I have to admit, sometimes it is fun to just watch things as a casual fan.
I don’t have a major rooting interest in the Euros and I didn’t feel the need to try and go deep into the analysis for the tournament this season. Rather, I have enjoyed being able to watch things more causally. Enjoying the games as a background distraction while I went about my normal work.
I still love watching Arsenal and other Leagues but watching with the specific intent to do analysis and commentary, taking notes and looking for ways to connect a coherent story about a game and the longer trends can be a little draining and this is a nice change of pace to help enjoy the simpler things about the game.
It would have also been hard given that the broadcaster in the United States, FOX decided that a good portion of the early group stage matches weren’t worth showing here and I didn’t need another streaming service to sign up for and potentially forget to cancel.
All that out of the way, let’s take a too small of sample, with a casual fan look at the group stage.
My big takeaways from the group games:
Spain seem to be good and perhaps the most balanced in attack and midfield. The backline wasn’t really tested in this group and on paper that could be a weakness but to exploit it, would require taking the ball off of them.
Portugal might be really good but they continue to shoehorn in Cristiano Renaldo into the team and that might eventually come back to bite them.
Germany look pretty good stats wise but I am not sure we learned much about them here. A red card against a Scotland team that didn’t have a coherent plan wasn’t good, a decent performance against Hungary and then a dead rubber against Switzerland.
England and France looked boring but probably fine. The plan to just depend on superior talent carrying them might not work but it is a knock out tournament so it also just might too.
England are perhaps not as bad as the English media and fans are suggesting from my outside view. Yeah the left side is pretty broken, but that was the risk going with an inured Luke Shaw. The midfield lacks some ball progression and the Trent Alexander-Arnold experiment didn’t work. I don’t think Kobie Mainoo is good enough yet but he or Adam Wharton might be the best fit to play the role next to Declan Rice. They also have some massive good fortune with the way that the bracket has shaped up for them avoiding Spain, Germany, Portugal, France, and Belgium until the final.
This is enough to make them the favorites to win this tournament right now.
The Arsenal players
Saka has been Saka so far in my view. It might be nice if he cold have gotten a couple more shots but that really isn’t what is going to happen in this England team. He has looked like one of England’s best players and if they are to go far it will probably be because of something Saka can do.
I have read and seen the reactions to Ian Wright’s suggestion of him potentially playing left back and it for me isn’t THAT crazy. Saka is a special kind of talented player that if you stuck him anywhere on the pitch (outside of center back) I think he could do a good job. I think that it says a lot about Saka’s ability as a total footballer that this isn’t outlandish from the initial suggestion.
He has played left back in the past (but probably too long ago for this to be realistic) and the left side of the England team needs width rather than another player wanting to have the ball in the half spaces. I could see a world where the improvement to England’s left side is enough to justify the loss of Saka to Palmer on the right wing.
I think it says more about the silly plan to not have a left footed alternative to Shaw there than anything else and it is probably a bad idea to make the switch in a high stakes knockout game.
Rice has not looked great for England.
In the matches I have watched it has looked like the teams facing England have man marked him forcing others in midfield to need to progress the ball or have triggered their pressure to close him down not allowing him to turn and face up the field to carry or pass forward.
This has left Rice with mediocre numbers and England looking very stody when trying to build up play.
Maybe the introduction of Mainoo next to him will help, I have my doubts because he is also not a great passer in buildup. This will be a big thing for Southgate to try and address.
This has been a real Havertz classic of a Euros so far. He has from what I have seen looked like a good link forward, he has occupied the center backs and combined well with the other German attackers running around him. He has also had some of the worries show as well. He is at less than 2 shots per 90 in this small sample size (but with good quality).
I haven’t seen anything that would be a red flag that I wasn’t aware of already. He looks like a player that is doing exactly the job that is required of him at a high but perhaps not elite level.
I don’t have big thoughts about Italy nor Jorginho more specifically. He looked good against Albania but the didn’t do much in the midfield in that match. He looked less good against Spain who had one of the best displays of the group stage in that match. He looked back to a bit better against Croatia.
Italy look like a team full of above average players that don’t really fit together all that well and it comes out with a team that is a bit less than the sum of their parts.
Saliba I think has started slowly but has looked better as the group stage moved along. France has played a pretty conservative style and I think that is reflected in Saliba’s stats. He has a lot of passes but they are VERY safe ones and of pretty low value from him in regards to moving up the field.
He has just 1 final third entry, 3 progressive passes, and 5 progressive carries. This is not the typical Saliba yet at all.
As a defender he has had moments where he looks like the Saliba we know from Arsenal but also has had a few dicey ones where he has needed help from his teammates. He is playing out of his usual position on the left in a new partnership so maybe this will improve the further France goes.
Poland is another team that I don’t have a lot to say about. They seem like a classic lower level Euros team, full of some average and maybe a bit above players and they have one super star. In this tournament the super star hasn’t been able to play much and the look like a much worse team because of it.
Jakub Kiwior has looked more comfortable as the left sided center back in the 3-5-2 than he did at times at Arsenal where he is asked to play full back but I don’t think what he did here really changed his overall stock. It is interesting that he filled up the stat sheet with defensive actions but the big moment that I think most will remember is him getting beat by Dembele and giving away a penalty.
Belgium are a weird team. They have played petty well, doing well to get the ball forward, and generate shots. They have not finished them well at all. They have nearly 5 expected goals and just 2 actual goals so far this Euros.
Leandro Trossard would typically be the kind of player that work well with this team. He can be peripheral at times in buildup or even getting the ball into the box but he has a knack for a final action. The story of Trossard with Arsenal this season was meh performance with a goal that was pivotal.
With Belgium he looks to have kept the meh performance but left the important goal behind.
It’s less than 2 90s so really small sample size so maybe he will have that goal or two in him still.
I couldn’t watch the first Ukraine match because FOX decided not to show it. The second Ukraine match ZInchenko was probably the best player on the field and in the third, must win match against Belgium he didn’t start.
That might sum things up with ZIncehnko. Very good but not fully trusted.
***
It has been a good group stage and it is set up for an exciting knock out round.