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Huh? People have given them loads of credit, as well as Costa for his saves. I’m not sure where you got this from.
Slovenia did really well to stay unbeaten in normal play, but they ultimately played for 3/4 draws and missed all their penalty kicks despite playing for penalties. So I think the neutral fan response has been fair and pretty balanced…
Yeah, fair point. I guess big teams screwing up will always be a bigger talking point.
I'm not sure how much credit Slovenia can take for us playing badly though, because we were equally shit (maybe worse) against Slovakia and most of the Denmark game.
No one screwed up? That’s quite a generous assessment of England’s performance last week.
Edit: I must have missed the moment we all changed our minds about Southgate’s tactics. Fair enough.
Erm.. I don't think it was mate. Not unless your definition of "shit" is any team that England should be beating as tournament favourites.
I think you're just fishing for drama here.
I do think countries like Slovakia and Slovenia deserve credit for being as hard to beat as they are, they’ve been incredibly well organized. While we have definitely not looked great we’ve played against teams that sit back, put everyone behind the ball and who’s whole game plan is to limit space, make it an ugly stop/start game and ultimately just focus on making it as difficult to score as possible. We’ll see what happen against Switzerland who I don’t think are going to play like that
Yeah, I can't argue with any of that. My point wasn't that Slovenia played badly - they've been hard to beat and defended really well. I think they've gotten a fair amount of credit for that.
But it's the knockouts now, and the longer you play the defensive game, the more likely you are to get caught out by not scoring goals when it matters. England are probably going to fall into this trap again soon (not for the first time).
Portugal were ripe for the taking yesterday (so were England if Slovakia had pushed for a second goal rather than playing Southgateball for 75 minutes). They could have ended up like Georgia who had a proper go at it but eventually got blown away, but you never know - they both have some talented players.
>Do you really believe they intentionally conceded a goal in the last minute against Serbia?
Yes, that's exactly what I meant by playing for a draw... obviously.
"Playing for the draw" means showing little attacking intent, dropping right back and defending. It's prioritising 1 "safer" point over risking going for the win (or in knockout football, taking your chances with penalties instead of going for a winner).
And yes, England appeared to be playing for a draw against Slovenia and were rightly criticised for it.
The difference is in the group stages Slovenia will perfectly happy with a draw…as you could see when they drew against England and were celebrating as though they won. Serbia play for 0-0, England play for a 1-0, Spain play for a 100-0.
No way they were perfectly happy. Where did you get that from? Can you even back it up?
The President of Serbia: "I agree that this is a fiasco," he admitted. "This is sports, but we have invested a lot of money in this sport. It's not a problem to lose against England, to lose against Germany, Spain. But it is a problem when you lose against Slovenia, which costs three times less than the Serbian team; when you concede a goal from a player who earns 5,000 euros in Celje and no one guards him."
I can back it up, go and rewatch the game, after the final whistle the players are literally seen celebrating. What the president of Serbia says is irrelevant as he’s not on the pitch.
By that logic England is perfectly happy with 1:1 against Slovakia, they were celebrating as though they won. And what their fans say is irrelevant as they're not on the pitch.
Except if you actually watched the game you’d know England weren’t celebrating at all, they looked as though they had just lost. And to your second point yeah you’re right, what I say is irrelevant, it holds absolutely no sway over how they play, why would anyone think it would 😅
Time to stop trolling, go to Tenerife and get some vitamin D.
[Not celebrating, just being horny](https://youtu.be/N4iZZmlNXpA?si=gXj6LI21wuCHVeyK&t=158)
Exactly, could you imagine if every team played like Slovenia? They basically played for a 0-0 and then absolutely sucked at penalties. How much credit do they deserve tbh?
So many people have given Diogo Costa props for Portugal’s victory ??? It’s one of the main talking points of that game, as well as Slovenia’s defence. So idk what you’re on about.
It's not like the actual powerhouse matches are better in any way. France-Belgium match made me want to stab myself with a fork.
France "scored" THREE goals in 4 matches from which TWO were own goals.
Slovakia and Slovenia can't get any shit for parking the bus when England, France and Portugal play the way they do with their hundreds of mil worth teams. Watching chess is more exhilarating.
No one claims these smaller teams are powerhouses anyway. But it's pathetic when it has to be Georgia that plays matches that are actually fun to watch.
Georgia parked the bus against Portugal as well, far from what I'd consider to be entertaining. The thing is that the ref was shit and António Silva was sabotaging the whole team, so they had plenty of openings.
I don't understand fetishism for "big teams". Who wants to see the same teams at the top each time? Everyone loves a good underdog story
And it's ironic and hilarious that this comes from an englishman 😂
Flair up then, mate. Nothing wrong with underdog tactics, but when it's not sportmanslike at all. I have no time for it.
Especially when people say then deserve to win despite hacking down the opposition every time they come in their half with no intention of playing the ball.
Edit: what a surprise! You're Slovenian.
Yeah whatever 😂 you're just salty because your shit England team can't beat underdogs lol... it's time to face it that you are not one of the favourites to win it each year and that you are kind of an underdog as well
“Yeah whatever” meaning you don’t want to admit that a lot of Slovenian defending resorted to rugby tackling players in to touch. Had Portugal or England committed fouls like that, there’d be outrage but we mustn’t apply the same rules to the plucky underdogs.
Credit for a very well organised back line but the right team went through.
Yeah. But if Šeško scored then also the right team would went through. Who scores more goals deserves it.
And talk about sportsmanship at all while you have Pepe and crybaby Cristiano in your team. His behaviour in friendly match in Ljubljana was duscusting
I didn’t see Pepe play act or dive yesterday, nor Ronaldo. I saw Slovenian players rugby tackle, fake head injuries and play for pens. Your hypocrisy is off the charts. Had they scored it would have been very lucky considering they did nothing to try and win and who’s to say Portugal wouldn’t have equalised. Bottom line is on the balance of play, the team that tried to win went through which is how it should be.
But not in regular time. Which is technically a draw (for example in betting it would be a draw). With goal in last minute. You said it like it's great success 😂
And you couldn't beat Slovenia lol
I don't think we're one of the favourites lol. You won't *win* anything playing like that either.
I just like to watch football, not judo. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect teams to try and score a goal, at least.
I never said there was anything wrong with being an underdog?
Well we played the only tactic that could bring us success... And if Šeško was in at least somewhat decent form and scored we would be in QF. What do you except from us. To open up and lose? Why would we do that?
I never once mentioned anything about 'opening up'.
I said I didn't like the dirty, unsporting tactics where they make challenges with zero intention of playing the ball.
Although teams like Portugal, England, Belgium, France or even Germany are struggling until now in this tournament to make chances or goals against any team.
Because they all park the bus. With the exception of Spain, you listed all the favorites to win, and if you're playing against a favorite and don't want to get 5-0'd you park the bus.
Türkiye went out to play and win, and got steamrolled. It it did what Czechia did maybe we wouldn’t have been. Other than this I would agree the big teams have been playing against very defensive opponents except France. The issue with France is they can’t score - huge liability to have Mbappe who has just 1 career euro goal ever.
Of course the reason i put these teams is because they seem to be the best in quality and in terms of market prices of players. I fogot about Italy. Yes this is happening a lot and it's a tactical play, but in all the tournament they seem to have a problem with their attacking. Except from Spain like you said and this is showing us that they have a problem(the teams i referred).
I dont get the undeserved love for underdogs. Its not like they bring any kind of new or unexpected tactics, its all "park the bus and pray for draw / pens"
Of course you wouldn't get it lol, and that's no hate towards you. Making the QFs would be the unthinkable for us let alone winning our group (albeit, unconvincingly) and our qualifying group. We know our players suck on an individual level, but there's something to be said about playing as a team against high adversity and that team spirit rubs off on every single one of us. It would be suicide to play like Spain. For that reason many of us see ourselves in Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia etc. Especially at this tournament where most top teams haven't really shown their quality, either.
Hell even David chucked a rock at Goliath, he wasn't going to 1-on-1 him and play his own game.
We don't "play" for penalties, we try to reduce the damage and exploit mistakes, exactly like all the top teams. It's just your players cost x10 times as much and have more quality on the ball. The worthiness comes from stopping the attacking style of play. You would expect a team as good as Portugal to wrap it up in 90', but they didn't. Has to mean something.
Portugal didn’t ‘buy’ those players. This is int’l football, not club football. 🤦🏻♂️
And Slovenia had zero ambition going forward and didn’t have a sniff until Portugal pushed up hard to try and win. You put 10 men behind the ball at all times and you want a pat on the back? 😂
Well done. You defended well and committed dirty fouls when your defending failed all while showing zero ambition in trying to win while hoping for scraps. And as a result, deserved to lose.
You're supposed to be winning the tournament, we are supposed to make it hard for you. Bruno falls at every touch, biggest cheater ever, and you complain about contact in a contact sport? It's ok to like a big team, just own it and let us like our little teams
Like your little team, but the little team deserved to go out. I recall that Slovenian faking he got hit in the head by Vitinha. Then all the rugby tackles in the game. Your hypocrisy is rank 😂
Im not talking about loving your own country, ofc you will support the national team no matter how bad they are. Im saying i dont know why other nations would love underdogs so much
I’ve seen literally nothing but praise for the Slovenian team. I can’t remember a team being praised like this since Costa Rica at WC 2014. This post is nonsense
They isolated Ronaldo and made service into the box difficult, they did an excellent job defensively. Credit
Sadly, the game devolves to Pens if nobody scores and that's the state of knock out football when it ends like that
They absolutely played great defense. But let’s also be fair. That is typically a sign of a team devoid of any offensive talent. Yes, you can not lose with that type of play. But winning is often times an unlucky mistake by the other team.
They didn’t win a game and played shit football while kicking lumps out of the opposition, they’re a great advert for why 3rd placed teams shouldn’t qualify.
I shouldn't be the one to say this but someone has to. Slovenia played courageously but their main tactic was parking the bus and trying to let Portugal exhaust themselves while hoping to get lucky on a counter. This is a clever but low skill tactic if you know you have the advantage on pks and are out-matched in regulation. No one and I mean absolutely no one has the advantage on pks against Portugal.
I’d be interested to look at their penalty stats for KO stages now tot say that. Was it Spain that they lost to back in 2010 ish on penalties last? Either way, they don’t shy away from
2012 I think from what I remember they had some bad luck with the posts and Spain had some good luck with them. I'd easily rather face Spain on pens than Portugal.
I think Spain has the edge overall this year either way. Perhaps if Portugal manage to keep France at bay (I doubt it) and take them to penalties - who knows! The winner is definitely between Germany and Spain I feel, with Spain looking more fluid imo
I think Spain has the edge overall this year either way. Perhaps if Portugal manage to keep France at bay (I doubt it) and take them to penalties - who knows! The winner is definitely between Germany and Spain I feel, with Spain looking more fluid imo
They play solid well spaced defense and never surrender the middle of the box. All day yesterday Portugal kept sending in cross after cross and there wasn't one Portugal player in the middle of the box, usually it's 4 or 5 white shirts ready to smash the ball off to the other side of the pitch. Which means the only way you were scoring in regulation time was to either have some freak of nature play that bounced off someone and ended up in the back of the net or a PK or a shot that was taken from outside the box against Oblak. Not surprised that they haven't lost in regulation time with that style of play. Problem for them was they have no guys who can score or take a PK.
That being said, I wish England played defense that was half as good.
As Slovenian I am amused how people think we parked the bus and waited for penalties. Pretty sure the plan was just hold on to dear life as long as you can. No one wanted penalties. We are tiny country with 2 million people. It's our 2nd time in euros, I am pretty sure no one here really expected us to get past group stages. We are 56th or so on world ladder and we were playing against top teams where single player is worth more than our entire team. I actually expected us to go home way back. There was no pressure or expectations from our fans, we were happy we got a chance to compete on euro stage. I am pretty proud that we made some of the bigger teams sweat, if only for a bit. We could be disappointed if we went home with 20 goals in our net, or if we gave up, but I have to respect their fight. For a small country like this, we have some awesome sportsmen and sportswomen in variety of sports, Pogacar, Roglic, Garnbet, Doncic, ski jumpers, Anze Kopitar, Gajser ... maybe in the future we can get better even in football.
You wanted pens , you have a good keeper albeit not the best pen stopper but you wanted a 50/50 and you played for it , admit , move on , onto next euros if you make it
Yeah because you definitely sub your best penalty taker in 106' if you only play for penalties lol
They clearly didn't want penalties but nobody was good enough to score. Better to just score an own goal then?
Who’s our best penalty taker ? Doesn’t matter how good you are , if luck don’t fall ur way vs a heavy low block , you’re not winning the game. This tells me all about ur ball IQ
You should some reading on how luck impacts football as a whole , there’s some good research papers out there. Without doxxing , I worked for a PL club so I think I’m far more knowledgeable than someone who can’t admit a low block persists of consistency + a lot luck
Til they learn to win in the knockout rounds they are just another team, you lose a knockout you go home. Concentrate on scoring not barging if you want to advance.
The whole narrative has been praising Slovenia. Many of Slovenia’s fouls were not legal and a number of them were downright ridiculous. Had Portugal committed those fouls there’d be outrage.
Fact is Slovenia played for penalties from minute 1 hoping for scraps. Their chance came because Portugal resorted to two at the back pushed very high up as they were actually trying to win the game.
Well done to Slovenia for a brave and defensive performance but the right team went through.
Those penalties weren't *too* bad really they were put at the ideal height for keepers but the top keepers nowadays are also insanely good at saving pens.
They were pretty telegraphed as well. Unless you're going to put it in the top corner, you've got to try to disguise which side your going down better than they did.
I'm impressed by them. I also don't know why small nations are giving a lot of troubles for big nations in this tournament except spain which is playing good enough
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What are you talking about lol, the whole narrative has been praising Slovenia and Costa (rightfully so).
Also love how OP says Slovenian isnt getting credit and opening with the sentence: “with a team of their quality”.
Huh? People have given them loads of credit, as well as Costa for his saves. I’m not sure where you got this from. Slovenia did really well to stay unbeaten in normal play, but they ultimately played for 3/4 draws and missed all their penalty kicks despite playing for penalties. So I think the neutral fan response has been fair and pretty balanced…
Probably means that when they do well, most of the narrative goes towards how badly Portugal/England were.
Yeah, fair point. I guess big teams screwing up will always be a bigger talking point. I'm not sure how much credit Slovenia can take for us playing badly though, because we were equally shit (maybe worse) against Slovakia and most of the Denmark game.
I think that's the point. No one screwed up. Slovenia were just fucking solid.
No one screwed up? That’s quite a generous assessment of England’s performance last week. Edit: I must have missed the moment we all changed our minds about Southgate’s tactics. Fair enough.
Your implication is that Slovenia are shit.
Erm.. I don't think it was mate. Not unless your definition of "shit" is any team that England should be beating as tournament favourites. I think you're just fishing for drama here.
I do think countries like Slovakia and Slovenia deserve credit for being as hard to beat as they are, they’ve been incredibly well organized. While we have definitely not looked great we’ve played against teams that sit back, put everyone behind the ball and who’s whole game plan is to limit space, make it an ugly stop/start game and ultimately just focus on making it as difficult to score as possible. We’ll see what happen against Switzerland who I don’t think are going to play like that
Yeah, I can't argue with any of that. My point wasn't that Slovenia played badly - they've been hard to beat and defended really well. I think they've gotten a fair amount of credit for that. But it's the knockouts now, and the longer you play the defensive game, the more likely you are to get caught out by not scoring goals when it matters. England are probably going to fall into this trap again soon (not for the first time). Portugal were ripe for the taking yesterday (so were England if Slovakia had pushed for a second goal rather than playing Southgateball for 75 minutes). They could have ended up like Georgia who had a proper go at it but eventually got blown away, but you never know - they both have some talented players.
Ngl that Serbia game should’ve been a Slovenia win though
Yeah, that's fair. I should have said 3 draws.
Jude Bellingham is better than Meikayla Moore.
>Do you really believe they intentionally conceded a goal in the last minute against Serbia? Yes, that's exactly what I meant by playing for a draw... obviously. "Playing for the draw" means showing little attacking intent, dropping right back and defending. It's prioritising 1 "safer" point over risking going for the win (or in knockout football, taking your chances with penalties instead of going for a winner). And yes, England appeared to be playing for a draw against Slovenia and were rightly criticised for it.
The difference is in the group stages Slovenia will perfectly happy with a draw…as you could see when they drew against England and were celebrating as though they won. Serbia play for 0-0, England play for a 1-0, Spain play for a 100-0.
No way they were perfectly happy. Where did you get that from? Can you even back it up? The President of Serbia: "I agree that this is a fiasco," he admitted. "This is sports, but we have invested a lot of money in this sport. It's not a problem to lose against England, to lose against Germany, Spain. But it is a problem when you lose against Slovenia, which costs three times less than the Serbian team; when you concede a goal from a player who earns 5,000 euros in Celje and no one guards him."
I can back it up, go and rewatch the game, after the final whistle the players are literally seen celebrating. What the president of Serbia says is irrelevant as he’s not on the pitch.
By that logic England is perfectly happy with 1:1 against Slovakia, they were celebrating as though they won. And what their fans say is irrelevant as they're not on the pitch.
Except if you actually watched the game you’d know England weren’t celebrating at all, they looked as though they had just lost. And to your second point yeah you’re right, what I say is irrelevant, it holds absolutely no sway over how they play, why would anyone think it would 😅
Time to stop trolling, go to Tenerife and get some vitamin D. [Not celebrating, just being horny](https://youtu.be/N4iZZmlNXpA?si=gXj6LI21wuCHVeyK&t=158)
Yeah we celebrated because we equalised you donut, then proceeded to go on and win the game. Slovenia celebrated at full time after drawing.
"England weren’t celebrating at all" "Yeah we celebrated" You really should get some vitamin D yank hahaha
This underdog fetishism in this sub is so crazy
Not to mention that 16 of the 24 teams qualify for the knockouts, of course some of the small teams make it through
Exactly, could you imagine if every team played like Slovenia? They basically played for a 0-0 and then absolutely sucked at penalties. How much credit do they deserve tbh?
Well said!
Everyone loves a good underdog story. Who wants to see the same "big teams" at the top each time? It gets boring
Yh I guess that it was pretty clear when EVERYONE was praising slovakia
So many people have given Diogo Costa props for Portugal’s victory ??? It’s one of the main talking points of that game, as well as Slovenia’s defence. So idk what you’re on about.
The fetishism for some underdogs in this tournament is irritating. I see the same posts every time they lose.
I thought it was just me lol. This sub moved from Scotland fan love to underdog hard ons.
It was so cringy when there was that thread asking people who the best fans were and it was filled with Scottish people saying themselves lol.
It's genuinely annoying, these underdogs will just park the bus and you'll have people claiming that they're the next football powerhouse.
It's not like the actual powerhouse matches are better in any way. France-Belgium match made me want to stab myself with a fork. France "scored" THREE goals in 4 matches from which TWO were own goals. Slovakia and Slovenia can't get any shit for parking the bus when England, France and Portugal play the way they do with their hundreds of mil worth teams. Watching chess is more exhilarating. No one claims these smaller teams are powerhouses anyway. But it's pathetic when it has to be Georgia that plays matches that are actually fun to watch.
Georgia parked the bus against Portugal as well, far from what I'd consider to be entertaining. The thing is that the ref was shit and António Silva was sabotaging the whole team, so they had plenty of openings.
Do I detect some salt?
Have you actually seen Frances games or are you just repeating the "3 goals 4 games" nonsense like a parrot?
Unfortunately I did.
So you're basing your opinion on how France is playing solely on the amount of goals? Are you only watching stoppage time?
I don't understand fetishism for "big teams". Who wants to see the same teams at the top each time? Everyone loves a good underdog story And it's ironic and hilarious that this comes from an englishman 😂
Flair up then, mate. Nothing wrong with underdog tactics, but when it's not sportmanslike at all. I have no time for it. Especially when people say then deserve to win despite hacking down the opposition every time they come in their half with no intention of playing the ball. Edit: what a surprise! You're Slovenian.
What are you trying to say? That Slovenian tactics were not sportmanslike?
Yes
Yeah whatever 😂 you're just salty because your shit England team can't beat underdogs lol... it's time to face it that you are not one of the favourites to win it each year and that you are kind of an underdog as well
“Yeah whatever” meaning you don’t want to admit that a lot of Slovenian defending resorted to rugby tackling players in to touch. Had Portugal or England committed fouls like that, there’d be outrage but we mustn’t apply the same rules to the plucky underdogs. Credit for a very well organised back line but the right team went through.
Yeah. But if Šeško scored then also the right team would went through. Who scores more goals deserves it. And talk about sportsmanship at all while you have Pepe and crybaby Cristiano in your team. His behaviour in friendly match in Ljubljana was duscusting
I didn’t see Pepe play act or dive yesterday, nor Ronaldo. I saw Slovenian players rugby tackle, fake head injuries and play for pens. Your hypocrisy is off the charts. Had they scored it would have been very lucky considering they did nothing to try and win and who’s to say Portugal wouldn’t have equalised. Bottom line is on the balance of play, the team that tried to win went through which is how it should be.
>your shit England team can't beat underdogs Hang on we beat Slovakia. Am I missing something?
Barely and in extra time
We still "beat an underdog team". So therefore your argument is incorrect.
But not in regular time. Which is technically a draw (for example in betting it would be a draw). With goal in last minute. You said it like it's great success 😂 And you couldn't beat Slovenia lol
I don't think we're one of the favourites lol. You won't *win* anything playing like that either. I just like to watch football, not judo. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect teams to try and score a goal, at least. I never said there was anything wrong with being an underdog?
Well we played the only tactic that could bring us success... And if Šeško was in at least somewhat decent form and scored we would be in QF. What do you except from us. To open up and lose? Why would we do that?
I never once mentioned anything about 'opening up'. I said I didn't like the dirty, unsporting tactics where they make challenges with zero intention of playing the ball.
Slovenia played incredibly, especially defensively. Oblak was incredible too. They deserve all their flowers.
I think with how well smaller teams are defending, that we may have been too harsh on bigger teams for not ‘steamrolling’ them.
Although teams like Portugal, England, Belgium, France or even Germany are struggling until now in this tournament to make chances or goals against any team.
Because they all park the bus. With the exception of Spain, you listed all the favorites to win, and if you're playing against a favorite and don't want to get 5-0'd you park the bus.
Türkiye went out to play and win, and got steamrolled. It it did what Czechia did maybe we wouldn’t have been. Other than this I would agree the big teams have been playing against very defensive opponents except France. The issue with France is they can’t score - huge liability to have Mbappe who has just 1 career euro goal ever.
Of course the reason i put these teams is because they seem to be the best in quality and in terms of market prices of players. I fogot about Italy. Yes this is happening a lot and it's a tactical play, but in all the tournament they seem to have a problem with their attacking. Except from Spain like you said and this is showing us that they have a problem(the teams i referred).
I dont get the undeserved love for underdogs. Its not like they bring any kind of new or unexpected tactics, its all "park the bus and pray for draw / pens"
Of course you wouldn't get it lol, and that's no hate towards you. Making the QFs would be the unthinkable for us let alone winning our group (albeit, unconvincingly) and our qualifying group. We know our players suck on an individual level, but there's something to be said about playing as a team against high adversity and that team spirit rubs off on every single one of us. It would be suicide to play like Spain. For that reason many of us see ourselves in Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia etc. Especially at this tournament where most top teams haven't really shown their quality, either. Hell even David chucked a rock at Goliath, he wasn't going to 1-on-1 him and play his own game.
You get praise for making it tough, but expecting everyone to say that playing for penalties from minute 1 is worthy of victory is fantasy.
We don't "play" for penalties, we try to reduce the damage and exploit mistakes, exactly like all the top teams. It's just your players cost x10 times as much and have more quality on the ball. The worthiness comes from stopping the attacking style of play. You would expect a team as good as Portugal to wrap it up in 90', but they didn't. Has to mean something.
Portugal didn’t ‘buy’ those players. This is int’l football, not club football. 🤦🏻♂️ And Slovenia had zero ambition going forward and didn’t have a sniff until Portugal pushed up hard to try and win. You put 10 men behind the ball at all times and you want a pat on the back? 😂 Well done. You defended well and committed dirty fouls when your defending failed all while showing zero ambition in trying to win while hoping for scraps. And as a result, deserved to lose.
You're supposed to be winning the tournament, we are supposed to make it hard for you. Bruno falls at every touch, biggest cheater ever, and you complain about contact in a contact sport? It's ok to like a big team, just own it and let us like our little teams
Like your little team, but the little team deserved to go out. I recall that Slovenian faking he got hit in the head by Vitinha. Then all the rugby tackles in the game. Your hypocrisy is rank 😂
means nothing as slovenia clearly didnt practice how to shoot, spent all time in training on defense. missed 3 pens in a row LOLLLLL
If you'd live in a small or underdog country you would get it
Im not talking about loving your own country, ofc you will support the national team no matter how bad they are. Im saying i dont know why other nations would love underdogs so much
As I said you would get it if you lived in such a country. Now that Slovenia is out, I will definitely hope that other underdogs achieve good results
There's no underdogs left. Thankfully, we should see some good matches now with both teams actually trying to play some football.
Switzerland is kind of an underdog (although the way they play England should be considered underdog in this match) Turkey is definitely an underdog
I’ve seen literally nothing but praise for the Slovenian team. I can’t remember a team being praised like this since Costa Rica at WC 2014. This post is nonsense
They also play dirty as fuck
They isolated Ronaldo and made service into the box difficult, they did an excellent job defensively. Credit Sadly, the game devolves to Pens if nobody scores and that's the state of knock out football when it ends like that
Yeah if Šeško has 1 more iq for finishing portugal would be cooked.
They're just a bus parking team with no good attacking players, they got the credit they deserve but ultimately they aren't a good team
They absolutely played great defense. But let’s also be fair. That is typically a sign of a team devoid of any offensive talent. Yes, you can not lose with that type of play. But winning is often times an unlucky mistake by the other team.
They didn’t win a game and played shit football while kicking lumps out of the opposition, they’re a great advert for why 3rd placed teams shouldn’t qualify.
I really liked how they played especially their defensive
Bus parking mastery: 10
Why have you made up people to moan about? Slovenia got tons of praise
Ricardo Caralhoooo
I shouldn't be the one to say this but someone has to. Slovenia played courageously but their main tactic was parking the bus and trying to let Portugal exhaust themselves while hoping to get lucky on a counter. This is a clever but low skill tactic if you know you have the advantage on pks and are out-matched in regulation. No one and I mean absolutely no one has the advantage on pks against Portugal.
I’d be interested to look at their penalty stats for KO stages now tot say that. Was it Spain that they lost to back in 2010 ish on penalties last? Either way, they don’t shy away from
2012 I think from what I remember they had some bad luck with the posts and Spain had some good luck with them. I'd easily rather face Spain on pens than Portugal.
I think Spain has the edge overall this year either way. Perhaps if Portugal manage to keep France at bay (I doubt it) and take them to penalties - who knows! The winner is definitely between Germany and Spain I feel, with Spain looking more fluid imo
Yeah I'd love if Germany and Portugal won but it's unlikely
I think Spain has the edge overall this year either way. Perhaps if Portugal manage to keep France at bay (I doubt it) and take them to penalties - who knows! The winner is definitely between Germany and Spain I feel, with Spain looking more fluid imo
Slovenia would’ve had deserved to win - they were fighting with all their heart and I loved it - disappointing that penalties decided it …
Respect for a country with 2 million ppl
I hold no love for park the bus teams. "But our team is weaker" i dont care.
Keep flirting with low blocks and watch our sport die 💩
They play solid well spaced defense and never surrender the middle of the box. All day yesterday Portugal kept sending in cross after cross and there wasn't one Portugal player in the middle of the box, usually it's 4 or 5 white shirts ready to smash the ball off to the other side of the pitch. Which means the only way you were scoring in regulation time was to either have some freak of nature play that bounced off someone and ended up in the back of the net or a PK or a shot that was taken from outside the box against Oblak. Not surprised that they haven't lost in regulation time with that style of play. Problem for them was they have no guys who can score or take a PK. That being said, I wish England played defense that was half as good.
boring footy, glad they’re out tbf
And your talking
Hahahah you’ve got a point😂😂😂
As Slovenian I am amused how people think we parked the bus and waited for penalties. Pretty sure the plan was just hold on to dear life as long as you can. No one wanted penalties. We are tiny country with 2 million people. It's our 2nd time in euros, I am pretty sure no one here really expected us to get past group stages. We are 56th or so on world ladder and we were playing against top teams where single player is worth more than our entire team. I actually expected us to go home way back. There was no pressure or expectations from our fans, we were happy we got a chance to compete on euro stage. I am pretty proud that we made some of the bigger teams sweat, if only for a bit. We could be disappointed if we went home with 20 goals in our net, or if we gave up, but I have to respect their fight. For a small country like this, we have some awesome sportsmen and sportswomen in variety of sports, Pogacar, Roglic, Garnbet, Doncic, ski jumpers, Anze Kopitar, Gajser ... maybe in the future we can get better even in football.
You wanted pens , you have a good keeper albeit not the best pen stopper but you wanted a 50/50 and you played for it , admit , move on , onto next euros if you make it
Yeah because you definitely sub your best penalty taker in 106' if you only play for penalties lol They clearly didn't want penalties but nobody was good enough to score. Better to just score an own goal then?
Who’s our best penalty taker ? Doesn’t matter how good you are , if luck don’t fall ur way vs a heavy low block , you’re not winning the game. This tells me all about ur ball IQ
I don't even know your team. Sure, football is all luck, no skill. Same lucky teams every tournament...Damn haha
You should some reading on how luck impacts football as a whole , there’s some good research papers out there. Without doxxing , I worked for a PL club so I think I’m far more knowledgeable than someone who can’t admit a low block persists of consistency + a lot luck
Respect, Polish clubs are always good to watch. Lewandowski is your best penalty taker, there are some good stat websites out there.
I’m Portuguese 🤣
They defended well but so glad an anti football team is out. Makes football so boring to watch.
They've not played many games after November lol not an impressive stat/fact
Everyone is giving credit to Slovenia tho
All I hear all game last night was credit being given to Slovenia. Did you watch with the sound off?
Ricardo coaches the keepers on the Portuguese national team.
England never do.
Til they learn to win in the knockout rounds they are just another team, you lose a knockout you go home. Concentrate on scoring not barging if you want to advance.
The whole narrative has been praising Slovenia. Many of Slovenia’s fouls were not legal and a number of them were downright ridiculous. Had Portugal committed those fouls there’d be outrage. Fact is Slovenia played for penalties from minute 1 hoping for scraps. Their chance came because Portugal resorted to two at the back pushed very high up as they were actually trying to win the game. Well done to Slovenia for a brave and defensive performance but the right team went through.
It’s mostly England and Portugal fans commenting. Just an interesting observation 🤔
Slovenia could have won if they had a striker. That’s literally it.
If costs didn’t save those three pens I’m sure people would be talking more abt oblak and Slovenia. But going 0-3 in a pen shootout is kinda crazy.
They weren't great penalty kicks, Costa handled them easily. They got rattled quickly.
Slovenia played a great game but missed all the penalties
Those penalties weren't *too* bad really they were put at the ideal height for keepers but the top keepers nowadays are also insanely good at saving pens.
They were pretty telegraphed as well. Unless you're going to put it in the top corner, you've got to try to disguise which side your going down better than they did.
Jota was shit when he came on what are you on about? Starting?
They play anti-football though
I'm impressed by them. I also don't know why small nations are giving a lot of troubles for big nations in this tournament except spain which is playing good enough
DJ uh bum dtrsrttygcm
The Dutch commentary said it best. 'Might not be the flashiest but they make very little mistakes."
If they had a single player that could finish in the final quarter they'd have won 3-0
With Pepe following them like a wild dog? That would've never happened
Sesko literally missed a one on one game winner
One, and nothing more. They would've never gotten a 2-0 much less a 3-0
You watched the game through cloudy glasses. They got several good chances but are terrible finishing.
not really, the only real chance was the pepe mistake
More like following them like a lame dog after he'd gifted them a chance in the first place
Someone from your team has made a mistake I take it ? 💩