The French team might be a team you’d handpick on FIFA.
Ooh, 1-0.
Although Kante is having a poor game.
1-0? Guess my stream is behind. I’ll drop out of the thread until it’s over.
Kante got a lot better in the send part of the second half. This could go either way the second half. Germany with possession and shots, but none great. They need a real 9.
Kante is unbelievable
He’s definitely one that will be in the argument for one of the all timers.
Hummels must have sacrificed a chicken before the game to be able to hold up Mbappe there.
Rabiot the “weak” link in the France XI?
That’s extremely reckless from Gosens. Wouldn’t mind seeing him sent off.
eta… eh, maybe not.
Hummels own goal, so he can keep it. Something went wrong with the chicken sacrifice, despite the two goals he scrapped from Mbappé’s feet. I had the impression France let Germany be the better team in the second half, but not good enough. It will be an uphill struggle from there.
Considering that Deschamps only made 2 subs (out of 5 allowed) for a road game in Germany, while nursing a 1-goal lead, there may be more weak spots. But then again, there were no clear chances for Germany so maybe he just didn’t want to upset the apple cart.
I meant their starting 11, not the full roster. Although looking at that as well and they have very competent backup CBs (Zouma and Kounde. Lenglet is too error prone), center mid (Lemar), wingers, (Dembele and Coman) and strikers (Giroud and Ben Yedder).
France seemed the more likely to score in the second half, he might have been worried about disrupting that edge. Or is Deschamp generally stingy on the subs?
Sorry I ruined that for you. Will avoid super speedy score updates from now on.
No, don’t. Any match I’m very invested in (probably only the final, tbh) I’ll avoid any threads.
I thought the Germany-France match was played at an extremely high skill level. Difficult, precise passing completed routinely.
Germany surprised me a little. They might still end up with 4-6 points in this group and be a serious factor in the knockouts.
France remains awesome and beautiful. Pogba can do amazing things with Kante providing cover.
Italy are very impressive, just like against Turkey. Rock solid defense, while playing forward like no other Italian squad I remember.
Italy rocking it and Ciro finding his international groove. They’re looking like a very tough out.
I read earlier that Italy hadn’t met Switzerland in a major tournament since 1962. If that’s true, it’s pretty amazing.
A lot less flopping and diving than I’m used to from the Azure. They were really fun to watch!!
Azzurra
No real upsets in the tournament so far, unless you count Sweden drawing with Spain. I don’t count Finland over Denmark, considering what happened in that one. Italy and France look to be the most fluid and balanced teams, but I’d prefer to wait until the knockout round is over before calling them co-favorites. And defending champ Portugal have already equaled their normal-time win total from 2016.
After Italy had never scored more than twice in one match in all the Euros before they have just done it twice in two games in this edition. Shows that statistics are great for analysis with hindsight but not apt for prediction. Then again, Turkey was weaker than I expected.
Lol, at roughly the hour mark Belgium went to the bench and brought in DeBruyne, Witsel and Big Hazard. Maybe, maybe, France can do something similar but that’s pretty much the list there.
I’ve been impressed with Tielemann’s steady development in the Belgian midfield, too (as well as at Leicester).