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Euro2020 Knock Out Rounds

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Papa Shango said:
This

I know it makes us look like old farts but the 80s Belgian side was tremendous.
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Oh, I'm definitely an old fart. And happy about it. For every extra kilo of weight you add and strand of hair you lose as you get older, the compensation is the "context" of experience. It means that when people say Belgium has its greatest-ever group of players, you smile to yourself. Nah, they're not. That side in the 1980s was consistently, pound-for-pound, one of the great overachievers in international football that decade, and one of the truly great counter-attacking sides. Thys was a master. The 1982 World Cup qualifiers saw that Belgian side top a savage group that contained Platini's France, Krol's Holland, and Brady's Ireland. There was a sliver between all four of those sides, but the Belgians got the job done as they so often did in that era. Jean-Marie Pfaff was a brilliant personality goalkeeper and Eric Gerets the best full-back in the world at the time. Enzo Scifo was only a kid when he played for that side, but was a lovely player. Frankie Vercauteren was a fox and Jan Ceulemans was the cleverest, hard-working striker in the game. They were mentally hard as nails and could be relied on to show up on the big occasion (when they weren't involving themselves in domestic match fixing scandals). Still, you can't have everything.
 
Prevenger17 said:
It's what we both saw. I love Martinez too mate, but there's a big argument to be made that he has underperformed with that collection of players
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You cant underperform with those players two years past their peak.

Russia was theor tournament and Lukaku blew it for them. That is the cast iron truth of the matter.
 

Belgium have gone from Sven's England to Capello's.

For all his talk, Martinez teams don't have any sort of tempo on or off the ball. His philosophy amounts to telling the centre-backs and goalkeeper that they're never to go long, while relying on individual moments of phenomenal arrogance from whoever he picks in front of his two sitting crabs in midfield.

Credit to de Bruyne for dragging them as far as he did, but they were never going to win anything with that idiot in charge.
 

just for context: -

England - ranked 4th in the World
Spain - ranked 6th in the World
Italy - ranked 7th in the World
Denmark - ranked 10th in the World
Ukraine - ranked 24th in the World
Czech Republic - ranked 40th in the World

we are the best team left in the competition now
 
That said about Italy: if they meet the Crusaders in the final I hope they're diving everywhere and running down the clock to win the trophy.

That'll focus minds on just how good they are AND deny England.

...mind you, I can see either the Ukraine or Denmark seeing those tools off before that point.
 

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