The Football Thread - 17/18 Season

[Scisca]

RolStoppable said:

Scisca said:

Oh, so salty

Then obviously others know nothing about football

If you haven't heard anyone say that, then maybe you should start watching the studio before the game? I'm watching ZDF and their experts are giving us a lot of respect. We are the most common choice for the black horse of the Cup. You may also analyze our squad for yourself:

(...)

On top of that comes a number of talented young guys from the Polish league, like Kapustka (Man of the Match vs. N. Ireland), Mączyński (worked like a horse yesterday), Jodłowiec and others, who round out the team.

Our team has players playing for good teams, while some are the leaders of the best teams in the World. How many teams on Euro can say that? How can you not consider a team like that a contender, especially when it's oozing with team spirit? The core is rock solid, the roster is deep. If you can't see it... You're in for a surprise I'm not going to go as far as to say that we're the favourites, but a top 5 team - easily. I would be very, very disappointed if we lost to a team outside of that group. You'll see in the knock-out stage who the favourites are going to be in our games.

 

By the way - the greatest shock of this Euro for me has been listening to Olivier Khan on ZDF. I was expecting him to have a terrible, dirty accent matching his rugged appearance from when he was still playing, so listening to his soft, clear and pleasant accent is surprising. Didn't expect to like it this much.

Black horse isn't the same as a clear cut favorite. And of course the Germans are going to give Poland a lot of respect because it makes themselves look better. Just like it's a sure thing that Austrian broadcasters will talk up Portugal as a title favorite when Austria suffers an 0-4 loss tomorrow.

If we take the group of Germany, Italy, Spain and France for granted, then I'd definitely rather put Croatia than Poland into the top 5. Portugal has also looked better than Poland. Belgium will probably show up tomorrow and win back some goodwill. Nah, Poland isn't a top 5 team. You would have had a point if Poland won yesterday, but a boring 0-0 against Germany isn't enough to lift Poland into the top 5.

RolStoppable said:
Now I rank the Czech Republic also higher than Poland.

Oh yeah. Croatia better than Poland. Portugal looks better (are you blind?). Czech Rep is better. Spot on predictions, spot on... Look. The best player on Croatia (Luka Modrić) maybe would be the 4th best player on out team. Maybe, cause you could argue the keeper or Glik are better as well. And Bayern ditched Mandzukić the moment they got Lewandowski. They are a very good and dangerous team, but not that good. Czech Rep? I like them, some of their players would make our rotation deeper. Portugal? Cristiano would edge Milik out of the top 3, Nani would be a starter - and that's about it. Really, this is humiliating on your part, you don't seem to know much about football if you claim such bs. And you particularly don't understand the fact that this is a tournament and what consequences this has on how you should be judging what the teams are showing. I see that you are sour as hell and sad that your team is bad, but get over it. Why is it so painfull for you to accept that Poland is actually a bloody good team? Maybe it's an Austrian thing? We have the World's very best players, great team chemistry, we've been consistently playing great for the last 2 years - what more can you ask for? No amount of your moaning will make Poland any worse and it only makes the crow you're about to eat that much larger. Save it. Poland is a top 5 team, deal with it.

Croatia is good, but unless they defeat Spain, they will probably run into Italy in the 1/8 (unless Czech Rep edges them out as well) and that would be it for them.

In fact I've analyzed the ladder and I'd rather see Poland finishing 2nd in the group. The ladder is heavily favouring France and Enland (France the most), since Poland and Germany are bound to face Italy and Spain (unless they lose to Croatia in their last game) already in the quarterfinals :-/ France and England have a rather easy way all up to the semis, though I honestly wouldn't be surprised if England still didn't make it, or even failed to win its group. I hope we end up second, since I'd rather play Spain (Croatia?) and England/Portugal/Belgium/Iceland/Hungary than Italy followed by France. The first path seems to be less dauting, especially the semifinal would be easier than playing a very talented host team.

@favourite/black horse - we're high for people who know football, but since most people are like you and judge teams on how they fare using them in FIFA Football, they stick to a black horse, not to mess with these poor fellas' minds.