UEFA Euro 2012 - Quarter-finals - ** spoilers **

Portugal to show Spain how proper attacking football is played. Tika Taka is only fun with Messi upfront. Watching Spain is just so boring. We want shots on target, not pass completion stats. Its fun watching Iniesta and Xavi play but only when something is actually made from their plays.

dannyjo22 said:
I've found the whole tournament to be dull and lacking in entertainment and footballing quality, but then we are spoilt with champions league football and international football is now like watching the coca cola cup or what ever it's called these days.
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International cups have always been like that. You don't get much room for error but in the CL, you can screw up and still progress (chelsea).

I think Portugal and Germany have been the best teams to watch.
 
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Weebull said:
Del Bosque plays such a defensive, unadventurous, boring version of tiki-taki. How many shots on target were there tonight? One?

It's unfair to lump them in with Barcelona (or even Aragones' 2008 team), at least the latter actually try to attack. Spain look afraid to commit anyone ahead of the ball.

Busquets AND Alonso is a ridiculous setup.
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two goals, and only one shot on target :confused: :p
 
Really hope Portugal come out with some balls and actually have a go at Spain. It's getting annoying when teams play like they expect Spain to have 70% possession. Sure, some teams have to, but France should be making them work a lot harder than they did. Spain had it all too easy tonight.

Hope Ronaldo tortures the Spanish defence.
 
Pens definitely don't count as shots because Baptista had 4 goals from 4 shots against Liverpool despite having missed a penalty earlier in the match.
 
I think Ramos and other RM players will know how Ronny attacks. They will shut him down quickly unless he puts on his best performance ever. He will have to.

I think Portugal's midfield and defence is more capable than France's. If Portugal decide to go toe to toe with Spain in midfield and play Ronaldo and Nani up wide, it'll be interesting... risky though but you have to attack against Spain or nothing will happen. Just look at France tonight. No attacking flare whats so ever.

As soon as Spain win the battle in midfield, its game over. Sucks but thats what Spain have been doing. Nani and Ronaldo aren't really known for helping out.
 
I'm surprised no-one's considered going 3-5-2 against Spain. Wing-backs to cover their overlapping fullbacks, plenty of bodies in the middle, AND outlets up front.

I reckon it could work.
 
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Essentially Spain are Barcelona minus the brilliance of Messi. Barca would probably be fairly boring to watch if it weren't for him, so it's not a massive surprise that Spain are pretty dull. Of course, the way Del Bosque sets the team up doesn't help, two defensive midfielders and no striker is inevitably going to lead to a bore-fest.
 
Weebull said:
I'm surprised no-one's considered going 3-5-2 against Spain. Wing-backs to cover their overlapping fullbacks, plenty of bodies in the middle, AND outlets up front.

I reckon it could work.
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I'm not sure how a straight 3-5-2 would work against Spain with the way they're setting up. With your wing-backs covering their fullbacks, you'd effectively be left with your 3 man midfield against their 3+3 midfield and your CB's not really marking anybody.

I think you'd have to go the way Italy played (like HangTime says), with a midfielder playing as a sweeper, allowing you to switch to almost a 2-6-2.
 
Yeah that's essentially what I was getting at - one (at least) of the defenders would push up to cover the midfield.

I didn't see the first round of games, so I didn't realise Italy played like that then.
 
think the main thing is to have 2 players up front no matter how you set up the rest of the team.

with the full backs trying to supply width if you can get people to have a go against ramos he'll end up getting sent off, and pique isn't that strong a centre back .

only other thing to do is try and make sure you make use of corners/free kicks around there area.
 
nicktay2605 said:
Essentially Spain are Barcelona minus the brilliance of Messi. Barca would probably be fairly boring to watch if it weren't for him, so it's not a massive surprise that Spain are pretty dull. Of course, the way Del Bosque sets the team up doesn't help, two defensive midfielders and no striker is inevitably going to lead to a bore-fest.
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That isn't even close to true, not least because Barca have gone more and more the same way this season.

I was saying earlier to the guys I was watching it with, Aragones had one of the best most free flowing attacking teams in football history, they were freaking fantastic and relatively goal happy(not just against a really really awful Ireland). The current manager took over the best most exciting team in the world and made them play boring defensive football.

I feel sorry for Fabregas, no one wanted to play him in behind the defence, couple passes all game, same in the first game. When Fabregas went off and Torres came on in the first game they put through ball after throughball in for him to go and miss chances from.

Two DM's makes for bad football, full stop, yeah woo Alonso got 2 goals, he shouldn't be in the team as is. Alonso for Llorente, Cesc in midfield actually making those through balls.

As said Barca were getting more and more like that, ignoring the runs, passing from left to right wing, to left, to right, etc, etc then losing the ball before having a shot. Sure Messi helps be the breakthrough but he has played where Cesc has started in many games and drops deep too often leaving Xavi/Iniesta no one to play in behind. They've lost that part of their game to a degree, and Messi dropping deep has pushed Xavi deeper and Xavi has been FAR less attacking than in both previous tournaments and thats completely insane considering they are already playing two defensive midfielders.

Honestly Spain could have walked 3 cups in a row playing the best football around, instead they got a manager that took the best team by a mile, made them MUCH worse for the world cup, and has made them worse again for the Euro's, and he'll still probably win it. Would be a shame, Spain could be highly entertaining again with a new manager, he'll probably stay on if they win another cup :(

People say Ibra never ever performs when they see him, he's been absolutely phenomenal in this tournament just with a **** team. Makes a tough guy in Terry look like a big girl, has scored some crackers, can hold it up better than Carroll, has better vision than most of the best creative players in the tournament, tries flicks and shots no one else would think of, shame he plays with Sweden, anyway, Ribery, people say he's great, really never see him play well, was abysmal for all but about a 3 minute spell today, truly awful, been awful all tournament. Rubbish in all the Cl games, rubbish in the final, rubbish the few times I've seen Bayern play in their cup and the league games I saw.

Is he only ever good against utterly **** teams?
 
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mp260767 said:
think the main thing is to have 2 players up front no matter how you set up the rest of the team.

with the full backs trying to supply width if you can get people to have a go against ramos he'll end up getting sent off, and pique isn't that strong a centre back .

only other thing to do is try and make sure you make use of corners/free kicks around there area.
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As always you'll have complete idiots saying "spain have the best midfield in the world, got to try and crowd them out, pack midfield", seriously, idiots.

Spains midfield IS the best in the world, their defence isn't even particularly good.... so pack men in against players you can't match no matter how many players you put in? Or pack men in against a meh defence that is prone to mistakes and simply decide not to play them in midfield? Bypass midfield, get it to Ronaldo and Nani, meh fullbacks and at not a world class CB to talk of, let them run at the defence rather than try and pass around the midfield.

Every team that gets at the Barca back 4 gives them huge problems(but people rarely do it), every team that tries to beat them in midfield loses pathetically badly. Teams that mostly sit back frustrate them, don't create enough trouble against their defence and generally eventually make that mistake that Spain are so capable of exploiting.

Spain have the players and quality to rip apart any team in the tournament, the manager is hurting them badly, teams need to take advantage but are probably too scared to try :(

Real Madrid have some excellent players, some excellent midfielders and Mourinho supposedly a world class manager, maybe the best according to a lot of people. So what did he do against Barca, packed midfield, hung back, didn't attack left Ronaldo upfront completely on his own with zero support, they lost, lost, eventually drew. Then they went all out attack, completely different results, completely different games, they looked capable of winning when in the other games they didn't at all. There is no rule in football that you have to compete in midfield, there is no team, international or league team that can match any midfield 4 or 5 that Spain can put out..... so why waste players there?
 
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Spain are fantastic, great to watch. Technical football near it's best, I find it absorbing

Not hard to see why England can't pass when you see some of the posts in here, the attitude is very wrong
 
Spain bore teams to death - yes they keep the ball very well in offensive midfield positions, but rarely go much further than the edge of the box (and press quite successfully as soon as they lose the ball)

England would do woefully against them because they hardly string three passes together (Benzema and Ribery kept on giving the ball back in most of the good French positions, with bad passing between them), but I can see Germany really hammering them if thats the final.

France could have done better last night if their passing was crisper / more accurate, 1/2 of them just appeared like they were always expecting to lose and couldnt be ******

I cant see Portugal's central midfield being good enough (and Im a bit dubious of their centre half's as well) to keep up with Spain, although it could be a very open and end-to-end game given Portugal's wingers
 
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