People thought so only because they annihilated Czechs. They had that 1 good game. And based on that, naive people thought they're just gonna walk over everyone else

actually people had high expectations, because last Euro they reached the semi finals (knocking out NL in the quarter finals) with almost the same team

You mean like Netherlands ? And France and Italy in 2010? Yeah we all know how that logic works

nope, more like Spain 2010 (and now) or France 2000

So are you telling me people actually expected Russia to win EURO 2012?

I was just pointing out that there are examples of unchanged teams delivering several tournaments in a row. But whatever, I'm done.

Like Italy in 2010?

No offense Player, but it's rather pointless to argue with you (as shown on many other threads in the past). People show you examples and rational thoughts behind their logics and you just throw them all away because only you can be right.

Forget about what all analysts and people that actually know about football more than you and me said about the Russian team, with Arshavin, Zirkhov, Kherzakov, Dzagoev, Shirokov, Izmailov, etc. Having high probabilities of advancing to later stages if they played their prime as they showed against the Czech. All those people were naive and silly right?

As for providing some context, they don't exactly like Russia where Where player1x3 lives. Therefore, judging the team's strength objectively is not an easy task.

Thanks for pointing that out, I kinda overlooked that.