Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #26
    Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

    Working from deeper then. And wider, noticeably so.
    He was little boy lost as the central man, not retaining possession or seemingly having a clue where he should move to. Prior to that change it was a team with nearly every player out of position. One alteration, and they were back in sync with each other, and immediately had much more self-belief and threat as an attacking unit.

    Comment


      #27
      Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

      Borracho wrote:
      Originally posted by linus
      It definitely did play a role in the later stages of the game and in extra time. 72 vs 96 hours of recovery time really kicks in when you're getting to the bottom of the stamina barrell.
      Last night France were up against a team who were playing their third extra-time game in two weeks.

      The main reasons why they lost the final were because Griezmann missed a complete sitter midway through the second half, because they completely ran out of ideas in extra-time, and because ultimately they're not particularly good.
      Interesting statement there, now which teams would you say are better than this mediocre French side...

      I think there was an element of what is known in American parlance as the trap game. The semifinal win over the defending champions felt like a championship game, and with the short turnaround, there wasn't enough time to absorb it and to build up focus on Portugal and the final. For a major championship final, it was a bit anticlimactic.

      Comment


        #28
        Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

        The French team has a few world-class players -- such as Lloris, Griezmann, Pogba -- and a bunch of servicable hands. Clearly, it's not a bad side. But without home advantage (right down to the semi-final being scheduled in Marseilles), some fortuitous refereeing and the easy draw, I wonder if they would have reached the final.

        Comment


          #29
          Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

          France were weaker than both of the 2012 finalists and probably both 2014 finalists, but they had Greizmann and Payet to rescue them until the final and Germany had their scorer Mueller out of form and lacking a centre forward to play off.

          Comment


            #30
            Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

            linus wrote:
            Interesting statement there, now which teams would you say are better than this mediocre French side...
            It's been pretty obvious over the last four weeks that there were no great teams in this tournament. But France were given every imaginable helping hand – home advantage, some generous refereeing, nice long breaks between almost all their games, a route of Romania/Albania/Switzerland/Ireland/Iceland to the last four – and they also managed to stay injury-free (in contrast to Germany and Portugal). And they still couldn't win it. Absolutely everything was set up in their favour, and they blew it.

            If this tournament had been held anywhere else they'd probably have gone out in the quarter-finals, like they did in their last two tournaments.

            Comment


              #31
              Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

              without home advantage (right down to the semi-final being scheduled in Marseilles)
              Wha? The tournament is in France, and it's a further advantage to play the semi final... also in France?

              Comment


                #32
                Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

                In general I agree though, they can certainly have no complaints.

                Comment


                  #33
                  Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

                  N est à? wrote:
                  without home advantage (right down to the semi-final being scheduled in Marseilles)
                  Wha? The tournament is in France, and it's a further advantage to play the semi final... also in France?
                  I think the contention was that Marseilles traditionally has the most vociferous support for the national team and so France's hardest game (apart from the final, which obviously had to be in Paris) being scheduled there was an additional advantage.

                  Comment


                    #34
                    Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

                    St Etienne, Lens/Lille, even Parc des Princes are just as loud for games with the national team, good fans and better acoustics than at the Velodrome. That's a silly argument, really.

                    "Generous refereeing" is another dubious notion, considering that the lone goal in the final has come from a sequence started with one of the most egregious handball calls in the history of the tournament. And it's not like the ref abstained from calling a penalty on Pogba against Ireland right off the bat. Not saying that it was an outrageous call, but a biased ref could have abstained from calling it.

                    Ireland/England/Germany was not a particularly easy path on paper. Not France's fault that England did not show up, or that they've somehow managed to utterly demolish an Iceland side that had eliminated Holland and England.

                    And finalist is not a huge disappointment going into the tournament, this squad was still a work in progress. It's actually further ahead than I expected, its prospects for 2018 are very good.

                    Satchmo Distel wrote: France were weaker than both of the 2012 finalists and probably both 2014 finalists, but they had Greizmann and Payet to rescue them until the final and Germany had their scorer Mueller out of form and lacking a centre forward to play off.
                    Having top-notch finishers is a key differentiator between the field and the top contenders.

                    Comment


                      #35
                      Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

                      linus wrote: St Etienne, Lens/Lille, even Parc des Princes are just as loud for games with the national team, good fans and better acoustics than at the Velodrome. That's a silly argument, really.
                      It wasn't my argument but I will say I've seen plenty of comment that the atmosphere for France's games in Marseille was significantly more intense than in the other cities they played.

                      I imagine the new roof on the Velodrome should have significantly amped up the acoustics too.

                      .

                      Comment


                        #36
                        Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

                        The way that tickets for a major final are currently distributed (with tens of thousands going to sponsors, officials, and the "football family") means that the atmosphere will always be more subdued, no matter where the match is played.

                        Comment


                          #37
                          Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

                          Yes, I think the comparison is obviously more with France's earlier games at the SdF, Lyon and Lille.

                          Comment


                            #38
                            Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

                            Ray de Galles wrote:
                            Originally posted by linus
                            St Etienne, Lens/Lille, even Parc des Princes are just as loud for games with the national team, good fans and better acoustics than at the Velodrome. That's a silly argument, really.
                            It wasn't my argument but I will say I've seen plenty of comment that the atmosphere for France's games in Marseille was significantly more intense than in the other cities they played.

                            I imagine the new roof on the Velodrome should have significantly amped up the acoustics too.
                            .
                            FYI, the new Velodrome roof is a steel truss structure with a lightweight wrapping cover, and it's not level, curving up skywards. So not nearly the acoustic properties of an old school brutalist level enclosure concrete roof like the Parc des Princes.

                            Comment


                              #39
                              Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

                              linus wrote:

                              "Generous refereeing" is another dubious notion, considering that the lone goal in the final has come from a sequence started with one of the most egregious handball calls in the history of the tournament. And it's not like the ref abstained from calling a penalty on Pogba against Ireland right off the bat. Not saying that it was an outrageous call, but a biased ref could have abstained from calling it.
                              I don't recall many highly controversial decisions going France's way -- hence the word "generous" rather than "biased" or "fixed" -- but I'm not thinking so much in terms of the big calls than the more marginal ones, which tended to go France's way (as they often do go the way of the home team).

                              In the final, Payet might have been sent off for that assault on Ronaldo -- a straight red would have been justifiable, or a yellow for the foul on Sanchez and another for the one on Ronaldo. Clattenburg took a very generous view of Payet's conduct in both instances.

                              Comment


                                #40
                                Scheduling disadvantage: 2nd SF on a Thursday

                                .

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X