Euro: Euro 2016 Final: France vs. Portugal, 7/10/2016

Suiteness

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A few facts to throw into this conversation to contradict much of what has been said here. There is far too much conjecture and far too little substance.

The narrative will typically focus on a snapshot and extrapolate from there. Portugal and France are both perfect examples of this.

Portugal Vs. Croatia was a brutal brutal game. Worst of the tournament? Perhaps, Sweden/Italy was absolute garbage as well. The expectations for Portugal-Croatia were sky high because both teams had played attractive football in the first round (Which, again, goes to show you how some people are contradicting themselves. If Portugal were so bad/dour/negative why were the expectations so high for this match to begin with?)

The stigma from that match stuck on Portugal for the rest of the tournament. They were the winners of this horrible match, therefore they were and always were going to be boring/horrible/negative, etc.

France labored to beat mediocre teams for the first four games in the tournament before blowing up Iceland. Suddenly, France is regarded as the best offense in the tournament.
 

Jersey Fresh

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France underperformed horribly all tournament, but they still tried to play. The stigma against Portugal has only to do with Portugal and no one else.

I also think you're overstating the expectations from Portugal. They were in a weak qualifying group and barely scored there. And despite playing relatively weak teams in the group phase, at no point did they blow anyone away despite playing marginally more attacking than they did the rest of the tournament. The only times they opened up were when they were losing and had to chase a goal.
 
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Theokritos

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So Portugal gets **** on cause they won a tournament which had rules and a setup that they didn't set. That's awesome.

For me it's not about blaming or shaming Portugal. They made the best out of the situation, good for them. That doesn't change anything about the fact that IMO the rules & setup suck because a team finishing 3rd out of 4 in the group stage shouldn't advance to the knockout rounds. After the round robin games Portugal should never have been in the position to still have a chance to win the tournament at all.
 

TheMoreYouKnow

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For me it's not about blaming or shaming Portugal. They made the best out of the situation, good for them. That doesn't change anything about the fact that IMO the rules & setup suck because a team finishing 3rd out of 4 in the group stage shouldn't advance to the knockout rounds. After the round robin games Portugal should never have been in the position to still have a chance to win the tournament at all.

I'm almost certain that they wouldn't have finished 3rd if that had knocked them out.
 

Panteras

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as I have already said here before... it all comes down to Ronaldo. If he wasn't on that team people here would be wetting their pants about the great achievement by Portugal.
 

Dr Pepper

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I'm almost certain that they wouldn't have finished 3rd if that had knocked them out.

Are you implying that they deliberately played below standards, in order to secure a more favourable bracket position?

I'd still like to know how they plan on fixing the groups, and change the part that has some group winners facing 3rd seeds, while others play 2nd seeds. :facepalm: :laugh:
 

TheMoreYouKnow

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Are you implying that they deliberately played below standards, in order to secure a more
favourable bracket position?

I think that the 3rd place qualifying led to a lot of tactical play and Portugal didn't have a huge incentive after 3-3 to do much more in the remaining half hour and neither did Hungary.
 

les Habs

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Well a fitting Final to that tournament. Really dull match that just seemed to drag on. Interesting how many people watched this match considering as evidence by their posts they didn't even watch the WC Final if any of that tournament at all.

France has to be frustrated with their performance, though I felt they were also somewhat unlucky as well. Still think Griezmann needs to finish one of those headers (probably should have done better on that second one). Also not sure what Deschamps was doing with Pogba. At times he was anchoring the midfield. And Matuidi didn't have a good match. I guess if you've going to have Pogba that deep that often then just start Kante over Matuidi as he can do the job himself.

Really odd viewing this all as I felt it was like a bizarro Euro 2004 or something with Portugal effectively pulling a Greece. What really struck me though was that it all seemed rather unnecessary. Watching Eder I just got the feeling that he should have been starting the way he held up the ball and then he could have played on both Nani and Ronaldo from the wings. It's not like France weren't getting some decent chances in this one for example. I fear that people who aren't too familiar with Portugal will miss out on the fact that they have some real talent and technically gifted players in that squad. Anyway, just one of those tournament wins that were it a team I support it would have been a let down in how it all played out despite the win. However in my experience most people only care about the trophies.

Pepe had a good match apart from Gignac faking him out of his shorts on that play where he hit the post. That said Pepe had a good tournament for the most part and he doesn't get enough credit on this forum generally. On the flip side he's been overrated some too recently. If you go back some years ago though he was pretty much the best CB in the game for a season or two and he's been one of Madrid's best buys over the last how many years.

Some disgraceful stuff from Moutinho including the worst embellishing in the entire tournament. Had that been any number of other players, including Ronaldo, it would have been a **** storm. At least Moutinho found something he's good at considering how overrated he is.

Really laughable stuff from Ronaldo. The crying went overboard in the latter stages, but the touchline stuff was also ridiculous. Hilarious reading people's comments on him being some sort of manager with all that. Anyway, I watched maybe a couple of minutes of the post match and while his teammates are celebrating initially he's on his own. The best bit though was him taking off his shirt for absolutely no reason whatsoever. So you've been out injured for over an hour and you take your shirt off. Amazing how he goes for all the limelight considering the tournament he had. Hard to blame him though as it must be genetic. First his mother goes on social media and says that Payet tried to injure Ronaldo, which is ridiculous. I wonder if she went on social media the five or so times Ronaldo has punched an opponent (and of course not even been called for it). Anyway, as if that could be topped, his sister went about a million steps further. She actually went on social media and said "just as our saviour Jesus Christ suffered on the cross for a better world for us, Cristiano cried in the pain of not being able to help his teammates and his beloved people." :biglaugh: :help: :facepalm: Now the only question I have is which poster here is his sister? Too hard to tell.

Ronaldo is the man of the match for me. Inspiring stuff from a true leader of his country's side and his club's side. A true inspiration to football and we are all lucky to have seen this man play in his prime years.

Nevermind. I think I found her.
 

Dr Pepper

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An injury time goal by Iceland put Portugal in 3rd though.

They knew they couldn't finish LOWER than 3rd if they tied their own game, though, that's the point I think he was trying to make. If Austria had beaten Iceland and Hungary held on to take out Portugal, it would have been curtains.

But as long as Portugal didn't lose, they knew they'd have clear passage to the knockout rounds.

It still amazes me how a team with one regulation win the entire tourney, and none in the group stage, walked out as champs. That's just nuts. :laugh:
 

Evilo

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as I have already said here before... it all comes down to Ronaldo. If he wasn't on that team people here would be wetting their pants about the great achievement by Portugal.
Clearly you weren't on this website when Greece won it.

It was exactly the same.
 

pcruz

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The comparison with Greece is made only by those who are unwilling to research or have an agenda.

Here is how Portugal 2016 compares to Greece 2004:

Name|Gp|Goals|Attempts|Fouls|Yellows
Portugal |7|9|121|93|13
Per Game| |1.29|17.29|13.28|1.86
Greece |6|7|42|108|18
Per Game| |1.66|7|18|3
 

pcruz

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Or people who actually watched the games.


Are you honestly taking the position of: "I reject your facts and base my argument on 12 year old memories"?

Your memory is flawed based on your assessment of the difference between France, Portugal and Iceland in this tournament alone, how can anyone take your opinion of what happened 12 years ago seriously?

It's just like I said, someone with an agenda!
 

Evilo

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How can anyone take me seriously, while you're admitting you didn't even see the games? :laugh:
We're plenty here to have seen the games.
And France lost to both teams, so no agenda here.
 

Live in the Now

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As a pure neutral, I stand by what I said before.

Greece had to play that way, Portugal did not.

Greece won games in regulation. They also did not concede a goal in the KO stages and never went to penalties. That means their tactics worked better.

Greece played better team football, while other than Portugal's back four they looked completely disjointed and out of sorts.

as I have already said here before... it all comes down to Ronaldo. If he wasn't on that team people here would be wetting their pants about the great achievement by Portugal.

He didn't play and people are still saying they played **** on a stick football. Also, all their outfield players bar Nani and Quaresma are 20m minimum players, and those players have also been worth that much before. Of course it's a great achievement because they won, but to act like they don't have a ton of talent as some people have done is pretty bad. They very clearly had the most talent on their squad of any team besides Germany, Spain, and France. People can argue about that all they want, but a back four with Guerreiro, Soares, Pepe, and Fonte and William Carvalho as defensive shield is great talent.

Iceland by contrast have one 15m player.
 

les Habs

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The comparison with Greece is made only by those who are unwilling to research or have an agenda.

Here is how Portugal 2016 compares to Greece 2004:

Name|Gp|Goals|Attempts|Fouls|Yellows
Portugal |7|9|121|93|13
Per Game| |1.29|17.29|13.28|1.86
Greece |6|7|42|108|18
Per Game| |1.66|7|18|3

Context, context, context. Greece had tougher opposition the whole way. On top of that, look at France's shots per game against their specific opponents. When they played anyone of any real consequence, even if those sides were without at least one key player, their shots per match went way down to almost the figure of Greece. On top of that, as has already been noted by multiple people here who actually watched both tournaments, as someone who can say the same I'll add that there are a lot of similarities. I'll also add that has been noted by others, Greece didn't nearly have the talent at their disposal that Portugal did.

He didn't play and people are still saying they played **** on a stick football. Also, all their outfield players bar Nani and Quaresma are 20m minimum players, and those players have also been worth that much before. Of course it's a great achievement because they won, but to act like they don't have a ton of talent as some people have done is pretty bad. They very clearly had the most talent on their squad of any team besides Germany, Spain, and France. People can argue about that all they want, but a back four with Guerreiro, Soares, Pepe, and Fonte and William Carvalho as defensive shield is great talent.

Iceland by contrast have one 15m player.

CnHvvlYXYAAqdML.jpg
 

Dr Pepper

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Context, context, context. Greece had tougher opposition the whole way. On top of that, look at France's shots per game against their specific opponents. When they played anyone of any real consequence, even if those sides were without at least one key player, their shots per match went way down to almost the figure of Greece. On top of that, as has already been noted by multiple people here who actually watched both tournaments, as someone who can say the same I'll add that there are a lot of similarities. I'll also add that has been noted by others, Greece didn't nearly have the talent at their disposal that Portugal did.



CnHvvlYXYAAqdML.jpg

I thought this one was pretty good. :laugh:

CnF79wEW8AAjhy1.jpg
 

Panteras

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He didn't play and people are still saying they played **** on a stick football. Also, all their outfield players bar Nani and Quaresma are 20m minimum players, and those players have also been worth that much before. Of course it's a great achievement because they won, but to act like they don't have a ton of talent as some people have done is pretty bad. They very clearly had the most talent on their squad of any team besides Germany, Spain, and France. People can argue about that all they want, but a back four with Guerreiro, Soares, Pepe, and Fonte and William Carvalho as defensive shield is great talent.

Iceland by contrast have one 15m player.

it's very nice to say this now in hindsight to find some form of criticism...but c'mon man..who here said Portugal would reach even the quarters before the tournament? All these "talents" you speak of and I'm sure they were behind a crap load of teams as favorites.. so give credit to where it is due. They exceeded expectations and that should be celebrated. You brought up their back 4...ok (i thought the hate was about their offense?lol)..yeah..they never lost a game, so seams like the defense did their job pretty darn well.

About offense, they dominated pretty much every game in the group stage just couldn't finish. The truth is, Portugal doesn't really have a striker. Ronaldo was crap all tournament and missed the final, so this should elevate Portugal's achievement even more.
 

Live in the Now

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I said they were one of the most talented teams repeatedly during the Croatia game, after they'd drawn three games in a row and didn't take a shot.

I also said Portugal's group stage problems weren't because of Ronaldo, the rest of their players were certainly good enough to perform and they did not.

this should elevate Portugal's achievement even more.

But it doesn't and here's why. Tied for most goals allowed of the teams that made it out of the group stage. Third place in group stage. Three extra time games. When they beat Croatia they did not attack the entire game. This isn't a special champion, they do not deserve any extra praise, and when compared to Greece I feel the comparison does have some merit, although they were even less impressive than that.

If you can't beat Iceland, Austria, and Hungary at a Euro and then win the Euros, it's an awful Euro to say nothing else of their own performance. Where is the achievement in that?
 
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Panteras

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I'm not arguing that you did or didn't say they have talent...because you obviously did, in fact you said it in the previous comment I had just quoted.

What I'm saying is that stating that they have talent, as a form of criticizing the way they got the title, is just kind of a moot point ..since they weren't anywhere near the favorites to begin with..
 

Live in the Now

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The criticism is more because they, as well as all but a few teams in this tournament, kinda sucked. They had the good fortune of only playing one, arguably two of the good ones too.

For that matter so did France.
 

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