Friendlies

[amenina]

6 June 2024

Gibraltar 0-0 Wales
Netherlands 4-0 Canada

[Lorric]

What's with the extreme reluctance among qualified teams to play other qualified teams? If you exclude playoff qualifiers, as their qualification would probably not be known when the games were announced, there are only three such games if my count is right. Switzerland are in two of them, so to them. England's fixtures seemed out of character at the time, we normally play higher standard opposition, but two playoff teams may well have been the best we could get under these circumstances. Taken as a pair, BiH and Iceland are actually among the stronger pairs of fixtures taken by qualified teams. Plenty have scheduled games against minnows.

These are the games between auto qualified teams:

Hungary 1-0 Switzerland

Tomorrow:

Switzerland vs Austria
Portugal vs Croatia (Of all the choices, remember their infamous super-borefest Euro match? )

[rpo.castro]

What's with the extreme reluctance among qualified teams to play other qualified teams? If you exclude playoff qualifiers, as their qualification would probably not be known when the games were announced, there are only three such games if my count is right. Switzerland are in two of them, so to them. England's fixtures seemed out of character at the time, we normally play higher standard opposition, but two playoff teams may well have been the best we could get under these circumstances. Taken as a pair, BiH and Iceland are actually among the stronger pairs of fixtures taken by qualified teams. Plenty have scheduled games against minnows.

These are the games between auto qualified teams:

Hungary 1-0 Switzerland

Tomorrow:

Switzerland vs Austria
Portugal vs Croatia (Of all the choices, remember their infamous super-borefest Euro match? )

Might be not to show your game (for example if Portugal manage to complete dominate Croatia midfield saturday, Croatia will be ready for it during Euro).
Another reason might be getting a boost, fighting weaker (unqualified) teams is more likely to get a win, even if you do a lot of subs, and you don't want your players to give 100% in these games.

My guess.

[amenina]

In a friendly that actually features non-European teams, Cambodia beat Mongolia 2-0 at home.

They will play again next Tuesday, and very interestingly, the second match will be in Mongolia. So the two teams are actually making an effort to play an "home-and-away" series, given the distance and travel involved between the two countries.

[Lorric]

In a friendly that actually features non-European teams, Cambodia beat Mongolia 2-0 at home.

They will play again next Tuesday, and very interestingly, the second match will be in Mongolia. So the two teams are actually making an effort to play an "home-and-away" series, given the distance and travel involved between the two countries.

These are two of the six teams that must face exactly that to move on to the next round of Asian Cup qualifying, so clearly they are preparing for that. It's nice to see them taking that so seriously when they really hardly stand a chance of qualifying for the Asian Cup. But maybe such an attitude could bear fruit later...

Mongolia have East Timor and Cambodia have Sri Lanka.

[Lorric]

Iceland lead on their first attack. Ramsdale beaten at the near post. That's not going to do him any favours. Never been convinced by this goalkeeper. Glad we have Pickford.

[Greyn]

Wow, Poland are playing with a mixed A-B team and are dominating and leading vs Ukraine. We are mighty.

[Lorric]

HT 0-1. Bogey team. We were actually playing well until they scored, then they've just bunkered in deep and we just have no answer to it at all. Team is probably pretty close to what we'll play with at the Euro too. No Pickford or Bellingham and one or two others probably different, but it's definitely more in line with what we'll play at the tournament I think.

[Lorric]

Iceland blew a 2 on keeper.

[Lorric]

It's infuriating how easily Iceland go through us when they do attack and how hard it is for us. If this is the state of our defence, we're in big trouble.

[Lorric]

0-1 FT. Iceland deserved the win, they created the better chances. If I ever see Iceland on the same pitch as England again it'll be too soon. We were so bad going forward in that second half. There was more space as Iceland were more ambitious, but so many mishit balls and shots. Really bad off night. There was a certain lack of effort I think, we were in friendly mode, never willing to get really aggressive and go for it. I don't think it was the same situation as Euro 2016 where they were scared. They were trying, but not 100%. They didn't seem to care they were losing at home to Iceland. I never felt like we were going to score at any point after they did which is the worst thing. Just watching the game grind along fully expecting us to lose it. We were lucky we only lost by one.

They say you learn more from a defeat, I can only hope Iceland did us a favour tonight.

[Lorric]

Not the worst result tonight. Romania drew at home 0-0 with Liechtenstein.

[Lorric]

I'm largely happy with the interview from Southgate after the game. He seems to understand what the issues were and not trying to sugarcoat it. Makes me feel somewhat better, as that was a rough watch, and like I said, never felt we were going to score and so I was just getting more and more aggravated with the poorness of the performance as the match ground on.

[amenina]

7 June 2024 (UEFA)

Czechia 7-1 Malta
Armenia 2-1 Kazakhstan
Albania 3-1 Azerbaijan
Belarus 0-4 Russia
Romania 0-0 Liechtenstein
Scotland 2-2 Finland
England 0-1 Iceland
Poland 3-1 Ukraine
Germany 2-1 Greece

[BurningStorm]

Another Neuer blunder, similar to the decisive one against Real. He was an outstanding goalkeeper for this team, but at the age of 38 and after several injuries he seems to be a risk for Germany and Bayern. When you have the long-time Barca keeper as his replacement you should consider it. Now it's too late anyway...