Menzo wrote:M15HKA wrote:Menzo wrote:I thought Italy were decent in the first half, the coach was still experimenting and it sucks that they only had this game to play before the tournament. I'm sure once Chiellini is in the center of the defense, it'll be sturdier but who knows.
Their group is hard as hell too, I have a bad feeling lol They have good individual players but the coach favours pieces of shit like Montolivo and Balzaretti way too much.
Ireland are hopeless, Italy should brush them aside. Spain always struggles with Italy and I think Italy can bounce back after this. Croatia is not where they were a few years ago although can be threatening, would put them around the same level as Russia maybe slightly below the Russians due to cohesion.
True, but Ireland have Trapattoni as the coach and I think they beat Italy last time they played. Croatia always seems to get the best of Italy too. Fingers crossed.
Russia seemed healthy though, I remember cheering for them against Holland during the last tournament, such a crazy game lol But people it was because Hiddink was a miracle worker as a coach, but it seems like the new coach is just as promising based on today's performance.
I think with Russia having quality players has never been a problem it was just problems due to fighting eachother and poor coaching making National team underperform since the 90's. Hiddink was not stupid he knew when he took over Russia had a good team and with the right coaching they would click which happened at Euro 2008. The current Russian coach (Advocaat) is disliked here because he did not call up players who deserved to be in the team, I think he does not watch the Russian league much and just chooses players off reputation.
I honestly can't see Ireland winning 1 match at the tournament, the were in Russia's qualifying group and Russia killed them in Dublin, I think it was 3-0 at half time to Russia and then they switched off in the last 10 minutes and conceded 2 goals (1 was a penalty from a Keane dive). At home in Moscow it was 0-0 but if you saw the game, even the stats it was like 20 shots to 1 for Russia and 70-30% possession
The group was very weak and they were lucky to get Estonia in play offs. They might get a point against Croatia due to Croatia missing a lot of chances but Italy and Spain are a class above them.
