The Euro 2012 thread

[lestatdark]

kowenicki said:

lestatdark said:

The problem is not Spain dominating ball possession, they have that playstyle right down to the core, the problem lies with the other team not being able to decipher that and playing their weaknesses. Croatia and Italy showed how blatant which were those weaknesses (poor defensive positioning when faced with a quick-paced counter, bad defensive ability on corners/free kicks, too much lateralization of their offensive game) and were able to play them properly.

France showed that they didn't study the Spain team and matches properly and paid for it in the first half. I think that the second half will be different (or at least I hope) after Blanc does a couple of changes to the strategy and players.

spot on... Spain has exactly the same "problem" as Barca.. if you can turn their defense with pace they really struggle.

edit.. "really struggle" isnt what I meant to say... lol... its a weakness they have is more accurate.

Yeah, and that showed especially on the second half against Italy. So much that they even sacrificed some of their attacking possession to "hide" the ball in their defensive midfield with pretty short passes, because Italy was suffocating them with quick counters. 

OT - France a bit better on this start of the second half, but not that much.