Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[fallenangle]

Little to add but my agreement to those analyses of the matches and England's performance last night.

There's the possibility he's pacing the team after a long season when in a tournament like this to keep the players fresh for the knockout rounds. But are we really to believe that is what Gareth Southgate is doing or the disjointed performances in every match so far were part of a cunningly wrought plan to fox the other teams into underestimating England? Seems a tad unlikely to say the least. The simplest explanation is what I said earlier here and that he has a group of good and even great players but still has little idea what combination actually works as a team.

I think Portugal look a pretty good bet to go far in this competition because they have that right team and squad mix of old and new players. I'd have fancied Croatia for much the same reason, as well as the Spurs connection of Modric and Peresic, but that's not to be now.

[EJG1980]

Very happy for Radu Dragusin, Romania through to the second round as group winners, great stuff. Thanks to topping the dit: group they get a nice bonus of avoiding a second round match against France. Considering that a draw was enough to put both teams through, their match with Slovakia was a well contested affair that wasn’t a bad watch.

Edit: watched the Turkey vs Czech game last night too, which wasn't always the best but was a good watch thanks to the drama, right up to the last knockings there was a chance of the ten men Czech pulling off a shock win. And after mentioning before that I felt a bit sorry for Georgia for their "so close yet so far" results, I was really happy to see that they got a win over a (much changed) Portugal side to get themselves into the next round, I think they deserved it.

All four teams with a Spurs player involved get through to the second round too, which is good.

After reading before last night's matches that we had about a 70% chance of facing the Dutch in the second round, it turns out we ended up getting Slovakia. One of those "Won't be a walk in the park but you'd be disappointed to lose" type opponents.

If we get through that then our QF opponent would be Italy or Switzerland, and a semi-final opponent one of Romania, Netherlands, Austria or Turkey. While it isn't easy it is definitely a favourable draw compared to what it could have been, so much so that the bookies have moved England back up to favourites to win the tournament!

Saturday: Well, I expected Switzerland to give Italy problems, and given Italy's current state wouldn't have been hugely shocked if they caused an upset, but the fact that they knocked Italy out with such ease certainly was a bit of a surprise.

Switzerland were completely in control and comfortable for the entire ninety minutes, it was pretty much a gentle afternoon stroll for them. Even when playing poorly you can usually expect Italy to fight, scratch, and claw to try and get back into a match, but none of that today.

If England win tomorrow they get the Swiss in the quarters, and that won't be an easy match if the Switzerland that drew with Germany and beat Italy turn up. A couple of results that almost make you forget they were only able to draw with Scotland before those two matches

The Germany vs Denmark game: the offsides I don't mind so much. It's annoying when players are off by a toenail, but they've gotta draw the line somewhere and at least it's just a matter of fact. And in this tournament, at least the offside decisions have been quick with the semi-automatic technology.

The handball rule sucks though. They're not supposed to give it if the arm is in a "natural position", but they nearly always give the penalty if the arm is away from the body, even though there are many times where the arm being away from the body IS the natural position for it to be in! Anderson clearly hadn't stuck his arm out to block the ball, it was natural movement as he ran. Not only that player who kicked it into him couldn't have been more than a yard away, Anderson had no time to react, deliberately or otherwise.