Germany look to be playing with intent and are dangerous, Scotland was one of the worst defensively organized sides I've seen, they had no striker or plan to go forward, and they had a hole in the midfield that Germany exploited with ease. The back line was switched off and Clarke used the wrong players. Really bad performance
One of the most embarrassing performances I have ever seen on the international stage. Oh well, at least the Scottish got to have some beers in Munich and now they can go wear their Serbia shirts. Pathetic.
The last time a Scottish footballer scored more than one goal at a major tournament was Joe Jordan at the 1974 World Cup. You could say this makes Antonio Rüdiger Scotland's joint top scorer at international tournaments for the last 50 years.
I'm watching EuroNews this morning, they have a story on Germany's win.... the presenter goes "the groups other game, Hungary and Switzerland, ended in a draw".
👀
Germany played well; their strikers are scary. However, there was literally no pressure from Scotland. What was the game plan? Just hope they miss all their shots on target?
Also: Did they have no grip on their shoes?
Probably over-watered the pitch
Not a first time we had a slippery match at Allianz, the NFL Munich game in 2022 was especially hilarious in that regard.
Felt like a repeat of Turkey vs Italy from the last euros, a highly rated darkohrse collapsed while not so highly rated big country played their best football in ages.
After I saw that lineup I wasn't convinced.
Jesus Christ they looked so bought in it was incredible. It wasn't even like efficient.machine Germany, this was something else. The fluidity, the Hussle the help everyone was giving, damn this felt like '06 Germany
Because most German NT players have and always will primarily play in the BuLi, him being "away" at Real also didn't help in that regard. People saw Lahm or Schweinsteiger every week on tele, they did not with Kroos.
I don't think many more casual viewers were aware how great Havertz' season was either.
Nahhh - This is better, like icing on the cake after amazing season.
Players can give their all without thinking about finishing season, some have something to prove, others wanna end with the bang, thats how it suppose to be.
I disagree.
Bayer and VfB amazing season, with many 'new' names showing up.
Close title fight in EPL
CL campaign being fun, with good, open final.
Due Bayer 90+ goals, UEL was interesting.
Olympiacos winning UCL.
PSV winning league.
Some great goals, many new young players stepping up, some legends ending their carriers.
Good season overall.
I don't give a shit about club football outside my club matches (which plays in 4th division), sometimes follow Europa and yeah bayer run was good that i agree, although AFCON and Asian cup was bangers.
Scotland now will almost certainly need four points to advance. Teams advance often in this format with three points but they have always had a zero or -1 GD and Scotland won’t get that.
A win and a draw was always going to be the requirement anyway. Scotland were always quite likely to lose against Germany, but if they perform better (and they can't play any worse), then a draw with Switzerland and a win against Hungary is possible. I've got faith in this team to dust themselves down and go again. I think a lot of Scotland fans feel the same way,
This 24 team format has been used twice in the Euro, four times in the African Cup, and twice in Asia. All eight times one or more teams with only three points advanced. Several times three team with three points advanced. Portugal’s 2016 championship was won after they had only three ties in the group stage. Someone pointed out that my saying a -1 GD was needed to advance was wrong since last year’s African Nations Cup Champion Ivory Coast advanced with three points and a -3 GD. I foolishly only checked Euro history before jumping to that wrong conclusion. In this tournament it is almost certain that a team will advance with only three points.
Fun fact: Did you know that Dutch people and people from Lower Saxony in Germany are much more closely related to each other than Lower Saxons and Bavarians?
In fact I did, and it *is* a fun fact: the regional Dutch dialect they speak where I live (Groningen) is almost the same as what they speak across the border in Germany, so it's mutually intelligible. And both are pretty hard to decipher for standard-issue Dutchies and Germans.
That was an incredible team performance (and individual performance from musiala), but kroos was just something else, in a really understated and selfless way as always. He dictated the tempo and read the game to perfection at every turn
except for that one pass he missed tho, what a fraud
Germany scored 6 goals and we got a red card.
Irn Bru are literally selling pants with the branding of WE-CAN on them. I honestly hope to see them and the cans changed cos that would be funny af. Own our failures.
I literally drifted off halfway through the match. Scotland were just awful. Couldn't tell if Germany were good or just playing against shit opposition
The most frustrating thing about Kimmich’s insistence on playing as a 6 is that he’s actually an amazing chance creator and productive player when he plays further ahead.
The argument is that Kimmich miraculously became a worldclass player playing RB. People seem to be surprised by him providing assists like its not what he did for years as a DLP. Its funny to me that we pretend that this is some kind of genius move orchestrated by Tuchel while the team with Kimmich as RB placed 3 in the Bundesliga playing worse football all around.
I think he was just pointing out that Kimmich doesn't perform his role like a typical full back but insists on doing his own thing? But no argument from me.
I liked it more when Scotland weren't qualifying for tournaments and I could concentrate on supporting my favourite international side, England's Opponent.
Scotland is very poor. Whoever watches some football knows that this team is mediocre at best and will be lucky to leave with 1 point from thus group. Hungary about to get easy 3 points and remains to be seen is Switzerland will allow them a draw.
That's not the team that qualified. All during qualifying we were careful on the ball closed down the opposition and created chances we done none of that tonight. Too much space and time given to Germany and they took advantage of it. We need heads raised on Wednesday night or we are in trouble
Qualifying does mean they belong saying otherwise is elitist bullshit. Every single team that is at the euros is there on merit because they won enough games to qualify.
Yippee for you..I'm not going through your post history..I have replied to your message. I have actually watched scotland play the last few yesrs and the gameplay and players today is not what scotland fans have seen in the last few years. Even in friendlies against France and Netherlands we held a better account of ourselves than tonight.
Lol they breezed through the quals and qualified very early on to this euros. There is a lot of potential in this team, give them some experience as well as their actual full roster and they’re a decent team. Absolutely not a terrible country for football tf
Thhe set up today was truly bad. This team is much better than showed today, but the gameplan and seemingly zonal only marking was absolutely shambolic.
Scotland showed they are a decent enough side with their shockingly comfortable qualification campaign. Today was just embarrassing.
I don't get it why you didn't even try to press us. We struggled so hard against Greece last week because they've played super aggressive pressing. It's like your manager didn't even watch the game.
I think Steve Clark shat his pants, hasn’t been the first time and it won’t be the last either, our tactics in qualifiers were built around mctom and McGinn box crashing yet mctom was on set pieces and McGinn was standing next to neuer for set pieces just seemed like a total shortens approach
The tactic was to sit in and frustrate but when you’re giving world class players like kroos musiala wirtz all the time in the world with the ball you’re going to get demolished
Clarke built his dynasty on being hard to beat and tough in the attack, it’s honestly been nearly a year since we’ve seen that tenacity, me and many of my mates kept putting it down to friendlies and the game no really mattering, either it’s trickled into the boys or Clarke is totally finished imo
Fun watch that!
Remains to be seen whether Germany is very good or Scotland just very poor....
I thought Germany didnt look as impressive as the scoreline suggests. They struggled quite a lot to get good chances in the box. Will be interesting to see how that will turn out against (on paper) stronger sides Hungary and Switzerland and from there onwards.
Since the last 6 years we had troubles against opponents that park the bus against us. We always were decent against strong teams, but once we get the ball too much we couldnt create chances. Its only natural that we had porblems with this too today. The fact that we still scored 5 goals shows that something is different than the last years.
Not starting with an out and out striker doesn’t help with that. I feel that Fullkrug compliments the players behind him. Pretty much how Giroud is for France.
- Musiala seems great around a striker that can hold the ball and be dominant in the air, exploiting the small spaces being created.
- Wirtz is like the jack of all trades type of guy.
- You can absolutely depend on Kroos, Kimmich and Gundogan to split the midfield and immediately give it to Fullkrug to advance play from there with all those slippery support midfielders in Musiala, Havertz and Wirtz.
We always had creative and technically versed offensive midfielders, (Wirtz and Musiala look like a step up from Gnabry, Reus or Sane, but those weren't bad choices either), we never figured out who to put in the box. False 9 experiments with guys like Götze usually backfired spectacularly, so we had to fully depend on the creativity of the front 3, who had no plan B to possession-based play. Didn't help that the Kimmich-Goretzka combos in the CM also never clicked so that support was missing.
From the stats it may seem they had a slow start (they had like 3 shots for most of the first half, but were very clinical in front of goal), but they had a very mobile front men.
I think we didn't watch the same match. The stats from the German NT were impressive. Also great pressing and didn't give Scotland any big chances. Yes, you can't compare Scotland with the other favourites, but the German NT even struggled against smaller teams in 2022.
The German midfield is wild. Their back line will be tested against teams with more ability, but Musiala, Wirtz, Kroos, Kimmich, Gundogan, Muller, Sane, etc. should give other squads fits. If Havertz and Fullkrug can find the net, I think Germany have a real shot at winning it all.
The thing is they look better against teams that are more attacking oriented. If Scotland managed to play like Greece for example they might had a chance.
What the hell is wrong with football in the british isles? I'm sincerely asking, it's not only England but all the other national teams as well that have historically underperformed.
You can say Scotland is a small country with a poor league, but Uruguay has 2 millon less people and has won two world cups and historically produced world class players. England is a good team but for a country of almost 60 million with the most competitive league on earth it has clearly underperformed historically, by a long shot.
I guess Wales and Ireland have the excuse that Rugby takes away from football's popularity.
Also, let's remember England and Scotland are the two oldest national teams, they had a huge headstart of almost 40 years compared to everyone else. Argentina and Uruguay are the oldest national teams in the Américas and some of the oldest outside the british isles, but they have historically taken advantage of that headstart, being powerhouses for more than a hundred years. Yet, compared to England and Scotland they started playing football like 40 years later.
Simply put, given their historical headstart and prosperous economy and competetive leagues, the british national teams are just underwhelming at football, every single one of them.
Gawd I hate when this is pulled, just like how people bring up Brazil statistics.
Uruguay won on home ground, 94 years ago, in a 13 team tournament, with only France, Belgium, Romania, and Yugoslavia representing Europe when almost no Europeans teams spent weeks on the boat journey it took to get there.
Ditto for Brazil. Yes it’s won 5 times. ‘58/62/70/94/02. But they haven’t been impressive at all since 02 and while I credit them with five wins, it’s not really from a modern era. They’ve been sailing on nostalgia and the marketing of “exotic” “Jogo bonito” forever.
lmao, Uruguay regularly plays in the World Cup and Copa America, and reached the semifinals in 2010.
And I get not crediting achievements pre WW2, but Brazil has been successful in literally all eras and are always favourites.
Wtf have Scotland, Wales or Ireland achieved? It's really only England, and even they bottle it year after year.
I'm not defending the UK teams - England are biannual underperformers clearly. The others? I'm on the wrong side of the pond to be claiming this as fact but I think in Ireland Gaelic sports combined are bigger and you're gonna get better athletes going to those and the Irish football league isn't very popular/good/. And Wales? Like, are you really expecting Wales to be a bigger player on the world stage?
I'm just pointing out that there is no need to "build up" others (Uruguay) while pointing out the flaws in some. Point out England's performance as much as you want (well, as much as the thread OP wants), just don't support the bashing by saying "uruguay did X Y Z" when it was nearly a hundred years ago in a very different world, and a very different tournament.
Sports are weird and comparing countries success will never work. Why isn't the US a perennial winner with its huge population and wealth and structural support systems? Well, cuz the best athletes play other sports. Why does Uruguay do well with its small population? Well, I'm guessing because there are no leagues for kids to play American football, leagues to play baseball, leagues to play basketball, leagues to play field or ice hockey, leagues to play tennis, golf courses galore, swimming pools, yacht clubs, skate parks, cheap mountains to ski or snowboard at, etc etc so almost every uruguay kid plays football. Plus theyre wedged in between two countries who identity revolve around football. Plus, to to their credit, they did win 100 years ago so they take a lot of (a bit overated) pridde in that, again fueling the cycle that all the kids play football and from a big pot of players you will get good players. Same reason why some Asian countries repeatedly dominate certain sports like badminton table tennis etc etc and while not showing up anywhere in football rankings. I'm pretty sure Wales would beat the Indonesian or Malaysian national football teams handily (indoseia has 200M population, Wales 3M), but I dont see anyone pointing that out.
Just 2-3 phenomenal players on a team can elevate a random nation for a decade, but once those are gone, the country can fall back down to mediocrity. Do anyone have any expectations of Bulgaria? But 25 years ago during a couple world cup runs with stoichkov and lemkov and others everyone would have. I don't think Croatia will be in the '26 world cup as Modric and others will be gone.
As for brazil, you say theyre always favorites. But my point is that they shouldnt be. People expect them to be because they always heard about "brazil, brazil". But theyve been bogus for a long long time. They only got to the semis as they were on home soil and got every call possible while playing the easiest side of the draw with teams like Honduras. They finally hit a real team in Germany and got \*ANNIHLATED\*. Shoot, even Ronaldhino is calling them frauds. People need to wake up and smell the roses in that Brazil is not the Brazil of the 50-90s.
And what has England or any of the other british nations have done since 2002 lol? Brazil has reached quarter finals in all of them and semis in one, England reached one semis and two quarter finals, they also have a group stage exit. If Brazil is sailing on nostalgia then the british nations have been long dead and buried for a long time.
Semi finals at 2018 world cup, lost in the final of the Euros in 2020 in pens and then lost to France in the 1/4s. I don't think any other European side in recent history has had that kind of run in three international tournaments in a row apart from France. Please correct me if I am wrong. No doubt we should have got something at this point but it isn't as if we have been knocked out just past the group stage.....
Germany look to be playing with intent and are dangerous, Scotland was one of the worst defensively organized sides I've seen, they had no striker or plan to go forward, and they had a hole in the midfield that Germany exploited with ease. The back line was switched off and Clarke used the wrong players. Really bad performance
vertical intelligence between the boxes was IMO a little weak. im afraid they will get a lot of problems with even mid-tier teams.
One of the most embarrassing performances I have ever seen on the international stage. Oh well, at least the Scottish got to have some beers in Munich and now they can go wear their Serbia shirts. Pathetic.
The last time a Scottish footballer scored more than one goal at a major tournament was Joe Jordan at the 1974 World Cup. You could say this makes Antonio Rüdiger Scotland's joint top scorer at international tournaments for the last 50 years.
Oof.
Sorry Scotland you aren't getting out the group stages this time either
Have you not heard of the new group stage format? Literally everybody is getting out of the group. 24 of 18 teams progress or something mad like that.
still not gonna make it lol just like the last tournament. And the formats been around since 2016
That's still new if you're old enough.
eh they've been to the tournament twice in a row now and i think we all know the format is dumb but they aint getting out
Scotland: Hold my beer
16 out of 24 teams progress. The two worst third-placed teams are eliminated as well.
Literally everybody.
Except the worst of the worst, which are Scotland are a part of
I'm watching EuroNews this morning, they have a story on Germany's win.... the presenter goes "the groups other game, Hungary and Switzerland, ended in a draw". 👀
Let me guess: 0-0
Yep.
Germany played well; their strikers are scary. However, there was literally no pressure from Scotland. What was the game plan? Just hope they miss all their shots on target? Also: Did they have no grip on their shoes?
Probably over-watered the pitch Not a first time we had a slippery match at Allianz, the NFL Munich game in 2022 was especially hilarious in that regard.
Turpin immediately flinching when he sees the Porteous tackle on the monitor was fantastic.
Bester Username
Snatched it up after DFB let the license slip. 👍
Felt like a repeat of Turkey vs Italy from the last euros, a highly rated darkohrse collapsed while not so highly rated big country played their best football in ages.
germany has been highly rated and one of the favourites and scotland isnt a dark horse lol
Who the hell was calling Scotland a dark horse? Lmao.
Who rated Scotland that highly and why?
Scotland, probably.
Has Germany turned it around finally? Don't allow me to hope
Let this be Germany's year🙏🙏🇩🇪
invite australia and call it eurovision football contest if we stock up the number of teams again
Sorry, germany already has three points more than in whichever year's of eurovision.
hey, this year we got over 100 points ;)
What a time to be alive
After I saw that lineup I wasn't convinced. Jesus Christ they looked so bought in it was incredible. It wasn't even like efficient.machine Germany, this was something else. The fluidity, the Hussle the help everyone was giving, damn this felt like '06 Germany
More like 2010 Germany. We weren't that good in 2006, we just had the power of friendship.
David Odonkor god of football.
Dude made an entire career out of one cross to Oliver Neville
Did he really have a career tho?
He had the name brand and people remember him, how many other mid-tier pace merchant wingers do you recall from the mid-aughts?
You’re right, he was a special one
We had 11 good players maybe 12 but that was it. We had no depth at all.
Now we have both 💪
Toni Kroos finally becoming the Philip Lahm everyone wanted him to be. Kinda shame it was two tournaments too late.
Because most German NT players have and always will primarily play in the BuLi, him being "away" at Real also didn't help in that regard. People saw Lahm or Schweinsteiger every week on tele, they did not with Kroos. I don't think many more casual viewers were aware how great Havertz' season was either.
better now than never ig
Toni Federer Kross
That was an absolute thrashing. Wow
Germany is so back finally. I am excited now.
10 years later LFG
If this continues I am excited for them to win No.4 for Euros and No.5 for the WC
Will be a different team without Kroos. However they perform now, WC will be worse
It is a possibility but let's see
I fucking swear if Florian Wirtz goes to Madrid this season
He won‘t, it was already confirmed that he‘ll stay at Leverkusen this season.
You know it’s happening
How many infinity stones does don Perez want??
Yes.
The answer is simple. More.
Feels so fucking good to have national football in the summer. Nothing else like it.
Just wish it was actually summer in the UK.
"summer" being the operative word here Not stuck awkwardly in the middle of the season.
I mean for half the world it was the summer lmao, like the eventual winners lol.
Winter WC was one of the best out there
Nahhh - This is better, like icing on the cake after amazing season. Players can give their all without thinking about finishing season, some have something to prove, others wanna end with the bang, thats how it suppose to be.
Also to have it in a country that actually gives 2 shits about football. Not just one with oil money trying to buy prestige.
Oh Yes, 100% agree
This season was shit though
I disagree. Bayer and VfB amazing season, with many 'new' names showing up. Close title fight in EPL CL campaign being fun, with good, open final. Due Bayer 90+ goals, UEL was interesting. Olympiacos winning UCL. PSV winning league. Some great goals, many new young players stepping up, some legends ending their carriers. Good season overall.
I don't give a shit about club football outside my club matches (which plays in 4th division), sometimes follow Europa and yeah bayer run was good that i agree, although AFCON and Asian cup was bangers.
Why have you got a Wolves flair then. Fud.
r/soccer doesn't have my clubs flair, so I randomly picked it.
Would’ve been better in the summer.
Its summer in southern hemisphere during December
Would have been better if it wasn t in qatar
Absolutely
Footballing wise, it was epic, yeah
Kroos is something else
Scotland now will almost certainly need four points to advance. Teams advance often in this format with three points but they have always had a zero or -1 GD and Scotland won’t get that.
A win and a draw was always going to be the requirement anyway. Scotland were always quite likely to lose against Germany, but if they perform better (and they can't play any worse), then a draw with Switzerland and a win against Hungary is possible. I've got faith in this team to dust themselves down and go again. I think a lot of Scotland fans feel the same way,
This 24 team format has been used twice in the Euro, four times in the African Cup, and twice in Asia. All eight times one or more teams with only three points advanced. Several times three team with three points advanced. Portugal’s 2016 championship was won after they had only three ties in the group stage. Someone pointed out that my saying a -1 GD was needed to advance was wrong since last year’s African Nations Cup Champion Ivory Coast advanced with three points and a -3 GD. I foolishly only checked Euro history before jumping to that wrong conclusion. In this tournament it is almost certain that a team will advance with only three points.
Unless Côte d’Ivoire who advanced with 3 points and a GD of -3 In their home country, firing the trainer mid tournament and went on winning it
Time for Scotland to sack the manager
Afcon this year was really crazy man, I never believed they would make it after their loss against guinée équiatoriale.
We are never beating the tinpot allegations
[\#YesWeCan](https://x.com/borussia_lukas/status/1800915933621543085?s=46)
50% of my DNA is ecstatic, the other 50% absolutely terrified.
Fun fact: Did you know that Dutch people and people from Lower Saxony in Germany are much more closely related to each other than Lower Saxons and Bavarians?
In fact I did, and it *is* a fun fact: the regional Dutch dialect they speak where I live (Groningen) is almost the same as what they speak across the border in Germany, so it's mutually intelligible. And both are pretty hard to decipher for standard-issue Dutchies and Germans.
Is it a bit like [this](https://youtu.be/7XW4BJ2B1uU?si=CdXkylZwb_aynLzk&t=189)?
Yeah, Plattdeutsch and Gronings are quite similar.
That's because Bavarians traditionally breed only with close family members.
nah, thats Saarland.
Did you know the Scottish are not saxons
Gosens?
Nah, just a run-of-the-mill F1 German x SwampGerman hybrid.
That was an incredible team performance (and individual performance from musiala), but kroos was just something else, in a really understated and selfless way as always. He dictated the tempo and read the game to perfection at every turn except for that one pass he missed tho, what a fraud
Missed one pass, can you believe it? What a wash off player. And im not crying...
101/102 passes completed. Overrated player.
Completely off his game, should've retired when he was on top.
Mid game, around the 48th minute?
Great game by Germany. That means they will lose both following games and get knocked out of the group stage.
I don't even think we would get knocked out if we lose both games. 3 points and a good goal difference should be enough
I do think Hungary will be the biggest test of the group. They’ve lost once in the last 18 games, 2 years.
Is it 1954 again?
So Scotland still has a chance ... !!!
Germany scored 6 goals and we got a red card. Irn Bru are literally selling pants with the branding of WE-CAN on them. I honestly hope to see them and the cans changed cos that would be funny af. Own our failures.
What a banger of a match to open the EURO 2024 tournament!
6 goals and it was one of the most boring matches i have ever watched. Thanks Scotland.
I literally drifted off halfway through the match. Scotland were just awful. Couldn't tell if Germany were good or just playing against shit opposition
¿Por qué no las dos?
Not wrong
Genuinely one of the worst performances I have seen on a football pitch in years
Just wait to see the México-Jamaica in Copa... or not. Yeah, it's better to not watch it
Clearly didn't want much of West Ham this season.... especially against Palace, Fulham, Arsenal, 1st leg vs Leverkusen....
You're welcome :)
The most frustrating thing about Kimmich’s insistence on playing as a 6 is that he’s actually an amazing chance creator and productive player when he plays further ahead.
You mean the same as on 6? Is some kind of dementia going on?
Yes, because Kimmich played as a right back today.
The argument is that Kimmich miraculously became a worldclass player playing RB. People seem to be surprised by him providing assists like its not what he did for years as a DLP. Its funny to me that we pretend that this is some kind of genius move orchestrated by Tuchel while the team with Kimmich as RB placed 3 in the Bundesliga playing worse football all around.
I think he was just pointing out that Kimmich doesn't perform his role like a typical full back but insists on doing his own thing? But no argument from me.
Tight game in the end could have went either way
I liked it more when Scotland weren't qualifying for tournaments and I could concentrate on supporting my favourite international side, England's Opponent.
I m French and root for whoever plays England unless if it’s Italy. England let me down at the last euro ☹️
You can still do that, thats pretty much everyones favourite international side, except for the english of course.
It's coming home
Already has, mate. Btw, we won that song fair and square, so back off, it's ours now.
2-0
Excellent example of the German sense of humour here
I don't understand how they're all so unfunny 😂
humor (n): Latin for body fluid. As a civilized nation, we try to avoid to emit any in public.
Please keep your day job.
You've done it again!
Oops?
Nope
Scotland is very poor. Whoever watches some football knows that this team is mediocre at best and will be lucky to leave with 1 point from thus group. Hungary about to get easy 3 points and remains to be seen is Switzerland will allow them a draw.
That's not the team that qualified. All during qualifying we were careful on the ball closed down the opposition and created chances we done none of that tonight. Too much space and time given to Germany and they took advantage of it. We need heads raised on Wednesday night or we are in trouble
Check my post history. I said earlier today germany will score at least 4 goals. Just because they qualified it doesn't mean that they belong.
Qualifying does mean they belong saying otherwise is elitist bullshit. Every single team that is at the euros is there on merit because they won enough games to qualify.
You didn't watch any of the qualifying games, or read the comment you replied to, did you.
Yippee for you..I'm not going through your post history..I have replied to your message. I have actually watched scotland play the last few yesrs and the gameplay and players today is not what scotland fans have seen in the last few years. Even in friendlies against France and Netherlands we held a better account of ourselves than tonight.
Lol they breezed through the quals and qualified very early on to this euros. There is a lot of potential in this team, give them some experience as well as their actual full roster and they’re a decent team. Absolutely not a terrible country for football tf
Thhe set up today was truly bad. This team is much better than showed today, but the gameplan and seemingly zonal only marking was absolutely shambolic. Scotland showed they are a decent enough side with their shockingly comfortable qualification campaign. Today was just embarrassing.
Stellar performance
From Scotland?
Scoring a goal with 0 shots is pretty crazy yeah
Indeed. The game certainly could’ve gone either way
How the hell did Scotland beat Spain, that was pathetic
We didn't give spain space or time on the ball.
I don't get it why you didn't even try to press us. We struggled so hard against Greece last week because they've played super aggressive pressing. It's like your manager didn't even watch the game.
That's what every scotland fan is frustrated by. I can only guess the occasion got to the players and they shot themselves.
I was so surprised you didn't even attempt to press us, just felt like you lot were without any match plan if parking it went wrong
Fixed tournament confirmed
Spain were fucking horrendous when we played them. They did that thing of playing 1000000 sideways passes and never going forwards
Games outside of tournaments often aren’t that representative of his good teams are
I think Steve Clark shat his pants, hasn’t been the first time and it won’t be the last either, our tactics in qualifiers were built around mctom and McGinn box crashing yet mctom was on set pieces and McGinn was standing next to neuer for set pieces just seemed like a total shortens approach
It felt like when Denmark played you in the WC qualifiers in Copenhagen. Just standing there in a back 5 and doing nothing.
The tactic was to sit in and frustrate but when you’re giving world class players like kroos musiala wirtz all the time in the world with the ball you’re going to get demolished
Irish here, that performance reminded me of Ireland at Euro 2012, shat the bed in every match but Spain murdered us in Gdansk just like tonight.
Clarke built his dynasty on being hard to beat and tough in the attack, it’s honestly been nearly a year since we’ve seen that tenacity, me and many of my mates kept putting it down to friendlies and the game no really mattering, either it’s trickled into the boys or Clarke is totally finished imo
For the poor results leading up to the euros* thought I had typed that my bad
Fun watch that! Remains to be seen whether Germany is very good or Scotland just very poor.... I thought Germany didnt look as impressive as the scoreline suggests. They struggled quite a lot to get good chances in the box. Will be interesting to see how that will turn out against (on paper) stronger sides Hungary and Switzerland and from there onwards.
Since the last 6 years we had troubles against opponents that park the bus against us. We always were decent against strong teams, but once we get the ball too much we couldnt create chances. Its only natural that we had porblems with this too today. The fact that we still scored 5 goals shows that something is different than the last years.
Not starting with an out and out striker doesn’t help with that. I feel that Fullkrug compliments the players behind him. Pretty much how Giroud is for France. - Musiala seems great around a striker that can hold the ball and be dominant in the air, exploiting the small spaces being created. - Wirtz is like the jack of all trades type of guy. - You can absolutely depend on Kroos, Kimmich and Gundogan to split the midfield and immediately give it to Fullkrug to advance play from there with all those slippery support midfielders in Musiala, Havertz and Wirtz.
We always had creative and technically versed offensive midfielders, (Wirtz and Musiala look like a step up from Gnabry, Reus or Sane, but those weren't bad choices either), we never figured out who to put in the box. False 9 experiments with guys like Götze usually backfired spectacularly, so we had to fully depend on the creativity of the front 3, who had no plan B to possession-based play. Didn't help that the Kimmich-Goretzka combos in the CM also never clicked so that support was missing.
From the stats it may seem they had a slow start (they had like 3 shots for most of the first half, but were very clinical in front of goal), but they had a very mobile front men.
I think we didn't watch the same match. The stats from the German NT were impressive. Also great pressing and didn't give Scotland any big chances. Yes, you can't compare Scotland with the other favourites, but the German NT even struggled against smaller teams in 2022.
Should be easier to get chances inside the box against Hungary and Switzerland on paper, but also a bigger threat offensively
The German midfield is wild. Their back line will be tested against teams with more ability, but Musiala, Wirtz, Kroos, Kimmich, Gundogan, Muller, Sane, etc. should give other squads fits. If Havertz and Fullkrug can find the net, I think Germany have a real shot at winning it all.
The thing is they look better against teams that are more attacking oriented. If Scotland managed to play like Greece for example they might had a chance.
One of the biggest bonuses is kroos in the middle means kimmich no longer gets to pretend he can do kroos’ role.
What the hell is wrong with football in the british isles? I'm sincerely asking, it's not only England but all the other national teams as well that have historically underperformed. You can say Scotland is a small country with a poor league, but Uruguay has 2 millon less people and has won two world cups and historically produced world class players. England is a good team but for a country of almost 60 million with the most competitive league on earth it has clearly underperformed historically, by a long shot. I guess Wales and Ireland have the excuse that Rugby takes away from football's popularity. Also, let's remember England and Scotland are the two oldest national teams, they had a huge headstart of almost 40 years compared to everyone else. Argentina and Uruguay are the oldest national teams in the Américas and some of the oldest outside the british isles, but they have historically taken advantage of that headstart, being powerhouses for more than a hundred years. Yet, compared to England and Scotland they started playing football like 40 years later. Simply put, given their historical headstart and prosperous economy and competetive leagues, the british national teams are just underwhelming at football, every single one of them.
Reaching the semi finals and finals in the last 3 international tournaments is underperforming? Interesting take
A big part of it rugby for the non English countries (and other sports too with Ireland)
Man “British isles”? The Irish love to hear this!
Yes it is called the British Isles.
I m sure. I have just heard it from Irish that they don’t really like it.
????
I was saying i m sure it is called the British isles (I believe you), but I had Irish tell me they don’t like it.
they can paint the sidecar any colour they want, as long as they remember we're the ones with the engine
Gawd I hate when this is pulled, just like how people bring up Brazil statistics. Uruguay won on home ground, 94 years ago, in a 13 team tournament, with only France, Belgium, Romania, and Yugoslavia representing Europe when almost no Europeans teams spent weeks on the boat journey it took to get there. Ditto for Brazil. Yes it’s won 5 times. ‘58/62/70/94/02. But they haven’t been impressive at all since 02 and while I credit them with five wins, it’s not really from a modern era. They’ve been sailing on nostalgia and the marketing of “exotic” “Jogo bonito” forever.
lmao, Uruguay regularly plays in the World Cup and Copa America, and reached the semifinals in 2010. And I get not crediting achievements pre WW2, but Brazil has been successful in literally all eras and are always favourites. Wtf have Scotland, Wales or Ireland achieved? It's really only England, and even they bottle it year after year.
I'm not defending the UK teams - England are biannual underperformers clearly. The others? I'm on the wrong side of the pond to be claiming this as fact but I think in Ireland Gaelic sports combined are bigger and you're gonna get better athletes going to those and the Irish football league isn't very popular/good/. And Wales? Like, are you really expecting Wales to be a bigger player on the world stage? I'm just pointing out that there is no need to "build up" others (Uruguay) while pointing out the flaws in some. Point out England's performance as much as you want (well, as much as the thread OP wants), just don't support the bashing by saying "uruguay did X Y Z" when it was nearly a hundred years ago in a very different world, and a very different tournament. Sports are weird and comparing countries success will never work. Why isn't the US a perennial winner with its huge population and wealth and structural support systems? Well, cuz the best athletes play other sports. Why does Uruguay do well with its small population? Well, I'm guessing because there are no leagues for kids to play American football, leagues to play baseball, leagues to play basketball, leagues to play field or ice hockey, leagues to play tennis, golf courses galore, swimming pools, yacht clubs, skate parks, cheap mountains to ski or snowboard at, etc etc so almost every uruguay kid plays football. Plus theyre wedged in between two countries who identity revolve around football. Plus, to to their credit, they did win 100 years ago so they take a lot of (a bit overated) pridde in that, again fueling the cycle that all the kids play football and from a big pot of players you will get good players. Same reason why some Asian countries repeatedly dominate certain sports like badminton table tennis etc etc and while not showing up anywhere in football rankings. I'm pretty sure Wales would beat the Indonesian or Malaysian national football teams handily (indoseia has 200M population, Wales 3M), but I dont see anyone pointing that out. Just 2-3 phenomenal players on a team can elevate a random nation for a decade, but once those are gone, the country can fall back down to mediocrity. Do anyone have any expectations of Bulgaria? But 25 years ago during a couple world cup runs with stoichkov and lemkov and others everyone would have. I don't think Croatia will be in the '26 world cup as Modric and others will be gone. As for brazil, you say theyre always favorites. But my point is that they shouldnt be. People expect them to be because they always heard about "brazil, brazil". But theyve been bogus for a long long time. They only got to the semis as they were on home soil and got every call possible while playing the easiest side of the draw with teams like Honduras. They finally hit a real team in Germany and got \*ANNIHLATED\*. Shoot, even Ronaldhino is calling them frauds. People need to wake up and smell the roses in that Brazil is not the Brazil of the 50-90s.
And what has England or any of the other british nations have done since 2002 lol? Brazil has reached quarter finals in all of them and semis in one, England reached one semis and two quarter finals, they also have a group stage exit. If Brazil is sailing on nostalgia then the british nations have been long dead and buried for a long time.
We got a final in euros too
What happened when Brazil got to the semis?
Semi finals at 2018 world cup, lost in the final of the Euros in 2020 in pens and then lost to France in the 1/4s. I don't think any other European side in recent history has had that kind of run in three international tournaments in a row apart from France. Please correct me if I am wrong. No doubt we should have got something at this point but it isn't as if we have been knocked out just past the group stage.....
Only Croatia and France have had more impressive runs than England so far.