Here comes another tournament, and here LEN becomes a messhole for the holy lords of the Frontroom. Football fans, I shall introduce you to the 2nd traditional predictions table thread. The reason I'm not doing this under Quintus.J.Cicero 's thread is, as obvious, that this one is a table of qualifiers and the winner, not a match-by-match score guess.
Sorry for making this up this late this time, I wonder if you can contribute your very own predictions before things shape up.
Gentlemen. Let's fire:
Group A Standings
:portugal: Portugal
:turkey: Turkey
:switzerland: Switzerland
:czechrepublic: Czech Republic
Reasoning:
Portugal has been able to maintain their "golden generation" by restoring the depleted positions due to the aging of Luis Figo, Sa Pinto, Joao Pinto, Sergio Conceicao with stars who are more than enough, who are both young guns that once were on the verge of wasting their careers.
I can't really totally omit my emotional approach at Turkish national team. However, while weighing the three teams destined to be the second place contenders, Turkey seems more of a complete team. The omittance of Yıldıray Baştürk was a shock indeed, who knows what Terim is planning if Emre gets injured or banned, however our Euro players enjoyed their best times of their career this season and such experience and self-confidence nurtures what Turkish team always failed at: Keeping cool. Our defence line, aside from the 90-minutes-runner idiot on the right side -Sabri-, is formed by strong woodsmen who may lack agility in times. The offensive variations Turkey could do, as Portugal coach Scolari underlines, resembles a South American style of play, hence bringing visible joy into the game. Nihat Kahveci is a lethal scorer who can use almost any balls, dead or on the move, while we have some tricky guys upfront, a new face named Mevlüt Erdinç from Sochaux, and that Coca-Cola kid Colin-Kazım Richards, who, though, plays as a right winger lately. The midfield have prolific feet who can make three opponents tossing into each other such as Emre Belözoğlu, Arda Turan, Tuncay Şanlı and Hamit Altıntop who is exclusively known for drawing magical rockets from afar out of his hat. Also we have that Brazilian breed, Mehmet (Marco) Aurelio who can play both sides of the game, attack and defence. Briefly, we are visiting Austria-Switzerland with a convincing squad. If only the weirdly-Brazilianish right back Gökhan Gönül was not held back by his injury. He'd be one of the best players of the tournament.
One thing is valid for sure. If you are hosts, it will be your best tournament. Therefore, I can see Switzerland, Czechs and Turks coming close to each other regarding the points. I mean no one will turn away with their worst performance up to date. However "details" will arrange the second-placer in this group and the opener hosts will be suffering an "eh..not bad" kind of Euro 2008. So I have to underline that Switzerland may even overpower the Czechs. We may qualify with goal differences or a 1 point lead. If I wasn't emotional, I'd spare a qualifier place for the Swiss, they have an exciting squad.
The Czechs came to Euro 2008 in front of Germany, yes. They seem to have a fit and able defence. However, they surely lack creative offensive play. Their upfront consists of an ancient named Koller and a waned-off star Baros (I don't see Martin Fenin being a lifesaver). These guys may be hard to penetrate but they surely lack it when it comes to assaulting. And this is no qualifiers stage whereas Rosicky is missing as well.
Group B Standings
:germany: Germany
:croatia: Croatia
:poland: poland :poland:
:austria: Austria
Reasoning:
This group tells us one thing as the title: "Ones with good strikers will make it through."
All teams in this group have serious defensive concentration; they either have excellent defenders or demi-god keepers. While Germany, Croatia and Poland all belong to nearly the same European block, enjoying the physical capabilities and mental struggling ability, Austria is a school of defence since they could never manage to attack throughout the history.
The standings shape up as the forwards run, as I said. Germany has the most offensive capability spiced up with a deadlock-opener and creative midfield. If Croatia had Eduardo, I could easily write them up for the best team here, however the square-kits will surely miss that Brazilian convert's Amazon skills.
Poland is a qualifying-stage team, I see they have not brought exciting players on, and this further will prove that they'll not make it out of the group.
As for the "other host", I'd rather enjoy watching pitch grass grow.
Group C Standings
:france: France
:italy: Italy
:romania: Romania
:netherlands: Netherlands
Reasoning:
The killer group. Yes. It's not only about three giants coming together, but also the team I'd bet on if "who be da shockers ?" was asked is along with them too.
The difference's essence is embedded in the "who possesses more wisdom ?" question. Wisdom refers to both knowledge and maturity as virtues.
I'm overwhelmed with "who's going to be the next Zidane ?" bugger since there never has been an apparent alternative for him in this squad, and a team still can make it without Zidane. If you really crave for an answer, Jeremy Toulalan can grow into an orchestrating chief in a 1-2 years. But for now, they already have a seriously energetic, durable, spirited, creative kind of midfield block, while their forwards make my legs tremble. I don't know how but France has found a way to bring up supermutant-sized and contradictively agile and technical finishers for the last 2 generations which start with Henry longing to Benzema. These magic giants are supplied by hornets - mid-sized wingers who wind up their opponents into terrible disorientation and lethargy. We already are confident of the French defensive quality. Well, what would you want more out of a team ?
The reason I've placed Italy as the second placer is due to my doubts arisen with the absence of my dreamteam centreback duo -Nesta and Cannavaro. What's more, it's also obvious that Italy has, as nature commands, felt the need to overthrow the old generation. And injection of young players into the mighty World Cup holders has not been tested well enough of whether they can handle a serious tounament in a killer group. Still, they are sure to do it better than my all-time-favorites, Holland and my Euro-2008-shockers, Romania. Remember, I had pushed Ivory Coast as the surprising token in WC '06 and so they actually did.
O' Lovely Oranges? Well, watch out for them in WC '10. This squad will reach its peak in WC '10. The defense and the midfield will have matured to their best years by then and it will be in South Africa where they will be counted as a tournament contender indeed.
The Hagi-land pose a threat as the WTFying team of the tournament as they have a solid backline, supported by several top-class experienced players upfront. Creativity matters and Romania has it. Especially Netherlands-Romania will be an eyecandy match. Note down.
Group D Standings
:greece: Greece
:spain: Spain
:russia: Russia
:sweden: Sweden
Reasoning:
Deciding out this group was the hardest since every team has its cons and pros, making it helluva difficult to single out who takes the cake.
Greece had walked (yeah, walked) to the top in the previous EURO tournament by their exceedingly containing style of play. I can agree with their former glory being really boring but when it comes to trashing their success, I'm out of it. I always appreciate and admire teams who hold onto their tactics. It's the hardest thing to accomplish with eleven men running around. Now that they almost possess the same backline with surprisingly good, new faces upfront, I can rest assured that they will be giving glimpses of their former success by making it to the quarter finals having their seat in the first slot of the group.
Why is Spain down here? Well actually I fought a lot not to send them home as the ever-disappointers. They have some pretty skillful players all over the pitch. This has never changed and it is obivous that the individual qualities of Spanish players has nothing to do with their national success as a team. Spain fails at being a tournament team, that's all. Sounds too superstitious but most of the football-speaking world share the same view. And eventually the Spanish eleven always moves onto the pitch under such pressure. What's more the very key players their defence is maintained by ones who have suffered a disastrous season. Puyol, Marchena, Juanito, Raul Albiol are joining the squad from the most disappointing teams of the Primera Liga which will surely be making them start the game with a score of 0-1 in their minds. However, I still want to believe that the most lethal upfront of the tournament has things to say. Although the midfield is lacking harmony, they should be able to march Spain through the quarter finals.
Russia has an unusually threatening forward line this time. We are not limited to "let-a-cross-hit-my-head" kind of players waiting for a ball drifted from high. However, the frontmen will surely miss adequate balls delivered since their defence is nearly disabled while you can rarely see someone doing it in the midfield, for attack or defense.
Sweden has an able squad however they are not the ones for a tournament as well. I wouldn't really rely on the image of Sweden making it through by a few pairs of extremely skillful feet. If it was all about one man, Ukraine would have been remembered as a team of success in the several previous tournaments. But, no, it was not all about the agonizing Shevchenko.
Quarter Finals
Portugal :portugal: - :croatia: Croatia
Germany :germany: - :turkey: Turkey
France :france: - :spain: Spain
Greece :greece: - :italy: Italy
Semi Finals
Portugal :portugal: - :turkey: Turkey
France :france: - :italy: Italy
Final
Portugal :portugal: - :france: France
Winner
:portugal:
:portugal: PORTUGAL :portugal:
:portugal:
Final Notes: I can see Felipe Scolari and his boys making it this time. 'Cause it's been a matter of life and death, compared to the coach's pre-Portugal career. And now that they have a stunning squad over there, I can't believe Portugal failing this time.
