Drekkard, you've admitted not long ago that Barca's style is defensive, but you never had an issue with it. Why's this an issue now? Because it's a different type of defensive football?
I don't mind any style of football, even if I dislike it. I just wouldn't support that style. Any team can play any type of football they want and perfect it and have the others beat them if they can. Sometimes it's really ugly to watch but so be it. This is ironically the beauty of football. As long as all these types are within the boundaries of football rules.
Hi Lami, I think you got it very wrong here... Of course I admitted that Barcelona under Pep Guardiola was deffensive in the sense that they tried to deny the ball to the opponent and control the game at all times. That's obvious. But it was based on skill and creativity. Under Guardiola, while being very deffensive Barcelona was at the same time very offensive when they found spaces. It was all about creating the right space and then take profit of it. And they did it in a way no one had done before, playing with exquisite technique and skills. That's the reason why it was one of the teams generating more goal chances in the planet.
To compare that with the overall style of the Euro... Sorry, but it's a bit absurd. I'm not against trying to be deffensive; I praised Simeone many times, for example. I'm not against defending. But I'm against defending as the only purpose of the game and specially HOW you do it.
The average level of this euro has been excruciatingly low, for all teams. The fact that deffensive/destructive football has had such good results is because no one played to win, it seems that everybody played to avoid being defeated. And it saddens me. The final was a good deifinition of it. Two teams with too much fear to loose, trying to prevent the other team from scoring at all costs, but forgetting to create, or just being too mediocre to do it. Look at France squad: 4 defenders and 3 physical DMF!!! Really? That's the best they can do?
At the end the winner almost always deserves the title, though I really didn't care much about who won it (actually I was watching Calexico live and only watched since halftime). Only Germany tried to play football the way I like it. Oh, yes, I loved how Iceland, Wales and Poland made the most out of it, they did what they had to do.
I agree with Gerd, it seems that the result justifies everything. It might be me being too old, but I don't remember such a skill-less, creativity-less tournament in my entire life. Copa America came close, though, and it worries me as it seems a world trend.
I feel as if all skill and personality is being thrown out of the game in favor for very physical, tactical aspects. And tactically there's too much fear and results justify everything. Personally, this is just the opposite of what I like. Personal oppinion, of course, but totally coherent.
In the end Messi retires and Ronaldo inspires.
he just leap frog Messi .
