UEFA Nations league

Worst home defeat for England since 1928 to Hungary! of all teams, damn.

I find it incredible how quiet this forum becomes during the international breaks! I assume it is partly because of how poorly countries such as England, Germany, France have been playing in Nations League! Meanwhile countries such as mine are playing well despite not having any top players and playing ‘has been’ players! It makes me think Brasil is going to be a clear cut favorite for this Winter’s World Cup.

We lost 2-1 to Slovenia. 1 more good to great defender and a goalkeeper upgrade and I'd have some faith in this team getting somewhere, but it looks like our team's young players will be in their prime before we hopefully are able to bolster our defense by replacing the current defenders/GK.

Our lineup for today’s game has Asensio, Ferran, Sarabia, Busquets, Azipili, Eric, Alba! All whose club careers are either finished or going no where. Only spots correct are Pau Torres, Unai, Pedri and Gavi! And yet we are favoured to come out on top of group.

I think this is a really poor time for European futbol

It does feel like strange times for football, with most of the established, top players facing the twilight of their careers and the pool of younger players in line to replace them being relatively few and far between.

Why doesn’t Gaya, Koke, Pino, Llorente, Rodri play? They have a strong bench

Myesyats wrote:Why doesn’t Gaya, Koke, Pino, Llorente, Rodri play? They have a strong bench

And that statement sums up the sorry state of European futbol! That is not in any time a strong bench!

South Americas time to shine. I can definitely see Brazil or Argentina winning the WC.

How is Portugal? The squad looks pretty stacked? CR is old but he definitely still a goal poacher. Is the defense any good with old Pepe n Danilo Pereira of PSG I think it is?

How is GermanLegacy feeling about the national team this World Cup?

Germany's been meh for years now. There's been a coaching change and there hasn't been a difference. Are you worried about a shock exit early in the group stages? Flick can't coach defense, and I'm not sure he has the time needed to coach a coherent attacking system.

How the fuck is Maguire playing for club and country. Unbelievable. Get Southgate in the bin

Casciavit wrote:How is GermanLegacy feeling about the national team this World Cup?

Germany's been meh for years now. There's been a coaching change and there hasn't been a difference. Are you worried about a shock exit early in the group stages? Flick can't coach defense, and I'm not sure he has the time needed to coach a coherent attacking system.

It is one of the worst German teams ever, they wont get past the first round again, really poor crop of players. The one possible up and coming player, Florian Wirtz, wont even be there due to injury. The funny thing is, England is not much better and this is their Golden Generation team.

It looks bad for almost all European teams. Besides England andGermany, France, an early favorite, are having lots of problems. They obviously have talent, but …. Meanwhile the teams showing well, like Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Croatia, Italy and Belgium have lots of issues, definite drop in talents from other years for all of them. And Italy didn’t even make it to WC. I can’t seeing any of them competing with Brasil.

With playing in the heat of Qatar, mid regular season and Europeans at a low point, this WC may be more competitive than normal and I would think lots of surprises from a traditional point of view.

Not up to date with Brazil, but the thought of old Neymar carrying them to a WC win for some reason just seems too far fetched for me atm Maybe its cos hes mainly been underwhelming for PSG for so long now.... who else Brazil got thats elite to make the difference? Jesus? Richardlison? Coutinho?

From the sound of the Europeans all with problem, could it really be Messi's yr finally? It would be a fairy tale come true

BarcaLearning wrote:Not up to date with Brazil, but the thought of old Neymar carrying them to a WC win for some reason just seems too far fetched for me atm Maybe its cos hes mainly been underwhelming for PSG for so long now.... who else Brazil got thats elite to make the difference? Jesus? Richardlison? Coutinho?

From the sound of the Europeans all with problem, could it really be Messi's yr finally? It would be a fairy tale come true

Vinicius?

Definitely With Vini it makes them a contender straight up, althogh havent seen at all how he links up with Neymar... their defense n whether Paqueta will need to wait n see.

What a clown! Hasn’t seen them play yet he can criticize.

Their offense was Vinicius Richardlison Rodrygo with Neymar and Coutinho behind them plus defense was solid. The three goals in last game were Vinicius, Rodrygo and Militao!

And just for interest sake who in Argentina’s lineup besides Messi are WC?

Lol bill, ur the most clever person as always, happy? Did I even criticise or u just made that up as usual?

Just caught up on some catching up of the major teams n their results this yr, n no wonder, Brazil are the favourites according to the bookies, seems the best squad, although no RB is an issue? Apart from Militao there or old Alves They need to sort that out cos dont really rate Raphinha despite him doing fairly well with Barca

Argentina is like about 2-3 favourites as per the bookies, n everyone agrees there arent many WC players apart from Messi, but often shows the winning team dont always have the best stars/players n prolly judging by their Copa win n trend in the past few yrs n especially with Messi looking like on fire for his last chance at the WC, n with the Europeans relatively weaker as ppl said already, they really got a chance. Lautaro, old Di Maria, Le Celso, De Paul, Paredes all arent exactly WC, n Im not sure about the defense n GK either

Pedri and Gavi changed the game, neat little buggers

shame Spain didnt capitalize on the momentum

aaand they just scored, both Nico Williams and Pino are much better than ferran torres

Spain 1 Portugal 0; UEFA Nations Cup Finals will be

Spain, Netherlands, Italy and Croatia (Spain and Italy are repeat finalists and Netherlands were finalists in first Nations Cup finals - first time for Croatia).

Finals will be in June 2023.

The nations league served to revive Italy's spirit. The team looks alive again. Even with so much of the team missing we still controlled and beat England and Hungary to win the group. Such a shame that the wcq was lost in the post euro hangover.

I had thought that we would improve our form now that Covid isn't an issue, but our defense has been a disaster in Nations League. Even Haaland wasted 2 pretty good chances against Serbia today, who we lost 0-2 against. I don't blame him at all, he's saved our asses so many times by now, but we'll face higher ceeded opponent teams in the qualifiers next year now that we've squandered our opportunity to top our group