UEFA Nations league

Nicolò Barella

Kean i get why Juve sold him

Kean come on

Reminded of the kind of banter misses from Torres.

All eyes have been on Haaland in this tournament, but I’m becoming a fan of Alexander Sørloth. Similar physical profile as Haaland, but that’s definitely not a bad thing when that profile is tall, strong and lightning fast.

When I heard he became the top scorer in the Turkish league this season, my instinct from years of posting on GL told me that he probably just dominated a farmer’s league, but if he moves to a bigger league, I’ll definitely start following him. If he can sustain this performance level, his future looks really bright.

Christ.

Brutte notizie dall'Olanda: per Nicolò #Zaniolo si tratta di un infortunio al legamento crociato del ginocchio#ASRoma #Italia @tempoweb @Teleradiostereo pic.twitter.com/vpLZdrStaK

— Filippo Biafora (@Fil_Biafora) September 7, 2020

poor guy, wasnt he just coming back from ACL injury? what a shame, some players just have no luck

Thimmy wrote:All eyes have been on Haaland in this tournament, but I’m becoming a fan of Alexander Sørloth. Similar physical profile as Haaland, but that’s definitely not a bad thing when that profile is tall, strong and lightning fast.

When I heard he became the top scorer in the Turkish league this season, my instinct from years of posting on GL told me that he probably just dominated a farmer’s league, but if he moves to a bigger league, I’ll definitely start following him. If he can sustain this performance level, his future looks really bright.

I think RB Leipzig are in the process of buying him, or do I confuse him with someone?

Hapless_Hans wrote:

Thimmy wrote:All eyes have been on Haaland in this tournament, but I’m becoming a fan of Alexander Sørloth. Similar physical profile as Haaland, but that’s definitely not a bad thing when that profile is tall, strong and lightning fast.

When I heard he became the top scorer in the Turkish league this season, my instinct from years of posting on GL told me that he probably just dominated a farmer’s league, but if he moves to a bigger league, I’ll definitely start following him. If he can sustain this performance level, his future looks really bright.

I think RB Leipzig are in the process of buying him, or do I confuse him with someone?

I have no clue, but I hope you’re right. Another reason to watch Bundesliga next season

Thimmy wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:

Thimmy wrote:All eyes have been on Haaland in this tournament, but I’m becoming a fan of Alexander Sørloth. Similar physical profile as Haaland, but that’s definitely not a bad thing when that profile is tall, strong and lightning fast.

When I heard he became the top scorer in the Turkish league this season, my instinct from years of posting on GL told me that he probably just dominated a farmer’s league, but if he moves to a bigger league, I’ll definitely start following him. If he can sustain this performance level, his future looks really bright.

I think RB Leipzig are in the process of buying him, or do I confuse him with someone?

I have no clue, but I hope you’re right. Another reason to watch Bundesliga next season

Yep, that's him. Read about it the other week. Leipzig want him, he wants to join them, but he is loaned from Palace to Trabzonspor with an option to buy, so it's apparently a very complicated deal

I’ll look into it. If he goes back to Palace, he’s fucked. He’s wasted a good chunk of his career there, already.

Nah he's sure to leave, I think it's just a matter of whom Leipzig is supposed to deal with - I guess Trabzonspor will exercise the option to buy him which is rather low IIRC and then immediately sell him to Leipzig for more.

Just read that Lyon have joined the race too, so he will join a good club this window either way.

There is no doubt Mancio has been a stellar manager for Italia so far.

Yes he has not exactly been tested but has shown tremendous leadership skills and are quite are fun to watch with a concise attacking plan.


Completely outplayed Netherlands and it should have been 3-0.

The goal for Barella was a pure aesthetic masterclass.


Mancini was definitely more pragmatic in his ways before Azzurri but he definitely has shown a calmer more liberal approach to his coaching.

Just the cleanse needed after Ventura (who never should coach again).

Beastly performance from Chiellini. Good to see him return to his usual levels after his horrible injury.

Impressive debut by Locatelli as well. The defense and midfield look good.

But as usual, Italy's end product leaves a lot to be desired. They should have won this game by a clear 3-4 goals.

Kommander scores a fantastic freekick goal

His 100th for Portugal

Another terrific goal from Ronaldo

Nicolò Barella = Italy's best young midfielder? 🤩#NationsLeague | @azzurri pic.twitter.com/u1Om0ROJ7I

— UEFA Nations League (@EURO2020) September 9, 2020

Mancini 's job was excellent so far.
Yes, it was impossible to make worse than Ventura, that had bottomed out in every way, so whoever in his place would have started with with a "favorable" psychological situation ... but it was not  guarantee to sprout fruits.
It is a NT that is getting results (   we 've rated good part of the job made by a NT coach on friendly matches for years ... But Uefa Nations League is an official tournament. Teams play it for winning it. then we've qualifications too)  and it's doing it playing a very good football.
I feel it's the most exiting NT I've seen for years.

I have always heard people talking about Italy '78 like an amazing NT to watch it, a young team born    from the ashes of a World Cup disater  that played a beautiful football and it get close to the victory. Then reached 4 years later.
Well, I wonder if this NT reminds it.

Having said that, he risks to be not lucky now. Zaniolo 's injury is terrible, for the player firstly but also for NT.
Not just a pure talent and one of few young players who proved to not suffer International dimension ( such as he had  showed even in Champions League  ),  but he's also a player so proper tactically for Italy under Mancini.
Roma worked good on his tactical development, he's not exactly a 10, he's a good techinque but not too for that role, he' s proper  as right winger  where he combines   running and technique. And he 'd  underperform  as  midfielder box to box (would be weakened). He gave his best in this propositive Italy, it's going to be an important loss from every point of view.

Zaniolo is easily the biggest attacking talent on that team. The attack lacks the Totti, Del Piero, Baggio’s of iconic teams. On top of that, Immobile is not a Vieri either. It’s the obvious weak spot of the team, a solid B+ at best attack with Insigne and Immobile making up 2/3 of the spots on any given night.

The midfield options are quite great for how Mancini wants to play. There’s even players like Castrovilli and Tonali who could see opportunities. It’ll be interesting to see who the preferred 3 are.

The defence is also solid. Not really an issue.

The preferred 3 are Verratti, Jorginho, Barella and they work perfectly with each other. Its good to know though that even with Verratti's untimely injuries we have good options to make it work. I'd love to see a great season from Castrovilli taking him to that spot.

Insigne is shinning with Mancini (as Jorginho) since he created a version of Sarri's Napoli in the NT. The problem are the other 2 forwards, while Immobile is at least not useless now, he is still nowhere near his Lazio self. Belotti needs to leave Torino asap to stay relevant.

The RW looked set for Zaniolo to take over. Bernardeschi should have been the perfect player there by all means but he has disappeared mentally this last season. That leaves only Chiesa from the current group and Lo. Pelegrini who sometimes gets shoved there unsuccessfully. IMO the best RW by some distance this season was Berardi, I dont know why he wasn't called up now, maybe an injury.

Don't count on Verratti too much...  that would be a mistake. He doesn't have his head screwed on straight despite all the talent in the world.

I hate Lagerbäck’s brand of football so much The most exciting national team we’ve had in my lifetime, yet we play like some Segunda División, bottom-table team with passing it back to the goalie and hoofing it up the field.

halamadrid2 wrote:Lagerbäck managed to make a Swedish team consisting of Ibra, Larsson and Wilhemsson the most boring team. I don't think there is a single Swede that misses him. He should never be coaching a Scandinavian team especially now that many of them have exciting young talented players trying to make it in top teams

I thought that with the right amount of talent, he would maybe make us play a little bit more offensively, but NO, he just sticks to the same dinosaur tactics. Haaland and Sørloth are making the most out of their half chances, but we've had like.. 2 of them. Can't bring the ball up the pitch because our defenders and midfielders seem to have been instructed to always opt for safety first and clear the ball or pass it backwards if they're pressured. We're better than Serbia offensively, but it doesn't matter since we're pinned in our own half the majority of the time ffs

Prime Lagerbäck for you.

His Sweden was effective and won big games but good god did he underutilise what he had on his hands. Zlatan and Larsson are easy examples.


I rate him but I certainly would not want him in any team I support and he has only regressed more through the years in his pragmatic ways.


Ibra and Larsson were in their prime as well, as him doing this to youngsters is urironically just bad for their progress.

At 72, Lars Lagerbäck is one of the oldest managers in the tournament. And it shows. His defensive-minded football is not only outdated, but he refuses to change his classic 4-4-2 formation, and it's very evident by now that he doesn't like to make changes according to how a match unfolds.

I'm not going to do the GL thing and claim that I know much better than him, but I genuinely believe that we would be able to get far more out of this team with a coach who knows how to utilize young talent, as opposed to someone whose main strength is knowing how to make small nations punch above their weight class. We had one of those as our manager in the past. He took us further in the World Cup than we perhaps deserved at the time, but with the offensive potential and comparatively superior, technical talent we have at our disposal nowadays, that's not the type of coach we need.

The most frustrating thing about all of this is that Lagerbäck's predecessor had us play a much more satisfying brand of football, but was eventually let go because he had to work with veterans who were about to retire, and kids who weren't yet ready. I would've absolutely loved for him to come back at this point in time, but I'm afraid he's had his chance.