A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

Hear, hear!

So, anyone else following the Euro2012 qualifying? Any guesses as to who'll qualify and who won't?

I'll start by surprising everyone!

I'm absolutely certain that Poland will qualify, and Ukraine has at least a 90% chance of qualifying now that they've solved most of their problems.

edited 2nd Apr '11 3:29:52 PM by BestOf

Poland and Ukraine are co-hosts of the tournament. They've already qualified by default.

That's what I was referring to, yes.

(And I also snuck in a mention of how Ukraine's been close to losing their position as host because they haven't finished road projects and stadium renovations in time.)

Making a new post 'cause it'll take me a while to write this one up so I'll be ninja'd for sure... Turns out I didn't get ninja'd after all...

Here's a Wikipedia article about the qualifying. The link goes directly to group A.

For those who don't know how this works, the groups go from A to I. Each group has 5 or 6 teams, and each team plays every other team in the group both home and away. A win will get you 3 points, a tie will earn you 1 point and a loss leaves you without points. Since some groups have 6 teams, the games against the team that places last in these groups don't count.

When all the games are played, the winner of each group will qualify and the team that places second in each group will go on to another round against other 2nd-placed teams. They will play each other so that 4 of them will qualify.

Let's predict who qualifies!

Group A: 1. Germany 2. Turkey

Group B: 1. Russia 2. Slovakia

Group C: 1. Italy 2. Slovenia

Group D: 1. France 2. Bosnia and Herzegovina

Group E: 1. Netherlands 2. Sweden

Group F: 1. Croatia 2. Greece

Group G: 1. England 2. Switzerland

Group H: 1. Portugal 2. Denmark

Group I: 1. Spain 2. Czech Republic

We don't know how the teams that come second will be paired for the play-offs so I'll just have to guess who'd gonna qualify.

I'll list all the second-placed teams in my prediction and bold the ones that I think will pass. Turkey, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sweden, Greece, Switzerland, Denmark, Czech Republic.

edited 2nd Apr '11 4:09:53 PM by BestOf

^ Switzerland will NEVER qualify, and I'm not just saying that because they're currently six points behind the top two teams in their group.

Anyway, Champions League Quarterfinals action starting about now. Gonna be following Real Madrid v. Tottenham Hotspur; my money's on Madrid, although Tottenham has been pretty entertaining to watch this tournament.

edited 5th Apr '11 11:47:24 AM by SeanMurrayI

Never mind Real vs Tottenham, that match has been nothing compared to what's going on at the San Siro - Inter Milan 2-2 Schalke 04, including Dejan Stankovic volleying in from nearly the half-way line after 20 seconds. Seriously.

I watched the Madrid-Tottenham game, and sure, the last 2 goals by Madrid were awesome, but I was kind of rooting for the Spurs after their second game against AC Milan.

That said, the main reason they lost was Grouch's 2 yellow cards, both of which were thoroughly deserved.

But damn I wish we'd been shown the other game instead (as it is, only the goals and other highlights were shown).

Tomorrow's gonna be Chelsea vs ManU, and it's not on any of the free channels in Finland.

I'm so disappointed... Rooney vs Drogba...

^^With the resources that I have, I can only watch the encore presentation of that match but not the live broadcast. Knowing the final score already, I gotta say, Inter's got a lot of work to do on their away leg.

edited 5th Apr '11 2:48:56 PM by SeanMurrayI

How good are these Shakhtar Donetsk guys that Barca are gonna hate to beat?

edited 5th Apr '11 2:51:03 PM by BestOf

Surviving the Camp Nou is gonna be the toughest part for them. Many are thinking that the colder weather in Ukraine, however, might give them a fighting chance during the second leg.

Yeah, I'm surprised at the Inter-Schalke result really, I didn't think that Schalke were that good a team. Possibly the main reason for the defensive collapse was the fact that Lucio wasn't playing? Questions will be asked of the manager as well - they just haven't had any luck finding a successor to Mourinho.

Shaktar are a harshly underrated team, with bucketloads of cash to spare and some handy midfield players. They're weakest in defence though, so I'm expecting a goalfest - similar to today's result at the San Siro, in fact!

edited 5th Apr '11 3:00:07 PM by Saeglopur

Mourinho is too special to ever be easily replaced. Hell, Real Madrid is one of the teams I'd fancy to win this year just because I like to see Mourinho rightfully claim to have won the trophy three times with three different teams.*

Yeah, much as I hate the guy for being a smug git, there's no denying that he is one of the greatest managers of all time.

FC Porto just seem to produce great managers though - their current manager, Andre Villas-Boas, might even out-special The Special One. He's led Porto the Portuguese League Title already, and they're still unbeaten this season.

If a Premier league side was to win, I'd hope it was one of the London teams. I would've loved to see Arsenal win (though the team I want the most to win is still Barcelona), but now that they're off, I'm rooting for the Spurs though I now they hardly have a chance.

I also like Chelsea somewhat, but my natural loathing of teams that suddenly gain a shitload of money and buy a dozen top players instead of a more organic development means I like it only the same way I like Real Madrid and Manchester City - great players, good teams, don't want them to win.

Sorry, Sean!

edited 5th Apr '11 3:24:00 PM by BestOf

Agreed on Chelsea, Man City etc. Unfortunately, that's the way football has been going now for well over a decade. I've already decided that if Man City win the Premiership, or if Arsenal get bought out by a foreign billionaire, I am boycotting Premiership/Champion's League football and dedicating my support wholeheartedly to my local League One side.

I know many football fans share my dislike of teams that suddenly buy a gazillion pounds' worth of players in a season or two when they're bought by a gazillionaire, but I would like to emphasise that I do enjoy seeing fantastic players play in the same team.

Just look at the amazing talent each side has:

Madrid: Casillas, Ramos, Ronaldo, Kaka, Xabi Alonso, Özil, Khedira, Higuain.

Chelsea: David Luiz, Essien, Lampard, Drogba, Torres, Anelka, Terry.

Manchester City: Barry, Boateng, Tevez, de Jong... Actually, now that I think of it, it's nowhere near as awesome as the previous two teams listed.

edited 5th Apr '11 3:41:49 PM by BestOf

Man City have Yaya Toure, Edin Dzeko, David Silva and Mario Balotelli as well. Anywho, while it's cool to see all the world's best players playing for the same team, it's only genuinely entertaining if they play well together. Man City do not, and Chelsea are looking increasingly ragged round the edges, especially as Abramovich continues to lose touch with reality and buy out-of-form players like Torres for £50m.

The great thing about a team like Barcelona is that most of their world-class players have come up through their own youth system. But even discounting the anomaly that is Barca, I find that any team who know each other's playing style and have been growing together as a team for years will always be more entertaining to watch than one thrown together with money.

And that's exactly why Liverpool and ManU, though both certainly are filled with top players, are much better and more entertaining to watch as teams.

Barca is almost unique, but I would argue that there's at least one very important team that doesn't nowadays play in the biggest European leagues that has also traditionally trained their youth and young, promising talent they get from abroad into some of the world's greatest players.

That team is also the original source of the style of play that was eventually developed into Barca's (and Spain's national team's) style.

This particular team is also very much loved in Finland because they schooled the most important footballer in Finnish history, Jari Litmanen.

That style is Total Football, and the team is Ajax.

Yeah, I have a soft spot for Ajax. Their youth system is incredible, and the grass-roots football infrastructure in Holland should really be the model for English football as well. Unfortunately, the FA continues to ignore the desperate lack of funding being put into local sports facilities and the connection between football teams and their local communities is rapidly deteriorating. Teams continue to bring in their young players from abroad when their are plenty of future stars playing in parks and schoolyards across the country, but unfortunately they're just not getting the chance.

That's probably the main reason that the lower leagues in England are so high quality compared to most other, even European and South American countries. There's just so much talent with less-than-ideal but still good management. I watched a game between teams that were from the 4th and 7th-highest (or so) leagues in England and even the worse team was better than most of the teams we have in our highest league here in Finland.

It's also probably the reason that Cup giant killings aren't as rare in English football as they are elsewhere. Quite a lot of lower league clubs have squads that are made up of a solid mixture of experienced players who've played for just about every lower-league team under the sun, local lads who've come through the youth system, and Premiership youth team products who got forced out by foreign stars. Certainly my local team has players in all three of those categories.

Teams need to think in the long term and be more loyal to their own young players, at least until they have a good reason to suspect that the young people wouldn't be better than the stars. Buying stars gets you short-term results but costs you the loyalty of the players you had before and the chance to try out the people you've been training, who know the club's style of play through and through - people who are dedicated to the club, not the paycheck. Training them would be cheaper, too.

The problem is, the money to train the young players has to come from somewhere, and you don't wanna get relegated, so there's a constant pressure to only think a year or two ahead and hope for the best. This leads to teams that are always at the top, robbing every other team of their chance to make big money for a year or two and get their stuff together - time during which the team that's lost their leading position could invest in their youth squads and training their primary squad, improving the club overall in the long term and improving their chances of success 5 to 10 years in the future instead of the 5 to 10 months that seems to be the ultimate goal now.

edited 5th Apr '11 4:53:40 PM by BestOf

Advantage Man Utd in the Champions League. Rooney's very definitely on his best form.

Meanwhile at the Nou Camp, Barca crushed Shakhtar 5-1. If they don't win the Champion's League, then something will clearly have gone horribly wrong.

I've already mentioned on this thread that Xavi is my favourite player ever. Neither of today's games were shown on any of the free channels on Finnish TV so I didn't see either game, but apparently Xavi scored. Me happy.

If Barca win La Liga and Champions League this year, I'll be almost half as happy as I was last year when Spain (which is Barca minus a couple of players, who are replaced by better ones (except Messi because there is no one better) won the World Cup.

Next year, Spain will win the European Championship. I'm glad I picked my team out of the few teams I had seem play so late, in 2008, 'cause otherwise I might've learned to love Italy or Germany first and then I would've hated Spain for beating Germany in both the European and the World Championship. When I watched a couple of games in the EURO2008 with an open mind and without having a favourite and I saw Spain play, I knew I had found a team like no other. They've never let me down since.

The Championship final will likely be Barca versus Madrid (who will also face each other in the La Liga final). I'll get to see a team with Casillas, Ramos and Xabi Alonso against one that has Villa, Puyol, Xavi and Busquets. I'll love every second.

That is, if any of the free channels on Finnish TV will show either game, but I'm fairly confident I'll get to see at least the Champions League final. Maybe the final in La Liga can be streamed somewhere?

edited 6th Apr '11 2:38:26 PM by BestOf

Alas, Barca vs Real will be the semi-final, not the final. It's already been drawn that way. The winner of that will play the winner of Man U/Chelsea vs presumably Schalke in the final.

I actually really enjoyed Germany's style in the World Cup, and thought they deserved a place in the final. Spain are entertaining to watch because they control the game, but Germany's team were young, lively, masters of the counter-attack and scoring goals by the bucketload. I think they will be more of a threat at Euro 2012 than they were at the World Cup, simply because the likes of Müller, Khedira, Özil and Jerome Boateng will be truly world class, and they'll have another group of young and talented players in the form of Mario Götze, Holger Badstuber, Marko Marin and Lewis Holtby, all of whom look frighteningly good already.