This Euro is poor and boring

Art Morte wrote:People are making too big an issue of this supposed playing for draws. In club football if Deportivo get a draw against Real Madrid or Burnley get a draw against Man City or Augsburg get a draw against Bayern Munich we say "well done" to them and are happy about the minnows holding their own. Now it's the Euros and people are getting upset about the same thing.

Because every single game barring Italy-Belgium has been a case of one obviously superior team struggling to break down a parked bus and scoring a late goal when their opponents eventually tire. It's boring and repetitive and yet the teams that do it are being rewarded by this format.

The laast 3 games I watched, GER-POL, FRA-SWITZ, ENG-SLOW all ended 0-0 and all had no sense of suspense whatsoever.

And why would they, if you have a group of 4 and 3 of those 4 progress

*bleep* UEFA, they ruined the tournament with the format change.

Give it 10 years max and there will be no group winners. Only participants.


Can't wait to watch a Semi final where both teams go through.

Then give the winners medal to every single team from Germany to Gibraltar (:

I never thought I'd see a tournament outdo the completely terrible low scoring-vuvuzelas turd fest that was the World Cup 2010...

...but Euro 2016 is giving that drab tournament a run for it's money.

I'm barely watching any of the games due to the slow and monotonous nature of the majority of matches are. Doesn't help the fact that 3rd place enables qualification. Gives the lesser teams no incentive to have a go. Sit back, try and play to not lose and hopefully nick a win in one of their 3 matches- is enough to get through. 4 of the last 5 matches have been 0-0.  Boooo!

UEFA mocked up by implementing this new rule.

With the extra teams in pool...  i always felt it was a rip off to start.  Just packing in games to make more money as opposed to making the tournament better. Since 2/3 of the pool teams now have no ambition, it's become a ptb marathon. Pathetic.

I had tickets to the Spain game and I sold them because  1) i didn't want to deal with the ultras and 2) i didn't think it would be a good game.  Got an extra elimination round game instead although it cost me some more.

Until you see teams play each other that each have ambition, it's not worth watching.

These tournament have all become a sham early on as it's become a money grab.

If the "superior" team can't score against a PTB team, wouldn't that mean that the "superior" team isn't as superior as people think? Maybe it is time for the coaches to think up some new strategies to deal with such teams?

The fun thing is that e.g. the Bundesliga is ridiculed for their "bad defending" because there are many goals. And if now teams play to their strengths with good and disciplined defending, people get frustrated because their own supposedly superior teams don't manage to break them down and they get upset?

Both defending and attacking belong to a match, and of course devising strategies to get the best out of the players that are available. If you have top attackers in your team, your coach has to figure out something to get through a top defense. If he doesn't manage to do that, well, then congrats to the other coach who manage to prevail despite supposedly worse players.

Oh, and Switzerland for example don't even park the bus. They are just worse finishers than CR7 in the Euro.

Well usually they score, it's just late on when the PTB team tires from chasing the ball all game. Take Italy-Sweden or Spain-Czech Republic. One team offers absolutely nothing in attack and spends the whole game parked in their 18 yard box, knowing all they need is a draw to ensure likely qualification. The other is miles better technically and creates all the chances in the game, but we're forced to watch them camp in the opposition half for 89 minutes until they finally get their deserved goal.

Like I said, it's boring and repetitive and completely avoidable if UEFA just stopped incentivising draws.

yeah... it's a stamina thing. Defending all game long is very taxing physically and emotionally. Teams doing ptb almostbalways wear down late and either fall of physically and/or make a mental mistake.

The first 60-70 mins are just an exercise in futility unless you manage to score early on one of the few chances you get.

TBH I think the quality of teams is pretty decent. The real problem is the format. Ironically, maybe having yet more teams is the solution.
Just roll with it, and make it 8 full groups, and only let the 2 best teams of each progress. Sure, a little drop in quality will ensue, but wins will count for more again.

You don't need a lot of points to qualify. So teams don't have incentive to try and win games. I mean ffs the top 4 thirds place teams out of 6 groups make it... you need to be some special kind of awful not to make it to the qualification rounds.... you get 3 points and you're basically in.

It's terrible... a rip off. UEFA is just trying to cram games so they make money to the detriment of the quality of the tournament.

I mentioned it before.

Should have 8 groups with 3 teams each. Winner of each group goes to the quarter-final but it seems UEFA just wants more matches for the sake of $$. You'll get people watching even if the quality is shit. Thats how hyped the tournament is.

RealGunner wrote:Then give the winners medal to every single team from Germany to Gibraltar (:

@ES
@Firenze
@Great Leader Sprucenuce
@Thimmy

One thing I will add...

The quality of CFs is just really really really poor. Other than Lewa, they all suck imo. And Lewa can be isolated because Poland's secondary threat is choking. So when teams defend hard and you don't have a killer CF to put the few chances away, you end up with a lack of scoring.

If anything, this tournament is emphasizing the lack of quality CFs out there. It evens out the competition but it also allows for these negative tactics to succeed far more than they should.

All the while Gomez' rotting on the bench.

Save us, Löw!

I don't blame teams for parking the bus, I blame the system for allowing teams sitting in *bleep* 3rd place with 1 game to go being able to PTB and try their luck finishing 3rd.


Awful decision, ruined the groups.

Which games were ruined because teams would rather finish 3rd?

urbaNRoots wrote:Which games were ruined because teams would rather finish 3rd?

Just yesterday, Slovakia had no interest in playing. The coach even took off his strikers for defenders midway through the game.

what kinda BS is that? Thanks Uefa

RED wrote:

urbaNRoots wrote:Which games were ruined because teams would rather finish 3rd?

Just yesterday, Slovakia had no interest in playing. The coach even took off his strikers for defenders midway through the game.

what kinda BS is that?  Thanks Uefa

How did hat ruin the game? Big club teams face such tests every week and they do just fine. These are just excuses for a lack of creativity shown by England in the game. France aswell because their only creative is Payet and no one else.

Spain and Germany have had no problem creating chances. Belgium and Italy either. Portugal have created chances they can't finish.

On the other hand, BECAUSE of this change in format-- nearly every game is incredibly competitive because everyone has a chance. If this format didn't exist, the Romania-Albania would've been a dead rubber. Instead we got an amazing game there. Ironically France vs Switzerland proved to be THE boring game instead.

What I'm seeing here is excuses for big teams that can't deal with a certain way to play, and demand everyone to play how they like. In reality these "big" teams are not that big in comparison if all they can create is 1-2 chances per game.

urbaNRoots wrote:

RED wrote:

urbaNRoots wrote:Which games were ruined because teams would rather finish 3rd?

Just yesterday, Slovakia had no interest in playing. The coach even took off his strikers for defenders midway through the game.

what kinda BS is that?  Thanks Uefa

How did hat ruin the game?

Because as a spectacle it was as interesting as going to a garden & watching grass grow.

If one team has no interest in trying to attack, sitting deep in their half practically all game, then as a spectator it's going to be boring to watch.

That's how it ruined the game.

Hungary v Portugal. Great game.

At last!

Iceland vs Austria was pretty good too actually. At the same time, it was a lot of fun

As was Croatia vs Spain last night and Czech vs Turkey.

Albania is out of the reckoning for qualification to the knockouts. Even though both them and Turkey have -2 GD, Turkey have scored more goals.

Hard luck.

Last rounds are always pretty fun because parking teams are forced to actually play. First two rounds are usually nervous and somewhat boring. Playoffs are all or nothing, so that changes a lot.

Yeah I actually think the last round of group games has been the best. We did have the Slovakia game that was spoiled but for the rest of the games this format has actually helped, because everyone is still alive and all trying to win. Better than having most of the games be dead rubbers for one or more teams.