesn't win their last match. If they do, they will have 4 points and either Belgium or Sweden will have at least 4 points. Also, if Sweden wins against Belgium it should be with at least 4 goals so Belgium gets a -3 or worse goal difference.
Group F: Austria or Iceland will end up with less than 3 points. But Albania and Turkey have to hope that Hungary beats Portugal. In that case the third place in this group will have at most 2 points.
Confused? You won't be after next week's episode of Euro 2016!
Today's matches. Really, it's becoming more and more difficult to predict.
Hungary - Portugal. It's interesting that the Group F plays before the Group E. A lot has been said about Portugal and Ronaldo. It's especially hurting to him, I think, to hear about Messi's heroics on the Copa America. He has to respond to critics. Come on, be a man, and show them that you're still there. 1:2.
Iceland - Austria. Iceland needs a draw here, just as in their previous matches. But Austria wouldn't like it. After all, before the tournament started, nobody believed in Iceland. And yet, I think they showed they can reach a needed result. 1:1.
Italy - Rep Ireland. Ireland needs to win here. But I actually don't think it's possible. Italy don't give many chances. Actually, they usually don't give any chance. 0:1.
Sweden - Belgium. It will be the last international match for Zlatan. Many would miss him, and I'm sure he'll try to do everything to impress, to leave the last good impression. But it's Belgium, after all. Many say they don't play like a team. I see a lot of similarities between this Belgium and Man City from this year. Sweden will score at last but Belgium should not let them win. 1:1. But if Sweden wins, I will LOVE it.
Iceland has impressed! Austria is good too though. 1-1
Portugal has been putrid.... but they should beat Hungary, who have surpassed expectations. 1-0 Portugal.
Ireland v Italy... pulling on my heart. Italy already clinched first. 1-1, which would be a nice result for the Irish.
Belgium 2 Sweden 1: Belgium is the better team. Let's hope Zlatan scores though!
The irony: if these results hold, then Sweden and Ireland would be eliminated... despite being arguably much more talented than Albania, Turkey or Northern Ireland! The perils of being in the group of death
I understand fully some of the comments above, still it hurts to see something you love so much, be so bad.. :-/
This will be Zlatan's last game, and that is dissappointing. He's by far the only real player we have. But what's good is, this also means our contract with our coach finally ends. He hasn't done so good with the team, so we need a new coach, with new ideas. We have to play to ouur strenghts, which historically has been defense, rather than try to simulate better teams' offense. We just don't have enough good players to do that.
@JuliusBorisov - a draw would be two points, because the goal difference is the correct one. Your system is nice and transparent, and keeping it most amiable - the other way just leaves more points up for grabs,, and maybe allows for more satisfaction even.
I mean: right goal difference is actually pretty hard to predict - to some at least, lol. I am not sure I'd gotten any more points that way!
If draws were happening a lot, it would be an issue, but I think that changing the point system to reward the winning team with three points was absolutely the right decision to take by FIFA, and also to stop kicking the ball back to the goalie.
Wonderful upset from Croatia, IMO! It is just that Spain has been so sovereign this far, and I think a tournament where you feel that any team could be beaten on a good day is much more interesting.
And getting ridiculously nervous for Iceland and Hungary! If both were out after this round, I'd be so crushed...
Especially as I don't quite have the faith in Sweden beating Belgium, despite the tactical fragility and team-play challenges of team BE this far. @lolien - go Hungary!!!
Damn that late first period equalizer against HU!!
But, oh, the cruelty of hope! Right now the results are superbly fine, but still second half-time to go...
Edit: 2-1 to HU!!!! Edit 2: Damn u Barbie-boy! What a response thou... Edit 3: 3-2 to HU - I breathe again! What a match!! Roller coaster of less than ten mins all this...
Dammit, another one of my guesses killed in overtime! But I console myself with the fact that it was Iceland that scored and sent Ronaldo and Portugal down in 3rd place!
Well done HU, though - what a thriller of a match!! Congrats @lolien - what incredible group this F has been, really! Suspenseful, surprising, and to me, so very satisfying.
And incredible Iceland!
Did not get anything right - but the results were wonderful!
Icelandic is not that close to Swedish, but I don't think even so his jubilations are that intelligible even for his countrymen, but the incredible joy is plain to hear!!
(I only got: "österrike" = Austria and "Vi ska vinna!" =We will win!)
Anyways, oh how I lack in faith! Games entering the 80th minutes, I was thinking: bläh, two goal-less draws for final group stage matches. But happily I was wrong!
Stunning upset from Ireland! And I should have trusted my own wisdom that BE only scrapes forward...
It looks like I completely lost an ability to predict. I find this tournament to be amusing, much more surprising than the WC 2014.
@FinneousPJ and @Skatan are leaders in match-by-match predictions with 26 points each. This is how the table looks:
Now, about points for guessing the right teams to qualify from the groups. Guessing the right team to qualify from the group gives 4 points per team.
These were our predictions (in the order they were given in this thread):
Mine: France, England, Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal, with Switzerland, Wales, Poland, Turkey, Belgium and Austria, with Russia, Czech Republic, Northern Ireland and Sweden. 11 teams = 44 points.
@Anduin France Switzerland England Russia Germany Ukraine Spain Croatia Italy Sweden Portugal Austria Wales Czech Republic Republic of Ireland Hungary. 10 teams = 40 points.
@sparkleav France Russia Germany Spain Italy Portugal. 5 teams = 20 points.
@Skatan France Switzerland England Russia Germany Poland Spain Czech Republic Belgium Italy Austria Iceland. 9 teams = 36 points.
@Montresor_SP France Albania England Slovakia Germany Poland Spain Turkey Italy Belgium Iceland Portugal. 10 teams = 40 points.
@FinneousPJ FRA SUI ENG SVK POL GER ESP CRO BEL ITA POR AUT ALB RUS CZE IRL. 12 teams = 48 points.
@Doubledimas FRA SUI ENG WAL GER POL ESP CZE ITA BEL AUT ICE. 10 teams = 40 points.
@Cahir France Romania England Slovakia Poland Germany Spain Turkey Belgium Italy Austria Portugal. 9 points = 36 points.
Match 1: Switzerland v Poland Match 2: Croatia v Portugal Match 3: Wales v Northern Ireland Match 4: Hungary v Belgium Match 5: Germany v Slovakia Match 6: Italy v Spain Match 7: France v Republic of Ireland Match 8: England v Iceland
Quarter-finals 1: Winner Match 1 v Winner Match 2 2: Winner Match 3 v Winner Match 4 3: Winner Match 5 v Winner Match 6 4: Winner Match 7 v Winner Match 8
Semi-finals 1: Winner QF1 v Winner QF2 2: Winner QF3 v Winner QF4
Final Winner SF1 v Winner SF2
Which means that there will be no France - Germany, France - Spain, England - France, France - Italy, Italy - Spain, Germany - Spain, Germany - Italy finals - all of them are in one section. It blows the majority of predictions regarding runners up in the tournament away.
In the final, one of the teams is destined to be one of these: Switzerland, Poland, Croatia, Portugal, Wales, Northern Ireland, Hungary, Belgium.... WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED THAT? If I judge it based on the group stages, it should be Croatia (my secret wish is Wales, though
Conte changed 8 out of 11 players, mostly to avoid missing players against Spain because of yellow cards (still, we got too many yesterday too, we have 10 players at risk for a possible quarter of final), but they had all the reasons to try and stand out, to get more chances to play in the next matches.
The problem is that yesterday there wasn't much cohesion and we almost never created anything interesting, despite having the clearest chance with Insigne, until the Irish goal.
There are some extremely interesting match-ups in that round of 16! So, on to some predictions:
Switzerland - Poland: 1-2. Two good teams, this should be a very close match.
Croatia - Portugal: 2-2, Croatia wins on penalties. Portugal finally showed they could score goals against Hungary. Now they only need to learn how to defend.
Wales - Northern Ireland: 3-0. UK vs. UK! Both of these teams are probably delighted to have reached the playoffs. Wales is the better team and should win this inter-British match-up comfortably.
Hungary - Belgium: 1-2. Belgium hasn't quite reached their potential in this tournament yet but they should be too much of a mouthful for Hungary.
Germany - Slovakia: 3-1. Germany is probably the biggest favorite in the round of 16. I don't see Slovakia pulling off a "Denmark 1992" against Germany. (But I will laugh my ass off if they do. Sorry Germany!)
Italy - Spain: 1-0, possibly after extra time. This is THE match in the round of 16. I'm guessing a close match with the Italian defense winning the day.
France - Republic of Ireland: 2-0. Much as I love Ireland, the luck of the Irish stops here!
England - Iceland: 1-1, Iceland wins on penalties. The English don't score enough goals, Iceland always plays 1-1, and England always loses penalty shootouts.
Btw, a question to everyone: how would we evaluate draws in the knochout stages? For the WC 2014, we considered a win by penalties as a +1 goal to the winner, e.g.: a match finishes at 0:0, after penalties one team wins. For the prediction sake it's 1:0 to the winner.
Also, come on, Iceland, pull a Lester this year, win the tournament now. That would be a shock bigger than Greece in 2004.
@JuliusBorisov That's fine but @Montresor_SP implies that penalties should be explicitly predicted. I am not against that either. TBH, I think having to predict penalties is better. So 1-0 does not give points for home team winning on penalties, IMO.
Comments
I must say that this Spain is not as impressive as it was until 2012, even without considering the false step in 2014 WC (which would make it less fearsome). But it will be anyway a tough match, and if we make it to the quarters it will be a great result.
I feel really sorry for @Pecca - everytime you believed in Czechs, and everytime they disappointed... Congrats to @TStael, though, you were the only one who guessed the result about Turkey.
Results in this tournament have been hard to predict so far, as the table shows:
1) Slovakia - 4 points, goal difference 0
2) Northern Ireland - 3 points, goal difference 0.
3) Turkey - 3 points, goal difference -2 (2 goals scored).
4) Albania - 3 points, goal difference -2 (1 goal scored).
Slovakia and Northern Ireland are sure to progress to the round of 16. Turkey and Albania have to hope that the following happens:
Group E: Ireland doesn't win their last match. If they do, they will have 4 points and either Belgium or Sweden will have at least 4 points. Also, if Sweden wins against Belgium it should be with at least 4 goals so Belgium gets a -3 or worse goal difference.
Group F: Austria or Iceland will end up with less than 3 points. But Albania and Turkey have to hope that Hungary beats Portugal. In that case the third place in this group will have at most 2 points.
Confused? You won't be after next week's episode of Euro 2016!
Hungary - Portugal. It's interesting that the Group F plays before the Group E. A lot has been said about Portugal and Ronaldo. It's especially hurting to him, I think, to hear about Messi's heroics on the Copa America. He has to respond to critics. Come on, be a man, and show them that you're still there. 1:2.
Iceland - Austria. Iceland needs a draw here, just as in their previous matches. But Austria wouldn't like it. After all, before the tournament started, nobody believed in Iceland. And yet, I think they showed they can reach a needed result. 1:1.
Italy - Rep Ireland. Ireland needs to win here. But I actually don't think it's possible. Italy don't give many chances. Actually, they usually don't give any chance. 0:1.
Sweden - Belgium. It will be the last international match for Zlatan. Many would miss him, and I'm sure he'll try to do everything to impress, to leave the last good impression. But it's Belgium, after all. Many say they don't play like a team. I see a lot of similarities between this Belgium and Man City from this year. Sweden will score at last but Belgium should not let them win. 1:1. But if Sweden wins, I will LOVE it.
Portugal has been putrid.... but they should beat Hungary, who have surpassed expectations. 1-0 Portugal.
Ireland v Italy... pulling on my heart. Italy already clinched first. 1-1, which would be a nice result for the Irish.
Belgium 2 Sweden 1: Belgium is the better team. Let's hope Zlatan scores though!
The irony: if these results hold, then Sweden and Ireland would be eliminated... despite being arguably much more talented than Albania, Turkey or Northern Ireland! The perils of being in the group of death
This will be Zlatan's last game, and that is dissappointing. He's by far the only real player we have. But what's good is, this also means our contract with our coach finally ends. He hasn't done so good with the team, so we need a new coach, with new ideas. We have to play to ouur strenghts, which historically has been defense, rather than try to simulate better teams' offense. We just don't have enough good players to do that.
ISL-AUT 1-0
SWE-BEL 0-2
ITA-IRL 2-1
I mean: right goal difference is actually pretty hard to predict - to some at least, lol. I am not sure I'd gotten any more points that way!
If draws were happening a lot, it would be an issue, but I think that changing the point system to reward the winning team with three points was absolutely the right decision to take by FIFA, and also to stop kicking the ball back to the goalie.
Wonderful upset from Croatia, IMO! It is just that Spain has been so sovereign this far, and I think a tournament where you feel that any team could be beaten on a good day is much more interesting.
And getting ridiculously nervous for Iceland and Hungary! If both were out after this round, I'd be so crushed...
Especially as I don't quite have the faith in Sweden beating Belgium, despite the tactical fragility and team-play challenges of team BE this far. @lolien - go Hungary!!!
Goooooooooooooool - Hungary!!
Edit: Goooalll! - Portugal
But, oh, the cruelty of hope! Right now the results are superbly fine, but still second half-time to go...
Edit: 2-1 to HU!!!!
Edit 2: Damn u Barbie-boy! What a response thou...
Edit 3: 3-2 to HU - I breathe again! What a match!! Roller coaster of less than ten mins all this...
And incredible Iceland!
Did not get anything right - but the results were wonderful!
Icelandic is not that close to Swedish, but I don't think even so his jubilations are that intelligible even for his countrymen, but the incredible joy is plain to hear!!
(I only got: "österrike" = Austria and "Vi ska vinna!" =We will win!)
Anyways, oh how I lack in faith! Games entering the 80th minutes, I was thinking: bläh, two goal-less draws for final group stage matches. But happily I was wrong!
Stunning upset from Ireland! And I should have trusted my own wisdom that BE only scrapes forward...
Bah, I am very disappointed
@FinneousPJ and @Skatan are leaders in match-by-match predictions with 26 points each. This is how the table looks:
Now, about points for guessing the right teams to qualify from the groups. Guessing the right team to qualify from the group gives 4 points per team.
These were our predictions (in the order they were given in this thread):
Mine: France, England, Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal, with Switzerland, Wales, Poland,
Turkey, Belgium andAustria, withRussia,Czech Republic, Northern Ireland andSweden. 11 teams = 44 points.@Anduin France Switzerland England
RussiaGermanyUkraineSpain Croatia ItalySwedenPortugalAustriaWalesCzech RepublicRepublic of Ireland Hungary. 10 teams = 40 points.@sparkleav France
RussiaGermany Spain Italy Portugal. 5 teams = 20 points.@Skatan France Switzerland England
RussiaGermany Poland SpainCzech RepublicBelgium ItalyAustriaIceland. 9 teams = 36 points.@Montresor_SP France
AlbaniaEngland Slovakia Germany Poland SpainTurkeyItaly Belgium Iceland Portugal. 10 teams = 40 points.@FinneousPJ FRA SUI ENG SVK POL GER ESP CRO BEL ITA POR
AUTALBRUSCZEIRL. 12 teams = 48 points.@Doubledimas FRA SUI ENG WAL GER POL ESP
CZEITA BELAUTICE. 10 teams = 40 points.@Cahir France
RomaniaEngland Slovakia Poland Germany SpainTurkeyBelgium ItalyAustriaPortugal. 9 points = 36 points.The overall score:
FinneousPJ 26+48=74 points
me 24+44=68 points
Skatan 26+36=62 points
Montresor_SP 20+40=60 points
Cahir 21+36=57 points
Anduin 13+40=53 points
Doubledimas 40 points
sparkleav 20 points
booinyoureyes 10 points
Tstael 9 points
Argas 8 points
Pecca 0 points
This is the schedule of the knockout stage:
Match 1: Switzerland v Poland
Match 2: Croatia v Portugal
Match 3: Wales v Northern Ireland
Match 4: Hungary v Belgium
Match 5: Germany v Slovakia
Match 6: Italy v Spain
Match 7: France v Republic of Ireland
Match 8: England v Iceland
Quarter-finals
1: Winner Match 1 v Winner Match 2
2: Winner Match 3 v Winner Match 4
3: Winner Match 5 v Winner Match 6
4: Winner Match 7 v Winner Match 8
Semi-finals
1: Winner QF1 v Winner QF2
2: Winner QF3 v Winner QF4
Final
Winner SF1 v Winner SF2
Which means that there will be no France - Germany, France - Spain, England - France, France - Italy, Italy - Spain, Germany - Spain, Germany - Italy finals - all of them are in one section. It blows the majority of predictions regarding runners up in the tournament away.
In the final, one of the teams is destined to be one of these: Switzerland, Poland, Croatia, Portugal, Wales, Northern Ireland, Hungary, Belgium.... WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED THAT? If I judge it based on the group stages, it should be Croatia (my secret wish is Wales, though
Predictions for the rest of the tournament:
Winners:
Match 1: Poland
Match 2: Croatia
Match 3: Wales
Match 4: Belgium
Match 5: Germany
Match 6: Italy
Match 7: France
Match 8: England
Quarter-finals
1: Winner: Croatia
2: Winner: Belgium
3: Winner: Germany
4: Winner: France
Semi-finals
1: Winner: Croatia
2: Winner: Germany
Finals:
Germany
The problem is that yesterday there wasn't much cohesion and we almost never created anything interesting, despite having the clearest chance with Insigne, until the Irish goal.
Switzerland - Poland: 1-2. Two good teams, this should be a very close match.
Croatia - Portugal: 2-2, Croatia wins on penalties. Portugal finally showed they could score goals against Hungary. Now they only need to learn how to defend.
Wales - Northern Ireland: 3-0. UK vs. UK! Both of these teams are probably delighted to have reached the playoffs. Wales is the better team and should win this inter-British match-up comfortably.
Hungary - Belgium: 1-2. Belgium hasn't quite reached their potential in this tournament yet but they should be too much of a mouthful for Hungary.
Germany - Slovakia: 3-1. Germany is probably the biggest favorite in the round of 16. I don't see Slovakia pulling off a "Denmark 1992" against Germany. (But I will laugh my ass off if they do. Sorry Germany!)
Italy - Spain: 1-0, possibly after extra time. This is THE match in the round of 16. I'm guessing a close match with the Italian defense winning the day.
France - Republic of Ireland: 2-0. Much as I love Ireland, the luck of the Irish stops here!
England - Iceland: 1-1, Iceland wins on penalties. The English don't score enough goals, Iceland always plays 1-1, and England always loses penalty shootouts.
Also, come on, Iceland, pull a Lester this year, win the tournament now. That would be a shock bigger than Greece in 2004.