An Eye On Our Euro 2020 Opponents

[Caledonian Craig]

As Euro 2020 nears how about a thread looking at our opponents form in Euro 2020.

First up Croatia playing now in a friendly against Armenia. At half-time the Croats lead 1-0 thanks to a goal from their top scorer Ivan Perisic in the 24th minute. I am presuming their striker/winger Josip Brekalo has went off injured substituted after 26 minutes.

[noctonjock]

A few good players still but Croatia are not as strong as they were in 2018 when getting to the world cup final . They will still be difficult for us  

  Win the first game at home and then we go to Wembley with a lot of confidence where the pressure is all on them 

[Caledonian Craig]

The customary rash of substitutions from half-time onwards. Still 1-0 with just over 15 minutes to play.

[Caledonian Craig]

Spoke too soon. Armenia equalise in the 74th minute.

[Caledonian Craig]

And it ends up Croatia 1 Armenia 1. Interesting.

[Texas Pete]

This means Croatia have only won 2 of their last 9 matches and these victories were at home to Cyprus and Malta. 

Hardly great form. 

[Caledonian Craig]

Tonight sees one of our Euro opponents England take on our World Cup qualifying rivals Austria at Wembley.

[wanderer]

Armenia are on something like a 9 game unbeaten run and recently beat Romania, so Croatia might be really off form, but they were up against a really on form Armenia side. 

England could be a hard one to get a clear picture on, as on one hand Austria are coming off a major doing from Denmark, and England are notoriously lackluster when it comes to to their pre-tournament friendlies (mostly 2-1 wins or draws, but recall last time they did steamroll their way through teams pre-tournament was ahead of the 2006 World Cup).

[wanderer]

1 hour ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Tonight sees one of our Euro opponents England take on our World Cup qualifying rivals Austria at Wembley.

Game is at Middlesbrough

[Caledonian Craig]

Just now, wanderer said:

Game is at Middlesbrough

Ah right. 

[Caledonian Craig]

A 1-0  win for England but at a cost. Alexander-Arnold limped off late on with a thigh injury that looks to have ruled him out of the Euros. From what I saw Austria had chances near the end to equalise but England held on but do think England experimented a bit.

[Taylor1996]

Seriously have no idea how England won that match. With Austria hitting the bar and having another cleared off the line, Austria could've won this one 1-4.

I came into the match wondering how good Bellingham is... 90 minutes later, I still don't know how good he is. Yes, he's good for a 17 year old, but the fact that he's in the squad shows the lack of depth in their midfield. 

Take out Maguire they have central defenders from Brighton, Leeds, Aston Villa. 

Their midfield is powderpuff.

And their attack. People keep saying that England have insane options in attack. This is definitely a case of telling people a lie enough, they'll start to believe it.

Saka reminds me of a young Sterling, so he's good. Grealish is good. Mount is very good. Kane is world class. I've seen Sancho a couple times for England, not done much.

Don't believe the hype.

Their qualifying record is phenomenal, there's no getting past that, but when they play lesser teams, the lesser teams play against the myth of England, rather than the actual England team.

Now TAA is injured. Probably out.

Can we beat England? Oh yes.

Edited June 2, 2021 by Taylor1996

[Tartan blood]

11 hours ago, Taylor1996 said:

Seriously have no idea how England won that match. With Austria hitting the bar and having another cleared off the line, Austria could've won this one 1-4.

I came into the match wondering how good Bellingham is... 90 minutes later, I still don't know how good he is. Yes, he's good for a 17 year old, but the fact that he's in the squad shows the lack of depth in their midfield. 

Take out Maguire they have central defenders from Brighton, Leeds, Aston Villa. 

Their midfield is powderpuff.

And their attack. People keep saying that England have insane options in attack. This is definitely a case of telling people a lie enough, they'll start to believe it.

Saka reminds me of a young Sterling, so he's good. Grealish is good. Mount is very good. Kane is world class. I've seen Sancho a couple times for England, not done much.

Don't believe the hype.

Their qualifying record is phenomenal, there's no getting past that, but when they play lesser teams, the lesser teams play against the myth of England, rather than the actual England team.

Now TAA is injured. Probably out.

Can we beat England? Oh yes.

Absolutely. Every team has their weaknesses. Including us. I believe Clarke is tactically savvy enough to exploit the weakneses, and will have enough time with the players to drill that into them.

These 3 games, at least, are all up for grabs. The Czechs and Croatia are not better than the Dutch, who resorted to conning the ref to get a draw off of us. 

We just need to ensure England don't get too much possession in the final 3rd. (Easier said than done, I know) If you give them enough chances, they have the fire power to hurt us. But I reckon we'll give them a right good game.

[Texas Pete]

13 minutes ago, Tartan blood said:

Absolutely. Every team has their weaknesses. Including us. I believe Clarke is tactically savvy enough to exploit the weakneses, and will have enough time with the players to drill that into them.

These 3 games, at least, are all up for grabs. The Czechs and Croatia are not better than the Dutch, who resorted to conning the ref to get a draw off of us. 

We just need to ensure England don't get too much possession in the final 3rd. (Easier said than done, I know) If you give them enough chances, they have the fire power to hurt us. But I reckon we'll give them a right good game.

I would say Croatia are currently slightly better than the Netherlands but yeah there’s not a lot in it. We do need to remember that last night was a pre-tournament warm up match though and not get carried away. I’m sure the Dutch would have been better and played with more intensity last night had it been a qualifier or finals match. 

We will be playing Croatia and the Czechs at Hampden though which must count for something. We are also undefeated over the last 4 games against the Czechs and Croatia have never beaten us in 5 attempts so we have a great chance. 

[Texas Pete]

12 hours ago, Taylor1996 said:

Seriously have no idea how England won that match. With Austria hitting the bar and having another cleared off the line, Austria could've won this one 1-4.

I came into the match wondering how good Bellingham is... 90 minutes later, I still don't know how good he is. Yes, he's good for a 17 year old, but the fact that he's in the squad shows the lack of depth in their midfield. 

Take out Maguire they have central defenders from Brighton, Leeds, Aston Villa. 

Their midfield is powderpuff.

And their attack. People keep saying that England have insane options in attack. This is definitely a case of telling people a lie enough, they'll start to believe it.

Saka reminds me of a young Sterling, so he's good. Grealish is good. Mount is very good. Kane is world class. I've seen Sancho a couple times for England, not done much.

Don't believe the hype.

Their qualifying record is phenomenal, there's no getting past that, but when they play lesser teams, the lesser teams play against the myth of England, rather than the actual England team.

Now TAA is injured. Probably out.

Can we beat England? Oh yes.

Could we also get pumped 3-0? Unfortunately this is also Oh yes. 

I’ll be delighted if you’re right though. 

[Tartan blood]

16 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

I would say Croatia are currently slightly better than the Netherlands but yeah there’s not a lot in it. We do need to remember that last night was a pre-tournament warm up match though and not get carried away. I’m sure the Dutch would have been better and played with more intensity last night had it been a qualifier or finals match. 

We will be playing Croatia and the Czechs at Hampden though which must count for something. We are also undefeated over the last 4 games against the Czechs and Croatia have never beaten us in 5 attempts so we have a great chance. 

The Dutch fans will be saying something similar to each other, but in reverse: "We have to remember this is a pre-tournament friendly and we will play with more intensity at the tournament". Well, I'm glad we are on the opposite side. We'll have gained a lot of confidence from this, despite missing 2 of our 4 best players (McGinn & McTominay). We had the ability to take it up a gear as well.

[Texas Pete]

5 minutes ago, Tartan blood said:

The Dutch fans will be saying something similar to each other, but in reverse: "We have to remember this is a pre-tournament friendly and we will play with more intensity at the tournament". Well, I'm glad we are on the opposite side. We'll have gained a lot of confidence from this, despite missing 2 of our 4 best players (McGinn & McTominay). We had the ability to take it up a gear as well.

Yeah absolutely but false confidence is a dangerous thing. 

Clarke and the players won’t be getting getting carried away though and yeah we can also improve and wouldn’t have been going full tilt either last night. 

My point was you can’t really rely on warm up matches to gauge how we’ll do at the tournament. 

[Tartan blood]

57 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

Yeah absolutely but false confidence is a dangerous thing. 

Clarke and the players won’t be getting getting carried away though and yeah we can also improve and wouldn’t have been going full tilt either last night. 

My point was you can’t really rely on warm up matches to gauge how we’ll do at the tournament. 

As someone else pointed out, a draw may be more valuable than a win. I think we'll take lots of confidence from this, but the late equaliser is a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do and we are always at the mercy of a poor refereeing decision if we don't put games to bed.

If Turnbull had scored that curling shot to make it 3-1 we'd probably be almost too high going into the Czech game. 

[daviebee]

5 minutes ago, Tartan blood said:

As someone else pointed out, a draw may be more valuable than a win. I think we'll take lots of confidence from this, but the late equaliser is a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do and we are always at the mercy of a poor refereeing decision if we don't put games to bed.

If Turnbull had scored that curling shot to make it 3-1 we'd probably be almost too high going into the Czech game. 

We'd probably be going into it having put the absolute heebie-jeebies into the opposition as well and that can never be a bad thing.

[Texas Pete]

13 minutes ago, daviebee said:

We'd probably be going into it having put the absolute heebie-jeebies into the opposition as well and that can never be a bad thing.

Our best bet is probably if our opponents underestimate us to be honest but yeah it could work either way. I’m pretty sure Serbia thought they would breeze past us in the playoffs.

I hope that Croatia are taking 3 points against us for granted and get complacent. I’m certain England will be thinking this way. 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Texas Pete

[Bristolhibby]

The Czechs play Italy tonight on T’telly.

1945 KO on Sky Sports.

J

[Caledonian Craig]

Tonight sees the Czech Republic travel to Italy for their final warm-up match before facing us in their Euro 2020 opener. An interesting match which you'd expect Italy to win.

[Third Lanark]

2 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Tonight sees the Czech Republic travel to Italy for their final warm-up match before facing us in their Euro 2020 opener. An interesting match which you'd expect Italy to win.

Hopefully a heavy confidence-eroding win for Italy.

[Toepoke]

Italy 1 up after half an hour.

 

[Texas Pete]

2-0. Wild deflection.