Euros 2016

Boring European Championship and low quality of games.Something like todays UE...

Won't change now though, think of all the extra money that's changed hands to broadcast those extra games, more advertising revenue, merchandising, local economy boosts, beer etc. It's the way of things.

I can't believe Portugal won, but there you go. That seems to happen in the Euros from time to time, better than the same olds every time I guess...

I don't like European politics so far but I wouldn't go out of EU.As for football I'm happy Portugal has won his first important Championship,but,again,nice football is something different from the matches I recently watched.

One has been hugely amused to read this thread for the past month but I've declined to comment as I was too busy attending the tournament as a Wales fan. The standard of some comments on here does worry me. Betrays a fundamental jack of tactical knowledge.

In no sense did Wales turn up just to defend against England. It was widely observed beforehand that the outcome would be determined by the direct battle of the wing backs. Whoever won that would dominate possession and possibly win the game. Rose and Walker bossed it from start to finish and that dictated the whole pattern of the game not some tactical deep lying negative Coleman master plan. 

Despite this England couldn't find a way through and were clearly in some trouble. Roy threw caution to the wind and threw most of the strikers he had on but failed to alter the midfield so as to create anything for them. It was basically throwing everything against the wall in the hope something would stick. Luckily for England, it did.

However, the true quality of the England team could be guaged by our respective results against Russia. England didn't lose 2 points just because of poor subs. They lost them because their only tactical plan was possession. They didn't actually have any basic tactics for getting between the lines or behind any team let alone poor ones. Wales didn't their tactics over 6 games. It didn't involve defending en masses or lacking ambition. It was built around countering if pushed back but otherwise going wide and then inside as a large CF played in wide players and then joined them in the box.

Most fans at the tournament recognised early on that Portugal we're going to be the problem team. Wales fans would much rather have had Iceland as Portugal were by far the better team unit by unit. Only the English media and fans whose experience of football involves either the Premier League or a sofa could have not seen that result coming. 

Have to say that Wales were hamstrung in the semi by the lack of Ramsey and Davies but the latter was the bigger miss. Collins was inevitably at fault for both goals. Bale wasn't fully fit and it showed. He only turned the revs on in two small cameos across six games. Ledley was a useful passenger but an unfit useful passenger nevertheless. Ramsey and Allen were far more influential than both. That said our man of the tournament was between Gunter and Chester. The latter edged it. 

Still, if someone wants to clarify why we're a one man team...

Mike

Your post certainly highlights how analysing a football match can be very subjective, let alone a tournament, but anybody who attends live matches would know that already

 I suspect you’ve spent too much time listening to the musings of the footballing savant Robbie Savage.

I can honestly say I've never listened to Robbie muse on anything on TV or radio. My views come from being a spectator at the actual games and having some coaching badges.

Can I move onto the England team now?

Putting aside the deluded sense of entitlement based on 1 tournament win and nothing else it does strike me that most England fans buy into the idea that a manager can make a difference when otherwise decent managers fail repeatedly when appointed England manager. 

I don't consider it rocket science. Between Ramsey going and the arrival of the Premier League it was just poor appointments. The EPL ; Sky; TV in general has destroyed defending as an art. The FA lost control of the game and the EPL become one of the few leagues in Europe to control its own refs rather than have an independent body. Consequently its top players are "assets" to be protected by refs rather than just players. 

You can qualify for a tournament without being great defensively but you'll never win it without leaders and units. The EPL discourages both. TV wants goals not great tackles or positioning. Teenage millionaires and their agents simply don't want a player telling them where to stand and what to do. Thus the English media now praise a John Terry or a Gary Cahill and look utterly flummoxed when an actual defensive unit, such as exists at Championship level and below, wins the title.

Roy is a lovely man and a good manager as he's shown over a long period but you have the double whammy of the FA, media and TV wanting form players picked ahead of functioning groups or units and a complete lack of defensive nous. In the same way the EPL has contributed to killing grass roots football it's made a major contribution to killing the England team and there's not really a way back.

Allardyce is just Hodgson writ large. He'll either resign cos of the stupidity or be sacked after another failure in either qualifying or a tournament. Ditto Klinsmann or whoever. The structure is wrong not the manager.

Depressing, but could be true...