2019 youth tournaments

halamadrid2 wrote:Thought Mayoral played really well when he came on too. I can see why he is compared to Benz so much. He prefers to make a pass than shoot and prefers to be anywhere but the box

Hala, key part of what you said is in bold above. He has been playing as 3rd option behind two guys who are not natural CF. He has fallen steadily on this team for 3 years. Used to be without doubt the first option. IMO, he had his best years with RMC, was proclaimed as can’t miss! He will never rise to level of others before him such as Morata and we all know how well he turned out!

Doc wrote:Ceballos and Ruiz were delightful. Germany had their chances but Spain should have belted them off the park. A much better showing from them after Germany beat them 2 years ago.

Well done old man Bill, you're gonna have to live with the Frenchified version of Madrid but the "kids" are alright it seems.

Spoiler:

Yeah I agree Doc. What really is a shame from my perspective is Spain has dominated this tournament for years. Only Italy has comparable numbers of championships or finalists. For once Flo tried to stack up on this seemly perpetual generations of talent and for whatever reason, it just didn’t work out, some due to themselves, some because of nerves, not capable of handling the pressure and some just not given a chance, a legit opportunity.

It is rumored that Madrid are after Fabián Ruiz, trying to pry him from Napoli. I hope not as last thing he needs to do is ride the bench when he starts elsewhere. These kids need playing time. That why I feel Ceballos will be better off than Fede as he will be starting and playing while Fede rides the bench!

If I was agent for these kids, I’d recommend they accept the deal but stay out on loan as should have Canales, Illarra, Asensio, Ceballos. There is the attraction of coming to the big club, but their development is stunted by riding the bench. They need to play,

VivaStPauli wrote:We're just too visibly hamstrung by ethics to be any good at modern competitive sports, tbh. Should just quit while we're still an embarrassment.

Genuinely wanna know what you mean by this Viva.

halamadrid2 wrote:Question is why aren't Dembele, Mbappe and Ndombele playing? They're all eligible to play

Also having is not a guarantee that they'll perform better than these lot, you should know that more than anyone

Because they're on the senior team and don't give a rat's arse about U21 tournaments...  we want them for Euro qualifying, Euro, WC qualifying and WC...  not some second rate youth tournament.  Rest is more important since we play deep into the tournaments that matter every other summer. We don't get bounced in group stages or the first elimination round game.

That's why.

Olympics is another story.  They'll be there.

And please lol...  that's like Barca playing a segunda team.  With those players, France CRUSHES the field.

This has to be a newly formed opinion for the u21 Championships because France has been sending their best available u21s to the qualifications for a while. The 2015-2017 batch had Rabiot, Mendy of the injured kind, Lenglet, Bakayoko, Lemar, Laporte, Pavard and Coman. I would like say though, those that made it to senior level really were too good to send to "youth" tournaments. Would have been a total waste of time.

Also, ironic you consider the Olympics when it's really just an u23 tournament basically and France only got qualification after making it to the semis of the u21 just gone. Fun fact: the 4 semi finalists qualify for the Olympics. Second rate indeed.

Not really.  We never make the olympics because we literally have a shitty U21 team (incomplete as players don't go) that nobody cares about and we can't even qualify for the U21 Euro, let alone make the semis.

The last time we played the olympics in football was in the 90s sometime I think.

We didn't even qualify for U21 Euro tournament from 2006 until this one....  13 years.

The last time we were in the U21 Euro 21 tournament, it was led by 17 year old Ben Arfa, Benzema and Samir Nasri lol in 2006.  

And it's not like we were that great before 2006.  We made 3 out of the previous eight U21 Euros before that.

Nobody in France gives a shit about U21.  Frankly, unless we're talking U20 world cup, nobody cares about any of the youth tournaments. Not something that's emphasized.