Euro 2012 - Official Discussion Thread

[Јas]

I've decided to be very objective.

As we all know - you're only as good as your last game. So, I've taken the last result between each of the teams to be indicative of their upcoming fixtures. Which would result in...

Group A
1. Greece
2. Czechia
3. Russia
4. Poland

A lot of draws here. Greece beat the Czechs, the Czechs beat the Poles - the Russians draw everything.

Group B
1. Germany
2. Denmark
3. Portugal
4. Netherlands

Germany beat the Dutch and Portuguese, but only draw with the Danes, which is just enough to see them through as they and the other two each beat each other in the remaining games.

Group C
1. Ireland
2. Spain
3. Croatia
4. Italy

Ireland undefeated, 1 win (Italy) and 2 draws. Spain go through despite being tied on points with Croatia, by having beaten Croatia itself.

Group D
1. France
2. Sweden
3. England
4. Ukraine

France are the only team to win all 3 group games. The other teams all beat one another 1-0 and are only eventually seperated by the goals scored against the French - which advantages Sweden.


QFs
Denmark 1-0 Greece (had to go back two games here, as the previous game was a draw)
Ireland 3-0 Sweden
Czechia 3-0 Germany
Spain 2-0 France

SFs
Ireland 4-0 Denmark
Spain 2-0 Czechia

Final
Spain 1-1 Ireland, Spain win on penalties

[Јas]

Jas claims he's going to be objective...then gives the most ridiculous prediction. The Netherlands will be last? Italy, too? Ireland blows out all competition in the knockout rounds except in the Final, where they fail on penalties? Ok, you were clearly being sarcastic when you said "very objective."

Maybe my post was unclear. It's not really a prediction at all (I'm pretty terrible at predicting this sort of thing anyway), it was just a diverting exercise - taking the last result between each of the teams and seeing what that would translate into if they were replicated.

My apologies for any offense caused.

[Јas]

Our worst defeat since 1971 means we go into the final group game with no hope of progression (a first for us).

Such a pity.

On the plus side, the fans were great.

[Јas]

Ibrahimović can't possibly be as lazy as he was last night when playing at Milan, can he?

[Јas]

Today just isn't meant to be. You know what today is the tenth anniversary of?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2waODO-kvc

There's also the fact that Ireland have played Italy on 18 June before.

It is, unfortunately, nearly impossible to see how we could produce anything similar again tonight.

[Јas]

England do well in friendlies and have also walked through most of their qualifying groups.

Their qualifying group games would be against different opponents, and not be counted in this table. This is just the matches ever played between these eight teams.

Taking just competitive games, as adjudged by englandstats.com, England's competitive record against those teams is:
0-3-7 v Brazil
3-2-5 v Italy
3-2-1 v Spain
3-2-2 v Argentina
3-3-2 v France
4-4-5 v Germany
1-2-2 v Netherlands

Giving overall: 17-18-24 (29%-31%-41%)
Which implies the equivalent friendlies figures to be: 47-27-30 (45%-26%-29%)

On which basis is would seem that England are roughly as good at friendlies, as they are bad at competitive games (though England's poor record in competitive games against Brazil skews matters somewhat).