Board 8 > Euro 2020 Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

If Chelsea pays Maguire money wouldn't be mad.

Did all the dirty work and allowed other players to shine.

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Seeing N Macedonia here is making me smile an irrational amount.

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Croatia looked complete crap today. Didn't look like they could be arsed.

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Goran Pandev jfc there's a signing I made in Football Manager like.... 2010? lmfao

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shane15 posted...

Croatia looked complete crap today. Didn't look like they could be arsed.

Disagree. I thought aside from the first 20 minutes where they were off pace, they put in a solid performance. England just crowded them out and they lacked the creavity/target up front to fashion clear cut chances.

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England had a good gameplan to make Croatia play badly.
Southgate deserves credit even if I would have liked to see Sancho/Chelsea FBs start.

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Now we await the Battle of

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Austria finally break the deadlock...

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Proper shame for N Macedonia but they gave it a good go. Always lovely to see smaller nations try and play.

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Croatia had a fine game, but I would not call it solid performance. It was pretty clear that they're missing some big names from their World Cup Finals game and that the rest of them are 3 years older.

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They defended well and only needed to take one chance in order to nick a draw with the group favorite. But yeah it's clear that they've lost a few steps compared to a few years ago.

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Well we've seen 4 of the big boys so far and to be honest i think they're all pretty equal. Although saying that only England and Holland have played anyone half decent.

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Wow

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netherlands??

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shane15 posted...

Well we've seen 4 of the big boys so far and to be honest i think they're all pretty equal. Although saying that only England and Holland have played anyone half decent.

Well, what's this based on? I assume Italy and Belgium are the other two (although Denmark and Switzerland are both currently ranked higher than Holland). Anyway, Turkey is definitely half decent too, Italy's looking great.

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Fifa rankings mean bugger all tbh. Although for some reason i forgot Italy played Turkey so i'll give you that one.

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DeBoer is the most mocked manager among the big teams.

Hard to say it's unwarranted

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Game of the tournament so far.

Was rooting for Ukraine as that's my granddad's nationality

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Yeah easily the best game so far. Shame for Ukraine but they should have enough to finish second.

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Yeah, good comeback attempt and really good match.

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That was terrific

England winning was a great start against a good team. So excited for Friday now.

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Holland deserved the win.

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ExThaNemesis posted...

I think if Portugal won it again it would be a fitting stamp on the Ronaldo > Messi fact

Regardless of who you think is better, it's beyond me how people tend to forget it's a team sport and that achievements doesn't tell the full story. Like, all the finals Messi has reached with quite varying Argentine teams aren't really less impressive from him than they would be if Higuain could actually score a sitter when it mattered. Then Portugal wins the Euros despite only winning a single match in 90 minutes and Ronaldo fans just like at the amount of international trophies despite Ronaldo not even playing the final.

I'm not saying anything about who is better, but Portugal has a really good team right now with or without Ronaldo (and Argentina does not really) and them winning isn't really a stamp on anything regarding Messi.

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What the fuck?

BBC News - Buxted FC: Vandals smash defibrillator kit after Eriksen collapse https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-57466276

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Portugal winning the Euro's would've been akin to England or Croatia winning the World Cup in 2018. I know they say you can only beat who's put in front of you but on both of those occasions they only really had to beat one world class team to win the whole thing.

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shane15 posted...

they only really had to beat one world class team to win the whole thing.

Two if you include Wales ;)

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Cavedweller2000 posted...

What the fuck?

BBC News - Buxted FC: Vandals smash defibrillator kit after Eriksen collapse https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-57466276

Let's hope these dickheads never need a defibrillator...

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ctesjbuvf posted...

Regardless of who you think is better, it's beyond me how people tend to forget it's a team sport and that achievements doesn't tell the full story. Like, all the finals Messi has reached with quite varying Argentine teams aren't really less impressive from him than they would be if Higuain could actually score a sitter when it mattered. Then Portugal wins the Euros despite only winning a single match in 90 minutes and Ronaldo fans just like at the amount of international trophies despite Ronaldo not even playing the final.

I'm not saying anything about who is better, but Portugal has a really good team right now with or without Ronaldo (and Argentina does not really) and them winning isn't really a stamp on anything regarding Messi.

The "hot take" (I'm not really sure it is one, seems like common sense to me) here is that Ronaldo essentially did as much on the pitch for Portugal in 2016 as Messi did for Argentina in 2014, and Messi's team won more games and beat better teams. The key difference really is, as you said, that Higuain screwed up and Eder somehow didn't.

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If Scotland lose this, England can all but knock them out on Friday. That won't go down well.

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Hope the Scots smash em. Nothing more irritating than smug England fans after they win and that'll go double for if they beat the Scots.

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Well deserved victory.

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Czech Republic wins 2-0.

Clearly Scotland was looking ahead to England!

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The same people that parrot the "team sport" narrative will then flip right around and claim Messi superiority because of him being the focal point of his teams, as though Ronaldo isn't the exact same, while winning more trophies in more leagues and on more stages.

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and "ronaldo didn't even play the final" is so fucking ludicrous when he dragged and carried the team to the final practically by himself

Also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4pyzdQAEeo

Messi actually got to play in his final and couldn't come up with his Michael Jordan moment

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ExThaNemesis posted...

and "ronaldo didn't even play the final" is so f***ing ludicrous when he dragged and carried the team to the final practically by himself

The point was nothing against Ronaldo, just that Messi took his team as far as Ronaldo did and won a lot more matches getting there. I'm not even arguing about who's better, just stating that you can easily cherry pick the stats you want to matter the most for both sides and that's exactly what you're doing and why I made the aforementioned point to show this.

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I don't think cherry picking is even close to what I'm doing. And the Euro that Ronaldo won is not half as relevant as the Champions Leagues Ronaldo has won versus Messi. That and winning titles in different leagues will always be more impressive.

Ronaldo won three Champions Leagues in a row. Messi hasn't even won two in a row.

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I'm in the Ronaldo camp. The guy has played and proven himself in multiple big leagues in Europe and won the Euro's. Messi has sat pretty at Barcelona his whole career and won bugger all with Argentina.

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I love having this argument because it really exposes people's bias.

I think a lot of English fans in particular still dislike Ronaldo from his time at United and overrate Messi vs him just on that.

Or people who just don't watch enough football and have this sort of ingrained "Messi is the goat" idea and don't look any deeper into the reality of it.

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ronaldo is an insufferable ass

still, ronaldo > messi

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Go my Ronaldo

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Messi is more likeable because there's a genius to him, whereas Ronaldo feels more like a machine that scores goals. I feel like at Real Madrid he really lost that kind of genius "what will he do" that Messi always had and still has.

And while Ronaldo's multi-league title haul is impressive, let's also not kid ourselves. This isn't Mourinho winning a CL with Porto. This is a top 2 player in the world winning titles with an incredible MU side, a RM side that did have to battle with Barcelona but is still Real Madrid, and a Juventus that until this season snoozed to Serie A titles.

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It's exactly what you're doing. There are plenty of records Messi hold that could be brought up as well. I don't disagree at allthat Ronaldo's champions league victories matter a lot in the debate, that's one of the bst cases to be made, but there are many obvious counterpoints not only through awards but through numbers too.

The different leagues titles case is not as great though, in particular when Messi has more league titles in the period where they played each other (6 to 2). Ronaldo brought exactly nothing to Juventus that they didn't already have (they've actually achieved less since), despite doing incredibly well there.

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Boy I sure can't wait for Poland to lose to Slovakia and Spain before beating Sweden and going out on pens to the Netherlands:)))))))))

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That sure is a prediction

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Less of a prediction and more of a statement

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or alternatively we win our last game after we are already out

It is the Poland way

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Not even Sweden can lose to Poland if they keep playing like this. ;)

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I can see Sweden getting a draw tonight. Although you never really know what you're gonna get with Sweden.

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Honestly we have been even worse than I expected. Thought we would lose this game but this is pathetic. Sousa is a horrible fit for us too and for such a boring defensive coach he hasn't sorted out our back line which has been dogshit since we lost Piszczek. Was bad enough having to watch a season of him at my club and now I have to watch our best ever player in his prime get wasted for another major tournament.

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Thats how you do it!

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