Euro 2020 Day 4 Game Thread: Whit’s fur ye’ll no go past ye
- Thread starter Dummy Hoy
- Start date
This is typical Sweden; defend like mad, don't press, try to pip a goal off a mistake or a set piece, or force a draw to advance to the KO stage. It's not pretty but its effective in tournament play and good for a team that is short on talent but long on discipline. It's particularly pronounced playing against a possession-oriented squad like Spain.
I’ve missed the first half, I assume Sweden are parking the bus? Or as they say in Sweden, "parkera bussen".
I'm listening to the game at work and occasionally peeking at it when no one else is around. I heard the announcer excitedly go "Alba, Torress!" and started gettting worried, than he said "Morata!" and I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing there was no way Spain was going to score.
If Champion is frustrated by his current partnership, I'd gladly have him back in the UK over at least three or four of the play-by-play guys on duty here. (Maybe more.)
Isak is doing great work up front for Sweden in his limited opportunities with the ball - that was very close.
Spain looks horrible. No one with any creativity, no 1v1 specialists on the outside, everything is slow, and they can still get hit on the break.
Interesting subs from Lucho--brings on more incisive passing with Thiago and brings on a much needed winger in Sarabia, but takes off the CF. Why not sub off Llorente who looks terrible on the RW (not his natural position I don't think) and leave your CF on to keep the CBs occupied?
Spain showing signs of life. Olmo and Torres playing centrally and the width now being kept by committee by Pedri, Sarabia, Llorente, and Alba. Much more fluid.
Isak was a sensation as a teenager, scoring 10 goals in 24 games for Swedish league side AIK as a 16/17 year old. He was then labeled the next Zlatan, due to his height, skill, and flair around the goal. He then went to Dortmund, but unlike Pulisic and Sancho, he never took off there despite it being the ideal place to develop young talent. He regained his footing playing for Dutch side Willem II, bagging 13 goals and 16 games while on loan in the Eredivise and then was sold to Real Sociedad, and he scored 17 goals in 34 games in La Liga last year. He's been around the world a bit, but he's only 21 and I could see him go on the move this Summer, he'd be a good fit at a mid-level EPL side that might want to spend money on a striker, like West Ham.
In 2016 there were four 0:0 games in the first group stage matches. Someone is bound to score now.
More predictable: tons of useless possession and passing from Spain, or the Swedes having an endless reserve of handsome players?
It seems really useless for Spain to have 2 CBs and Koke on the field. I get that you want balance, but you also want 3 points in theory.
Sweden seems to do it more than most countries/clubs, but I hate that defenders playing with their hands behind their back has become normalized due to hand ball BS.
Spain gonna Spain. Lucho brutal with the squad selection today. Subs were pretty good, but I still feel like Adama should've been on for one of the 3 super defensive players.
Heh heh, I know that game sucked for neutrals but that was a great game for Sweden, who dared Spain's attackers to show some clinical finishing skills and exposed that weakness. They are a really well coached, well organized squad that can steal points from more talented teams, like a Scandinavian Burnley. If Berg had finished that sitter it would have been the perfect game for them.
They will come out and play more aggressive in their other group games which are more winnable. They will hopefully have Juventus midfielder Dejan Kulusevski back after he tested positive for COVID-19 on June 8. Him, along with Isak and Forsberg does give this team a bit more attacking bite than when they went to the World Cup quarterfinals in 2018.
They will come out and play more aggressive in their other group games which are more winnable. They will hopefully have Juventus midfielder Dejan Kulusevski back after he tested positive for COVID-19 on June 8. Him, along with Isak and Forsberg does give this team a bit more attacking bite than when they went to the World Cup quarterfinals in 2018.
really? over who? I've been pretty ok with the ones I have heard on world feeds, Five Live and TalkSport
Jonathan Pearce on the BBC is particularly ghastly - a relic of Stone Age commentary who should have been put out to pasture ages ago. The promotion of Sam Matterface above Clyde Tyldesley at ITV remains mystifying to me; I can't quite believe that he's the successor to Tyldesley and Brian Moore before him. There are several other voices like Steve Bower, who called Spain vs. Sweden for the BBC this evening, who are...fine, but definitely below Champion in my personal pecking order. In fact, I'd put Champion level with Guy Mowbray and Steve Wilson above everyone else at the BBC, and probably ahead of everyone at ITV (including Tyldesley, just), at least among the voices I've heard. (I did like that Rob MacLean called the Scotland match today for the BBC - he's pretty good as well, but he'll never get work calling anyone outside of Scotland.)
That's just a TV listing, btw - doesn't cover radio voices. (I never listen to TalkSport; Five Live has a lot of good voices, including Conor McNamara - who I got to know when he hosted the pregame/halftime/postgame a few years ago when I got to do the play-by-play on Milan vs. Juventus for DAZN Canada - but I rarely listen to them either and so can't give proper opinions about them.)
It was a perfect matchup for that kind of thing to happen; Sweden didn't care at all about possession and Spain's tactics were designed to maximize possession. The funny thing is you could easily make the argument that Sweden had the two best chances to score in the game, with Isak hitting the post in the first half and Berg missing a sitter in the second half.
The dreaded horseshoe. This is giving me nightmarish flashbacks of Arsenal last fall.
But ~500 passes among the defense? Utterly mind bending. Thankfully it happened weekday afternoon and not prime weekend viewing time, it would have set the sport back a decade in the US.
That number is completely insane. I'm glad that I only watched that one sporadically.
