Seeing more of this in football players. It is a sport that provides a massive cardio workout. Sprints, jogs, constant movement, constant stretching. Not only are top professionals running 10km each game, they are also doing complete HIT sessions during each game. Add to that the 4-5 times they do training each week. While it makes you supremely fit, the science is not complete on how good being supremely fit is for you. Or to rephrase that (because fitness is obviously good), is there a point where you put too much work on your heart?
Posts from Semigoodlooking in thread „All about football (soccer)“
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He'll have to take his $200,000 a week pay check somewhere else then, if anyone can afford him.
He was on anywhere between 600,000 and 1 million euros a week with Barcelona. Considering whoever gets him, get him for free, he will be commanding a similar wage again.
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They have Messi, Depay, and Aguero all un-registered because they are breaking La Liga rules for wages. It looks as though a fire sale will be neccesary, but the players Barca wants to sell no-one wants (Dembele, Umtiti, Pjanic, Coutinho), the ones they might sell do not want to leave (Griezmann), and the ones they won't sell everybody wants (Pedri, De Jong, Fati). So, the club is scrambling around looking for a way to free its wage bill. It is not just a case of take a loan either, because that will no solve the issue.
Barca is both massively in debt and breaking rules. It looks as though Messi's next contract would need to be a significant reduction on his wages, with a promise of an ambassadors job when he retires that pays obscene amounts. He could sign a contract today, but he could not be registered, like Aguero and Depay. It may be that Barcelona's only hope comes from La Liga ignoring its own rules. Not unprecedented when it comes to Barca and Real Madrid, but the league has been tough on financial fair play, so who knows.
You cannot spend nearly £500 million on four players and them all become relative failures (Dembele, Coutinho, Griezmann, Pjanic) and at the same time sell one of your stars (Neymar) and lose another to age (Suarez). Barcelona has been a horribly run club for years and if they were a smaller outfit would be staring down the barrel of going under.
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Look at how Italy passed the ball between the back 4 and the midfield waiting for the opening.....
Swift accurate passing and way ahead of the rest of the teams
I am not sure France's current team could do it. Although their under 21 squad look very good when they break out of defence.
Maybe France couldn't because their style is built more on pace. However, Italy was so controlled yesterday because Englands allowed them to be. Let's not forget Italy had just 35% possession against Spain. Had mostly even possesion against Belgium, Austria and Swtizerland. dominated possession against Wales and Turkey. Italy is a good passing team, no doubt, but it is not a team used to dominating the ball like Spain is. Switzerland and Austria are lesser teams than England and showed it is possible to share possesion with Italy.
England had 34% possession yesterday, which is just not good enough and is not entirely down to Italy. It may look like they were showing Italy respect but I think Southgate was playing for 1-0 and it backfired. That's why England was content to sit in two blocks and let Italy pass it about in front of them. This wasn't a passing carousel like Barca, Bayern, Man City or Spain, it was England giving Italy the ball until the plan went to pot when Italy scored.
It was a masitake on Southgate's part. He didn't react to Mancini changing the formation to allow Chielini to enter more attacks in midfield. England mostly controlled the defensive situation in the first half. Italy used a defender to flood the midfield in the second and England became outnumbered. Southgate didn't react until after the goal.
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England's problem is that they allowed Italy to have so much possession, it affected them in the second half when they just couldn't get the ball back, they kept playing long balls again
The reason why they'll never win a major finals again is because their mentality, their physical attribute, and overall fitness is very poor compared to other countries. They may have beaten the likes of Croatia, Germany and Ukraine, but they may have been exhausted over a long season that barely ended a few weeks compared to the EPL
You're correct, they allowed Italy the possession. It was a gameplan from Southgate and it failed. There were spells when England was more proactive and looked more dangerous. Southgate is known as a negative manager but it cost them in the final. Italy has been organized but is not an amazing team and England on paper is better. The difference yesterday was the coaching, Mancini is just better than Southgate.
However, a hard disagree on fitness. There is no team fitter than England and indeed in world football. That's thanks to the Premier League, by far the fittest in the sport. In fact, it is perhaps the biggest attribute the English have. England had three players in the top five in terms of distance covered through the tournament. Problem is only one of them is in the top five for distance in possession. In other words, they are covering all that distance chasing the ball because of Southgate's negative tactics. When Jorghino and Pedri from Spain cover distance, they do it in possession.
Italy did not look fitter than England yesterday, although they have covered more distance during the tournament (877km to 807km), they just use the ball better.
Two players from England also scored in the top five for sprints, but no English player is close for passes. It just all shows while England have improved technically in recent years, their game is too rooted in physicality and not actually controlling games. It is much more draining running around like a headless chicken chasing the ball than it is passing and dictating the pace of a game. England have one of the best defensive units and one of the best attacks, but lack a proper midfield. In some ways, Southgate was hamstrung into playing Rice and Phillips, two defensive midfielders, because box-to-box options are lacking. Not knocking those players, both did well enough, but they offer something specific.
Stick Veratti/Kante/Pogba/Kroos etc. in that England squad and it could arguably be the most complete squad in current international football with the possible exception of France.
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Strange in that the finals were played in several countries instead of in the one host country. Supporters not being allowed to attend didn't help either. Smoking Rothmans Red at the mo.
I think UEFA have already said that hosting in so many nations was a mistake because it was unfair to some teams. Supporters were allowed to attend in the majority of games during the finals though.
As for England, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as you would expect. After 1-0 they were the team on top but decided to play for the 1-0, dropped incredibly deep in blocks. It only needed one relatively lucky Italian goal and the gameplan crumbled. England were the better team whenever they played on the front foot but Southgate is a defensive manager and not very brave.
Then, he decided to bring on two players only for the penalties. One, Sancho, who has barely kicked a ball this tournment. Both who came on completely cold and who he left standing waiting to come on for nearly 10 minutes. Almost their first action of the game was to take a massive penalty in front of 60,000 with the weight of a nations' expectations. I said as soon as they came on so late both would miss. Yes, penalties are largely a lottery, but that was setting them up to fail.
He then gives the deciding fifth pen to a 19-year-old who had looked awed by the occasion during the game. Southgate later said it was because Saka was scoring penalties in training. Maybe, but that entirely disregards his mentality in a pressure situation. Anyway, it fell to a 19-year-old with little experience to end 55 years of not winning an international tournament. Oops.
Southgate will receive all the praise for getting to the semis of the World Cup and final of the Euro but the reality is he is holding the team back. This is arguably the best collection of players in international football at the moment barring France.
As for Argentina, they were the better team against a Brazil that bizzarely seemed more interested in seeking a red card for Argentina than scoring goals, so spent most of the final drawing fouls. Deserved win for Argentina, but the pick of a bad bunch as South American football continues to regress.
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Colombia is a tricky team but Argentina should be up to the task. Fully expecting a win.
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It's a horror tackle but oddly in terms of pure rules, probably just a foul. He would get a red card possibly for serious foul play, but the reality is he is just late.
Still, that's a really dangerous tackle and a potential leg/ankle breaker. As is the case with all these types of fouls it has a lot to do with the standing leg of the player receiving the tackle, and weight distribtuon etc. I am re-watching it multiple times and it's a shocker. I have seen worse, for sure though.
