Euro: Euro 2024 Qualifying

[cgf]

Terrible. That goal has bought him 4 more years with the NT.


Actually I was high on Upa with Leipzig, very down on his first Bayern year and up again. Tools were always there.

Pavard sucks I'm sorry. He's average AT BEST offensively and terrible defensively.
He's also totally full of himself and thinks he's the second coming. Terrible teammate who insulted the players on the pitch while on the bench at the WC.

I'd want him nowhere near my team.

You may not have hated him...but I definitely remember you scolding me about how over-rated he was when I was saying he reminded me of a young Hummels.

Terrible person IMO. Inflated ego and lack of education.

RB is weak, but I'd start Mukiele over him. Simakan too. And Gusto in a few years.

I agree about Mukiele and Gusto once he's ready, but Simakan isn't as reliable at RB yet. He's more talented than Pavard, but his performances are much more up & down atm. FBs like Pavard and Klostermann aren't very sexy, but they can really help stabilize a team...especially ones who play with a lopsided back 4.

 

[HajdukSplit]

I know I mentioned it before on one of these qualifying threads but Bulgaria these days are essentially a minnow, what a drastic fall, they aren't even competitive anymore. Can't think of one of their players playing in a 'top 5' league either, probably none of the 'top 10' either

edit: They have one BL player (Gruev) who seems to be a standard starter for Bremen and a guy who barely plays for Monza; the rest are basically domestic based players or the ones who do play abroad play in weak leagues

 

[cgf]

I know I mentioned it before on one of these qualifying threads but Bulgaria these days are essentially a minnow, what a drastic fall, they aren't even competitive anymore. Can't think of one of their players playing in a 'top 5' league either, probably none of the 'top 10' either

edit: They have one BL player (Gruev) who seems to be a standard starter for Bremen and a guy who barely plays for Monza; the rest are basically domestic based players or the ones who do play abroad play in weak leagues

Yeah. Where Hungary, Czechia, Serbia, and to a lesser extent Romania have been moving back towards their previous peaks, Bulgaria has really dwindled. Gruev is a disappointment, he was an interesting prospect.

Bosnia feels like they've fallen off hard too.

 

[Evilo]

You may not have hated him...but I definitely remember you scolding me about how over-rated he was when I was saying he reminded me of a young Hummels.



I agree about Mukiele and Gusto once he's ready, but Simakan isn't as reliable at RB yet. He's more talented than Pavard, but his performances are much more up & down atm. FBs like Pavard and Klostermann aren't very sexy, but they can really help stabilize a team...especially ones who play with a lopsided back 4.

Nope. I was the first guy who pointed to his talents on this board.... Sigh....
Pavard stabilizes nothing. Heck in the first leg against PSG he should have had a red in the first half. Guy is out of his depth.

 

[maclean]

Yeah. Where Hungary, Czechia, Serbia, and to a lesser extent Romania have been moving back towards their previous peaks, Bulgaria has really dwindled. Gruev is a disappointment, he was an interesting prospect.

Bosnia feels like they've fallen off hard too.

Saying that as we proceed to draw to Moldova.... Of course playing in Chisinau is never easy and it's not the end of the world, but it's a bit of a damper after the feel-good whupping of Poland

 

[cgf]

Nope. I was the first guy who pointed to his talents on this board.... Sigh....
Pavard stabilizes nothing. Heck in the first leg against PSG he should have had a red in the first half. Guy is out of his depth.

Stop it. I give you plenty of credit for kids you were right about, but I'm not going to let you gaslight me about this after the shit you gave me for hyping Upa while he was still polishing his game.

 

[Evilo]

Stop it. I give you plenty of credit for kids you were right about, but I'm not going to let you gaslight me about this after the shit you gave me for hyping Upa while he was still polishing his game.

You're confusing me with someone else or you're confusing the timeline.
I clearly flamed Upa last season. Zero doubt about it. He was showing tons of lack of focus and mental mistakes.
I was especially disappointed since I thought highly of him (and as such, I acquired him in our keeper league) with Leipzig.
He impressed me this year again.

 

[cgf]

You're confusing me with someone else or you're confusing the timeline.
I clearly flamed Upa last season. Zero doubt about it. He was showing tons of lack of focus and mental mistakes.
I was especially disappointed since I thought highly of him (and as such, I acquired him in our keeper league) with Leipzig.
He impressed me this year again.

You did start to acknowledge his talent with Leipzig, but you were hyper-critical of him whenever he'd get burned for gambling. I distinctly remember having a conversation with you & PB in which I made the Hummels comparison to argue that it was ok for such a young defender to be learning what kinds of gambles will burn him and which ones he can get away with, the hard way.

You were the harshest on him last season, but you definitely were not very high on him in the early days with leipzig...when I first started pumping his tires, otherwise we wouldn't have argued about him. And it was definitely you because I remember laughing that I was defending the french talent while you were trashing him.

Maybe you didn't mean to be as critical as your words were...I feel like you often don't sense how aggressive your words come across...so you don't feel like you were down on Upa at the time, but you 100% shat on him when he was still with Leipzig.

Which is ok. I doubted Havertz & Wirtz at the youth levels and was terribly wrong about just how good they would become for us. Hell I was skeptical of Wirtz even when he started doing it at the senior level

 

[cgf]

Saying that as we proceed to draw to Moldova.... Of course playing in Chisinau is never easy and it's not the end of the world, but it's a bit of a damper after the feel-good whupping of Poland

lol fair enough. None are all of the way back to their previous heights, but every time I catch one of your youth teams, you seem to consistently have a few kids that intrigue me for the clubs I support...and your NTs generally do a great job of moving the ball as a collective, even when they don't have the individual class to beat defenders 1-on-1 consistently.

Definitely lack the star power you had with Nedved, Rosicky, Koller, etc. when I was a kid...but maybe that's starting to change too with the likes of Hlozek & Schick?

Speaking of, how is Karabec doing this season? I caught him a couple of times last year (or maybe the year before) and liked what I saw.

 

[luiginb]

It's funny you're having this convo now because Upa last night had one of his worse matches I've seen from him this year haha

 

[cgf]

It's funny you're having this convo now because Upa last night had one of his worse matches I've seen from him this year haha

*shrug* just like Evilo pointing to individual errors from Pavard, one match doesn't mean much as all defenders have bad moments.

Even Thiago Silva made a mistake once...or so the story goes...

 

[Evilo]

*shrug* just like Evilo pointing to individual errors from Pavard, one match doesn't mean much as all defenders have bad moments.

Even Thiago Silva made a mistake once...or so the story goes...

It's not.
I judge on his NT performances and Upa was great. Lloris was always great too regardless of his club form.
And Pavard always sucks. Mind you he sucked in the CL too.

 

[Evilo]

You did start to acknowledge his talent with Leipzig, but you were hyper-critical of him whenever he'd get burned for gambling. I distinctly remember having a conversation with you & PB in which I made the Hummels comparison to argue that it was ok for such a young defender to be learning what kinds of gambles will burn him and which ones he can get away with, the hard way.

You were the harshest on him last season, but you definitely were not very high on him in the early days with leipzig...when I first started pumping his tires, otherwise we wouldn't have argued about him. And it was definitely you because I remember laughing that I was defending the french talent while you were trashing him.

Maybe you didn't mean to be as critical as your words were...I feel like you often don't sense how aggressive your words come across...so you don't feel like you were down on Upa at the time, but you 100% shat on him when he was still with Leipzig.

Which is ok. I doubted Havertz & Wirtz at the youth levels and was terribly wrong about just how good they would become for us. Hell I was skeptical of Wirtz even when he started doing it at the senior level

OK so I looked up all my posts with Upa in it from 2020 and before.

- In 2020 you said Upa was WC and I said he was not yet and had ups and downs.
You often go to big phrases like World Class and he wasn't two years ago so maybe that's why you think I underrated him?

- In another 2020 thread I defended Upa VS Gomez in a thread where people were saying Gomez was better. I said Upa was better in all aspects of his game.

- in 2018 someone ranked Edouard as a top 3 French prospect and I said with Mbappe, Upa and Aouar (!) there was no way he'd rank there.

- 2020 I said Upa wasn't ready for a top 5 CL teams (Pool) because he still had ups and downs. His play in his first year at Bayern proved me right.

- 2019 I said Upa was the most likely star out of the young French CB in the BuLi.

There was no discussion between you and me about him other than those. Between 2018 and 2021 (his time with Leipzig).

5 total discussions, 3 positive about him and 2 saying he was not world class yet in 2020.

 

[HajdukSplit]

Bosnia feels like they've fallen off hard too.

Yeah, on paper their squad is really poor, that is to be expected though as their domestic league is awful and unlike in the past the diaspora talent pool has dried up as well. However they are in a manageable group this time and could qualify, though Slovakia seems to be a bogey team for them

 

[bluesfan94]

Yeah, on paper their squad is really poor, that is to be expected though as their domestic league is awful and unlike in the past the diaspora talent pool has dried up as well. However they are in a manageable group this time and could qualify, though Slovakia seems to be a bogey team for them

The fact that there's an MLS team here might actually help Bosnia a fair amount.

 

[ScottishCanuck]

Yaaasss

 

[Ceremony]

MCSAUSDE

Or, McSauce.

 

[SimpleJack]

Belgium is so much better than Germany it’s hard to comprehend.

I don’t get why people think Germany has a bright future. I keep seeing the same lineups with the same bad players. Flick sucks. They have zero young talent on defense to replace Ginter or Sule or whoever else they’re forced to trot out there.

Germany will not be contending for any Euro or World Cup trophies for a very long time, possibly never again. Not with how far they’ve fallen.

 

[Brunkmeister]

Can’t think of two countries with such different style of play than Scotland and Spain. Interesting matchup and with that early goal it’s very much likely Spain will get frustrated.

 

[bluesfan94]

They have zero young talent on defense to replace Ginter or Sule or whoever else they’re forced to trot out there.

I wouldn't go this far, as I think ABK is pretty solid and I also don't hate Schlotterbeck as much as some here, but yes, they need to find some CB talent and fast.

 

[SimpleJack]

I wouldn't go this far, as I think ABK is pretty solid and I also don't hate Schlotterbeck as much as some here, but yes, they need to find some CB talent and fast.

It’s not coming any time soon. They simply don’t have enough talent in their pipeline like they always used to. Times are changing and Germany is no longer a relevant soccer power. They aren’t even top 20 in the world. And it’s only going to get worse.

 

[ScottishCanuck]

Pedro Porro - embarrassing

 

[bluesfan94]

It’s not coming any time soon. They simply don’t have enough talent in their pipeline like they always used to. Times are changing and Germany is no longer a relevant soccer power. They aren’t even top 20 in the world. And it’s only going to get worse.

They have plenty of talent in their pipeline, it's just not at all the positions. Which happens to every country. You could find a hole in every country's upcoming talent except maybe France. But Musiala, Wirtz, Moukoko, Adeyemi is a solid group.

 

[HajdukSplit]

Huge mistake by Turkish keeper to give Croatia a two goal lead heading into halftime

 

[ScottishCanuck]

It’s not coming any time soon. They simply don’t have enough talent in their pipeline like they always used to. Times are changing and Germany is no longer a relevant soccer power. They aren’t even top 20 in the world. And it’s only going to get worse.

Nonsensical hyperbole.