Jump to content

Ordinary team - Great achievement


sjc

Recommended Posts

2 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Denmark were progressing, but not quite enough to qualify. They got a bit of luck with the civil war elsewhere and by the time of the finals were a good team, but they had good players and they proved that by winning it.

Far from ordinary.

Didn't qualify for WC90, WC94, rubbish in Euro88 and Euro96 (where they only qualified as winners). Greece's shitfest team at least had some longevity, horrific though they were.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest JTS98
2 minutes ago, Johnstoun said:

Didn't qualify for WC90, WC94, rubbish in Euro88 and Euro96 (where they only qualified as winners). Greece's shitfest team at least had some longevity, horrific though they were.

Denmark qualified for Euro 96 like everyone else. Winners didn't get an automatic spot. Qualified in second place from a group with Spain and Belgium.

You're right about the rest though. After Euro 88 they went into a bit of a decline, Euro 92 being very much an outlier in terms of their performance at the tournament, but consistent in that they didn't qualify.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, JTS98 said:

Denmark qualified for Euro 96 like everyone else. Winners didn't get an automatic spot. Qualified in second place from a group with Spain and Belgium.

You're right about the rest though. After Euro 88 they went into a bit of a decline, Euro 92 being very much an outlier in terms of their performance at the tournament, but consistent in that they didn't qualify.

Ah, schoolboy error!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest JTS98
10 minutes ago, Johnstoun said:

Ah, schoolboy error!

You're right about the general trend though.

Italia 90 they were quite close, but finished behind Romania. 92 they missed out to a very good Yugoslavia team. But then in 1994 they missed out on the World Cup by finishing third behind Spain and the Republic of Ireland. Then for Euro 96 they finished comfortably behind Spain again.

So, the general trend is that they were, of course, a decent team. But they failed to win a qualification group in their attempts at 90, 92, 94, and 96. And in this time won only three tournament games, being knocked out in the first round of the only tournament they participated at other than 92 from that bunch.

In comparison, Scotland qualified on merit for 1990 1992, and 1996, that's three times as many as Denmark, and also won three tournament games in this time.

Scotland and Denmark both had an average qualification group position of 2.25 in that period.

I think average is a fair assessment.

p.s. yes I am extremely bored.

Edited by JTS98
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, afca32 said:

Portugal 2016 were the definition of average.

They were. And any c**t wanting to talk about Ronaldo can shut it, he wasn't even on the park when they won it, waving your arms from the sidelines doesn't count either.

The Portugal side that lost to Greece in 04 was way better.

Edited by Carnoustie Young Guvnor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Portugal Euro 2016 - apart from Ronaldo (who is quite rightly considered one of the greatest players of all time) they were quite an ordinary team with a couple of good players, and France, who had players such as Pogba and Griezmann in their ranks, were heavily favoured to win the final.

Leicester City 2016 - if you look at the individuals in the squad - with a couple of exceptions who would soon emerge as top talents - they were an average side. However, that's what made their achievement of winning the league so great.

Rangers 2008 - this team, their style of play, their fans, their whole club were absolutely putrid so for them to shitefest their way to the UEFA Cup Final was ridiculous.

Porto 2004 - this was the first time in a decade that a team from outside the "big four" leagues won club footballs biggest prize beating Man Utd and Lyon en route to the final.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gretna reaching the Scottish Cup final. At the time everyone was going on about "moneybags Gretna" but that team that made the final was a bit shite really. A handful of players who went on to be quite decent at the lower end of the Premier League, a few players who were past that level and on one last payday and some really bang average players like Deuchar and McGuffie.

The achievement to get that rubbish to a cup final and take a good Hearts team to Extra Time is rightly overshadowed by Rowan Alexander's ridiculous kilt.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest JTS98
19 minutes ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

Gretna reaching the Scottish Cup final. At the time everyone was going on about "moneybags Gretna" but that team that made the final was a bit shite really. A handful of players who went on to be quite decent at the lower end of the Premier League, a few players who were past that level and on one last payday and some really bang average players like Deuchar and McGuffie.

The achievement to get that rubbish to a cup final and take a good Hearts team to Extra Time is rightly overshadowed by Rowan Alexander's ridiculous kilt.

Their performance in the final has grown arms and legs since that day.

The reality is that they were in the game for about 12 or 13 of the 120 minutes and if Hearts had won by four nobody could have complained much. Hit the post twice, missed a run of other chances, had a stick-on penalty not given by Hibs kent Dougie MacDonald.

Justice was done in the shoot-out, but it was one of the more one-sided cup finals.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

Gretna reaching the Scottish Cup final. At the time everyone was going on about "moneybags Gretna" but that team that made the final was a bit shite really. A handful of players who went on to be quite decent at the lower end of the Premier League, a few players who were past that level and on one last payday and some really bang average players like Deuchar and McGuffie.

The achievement to get that rubbish to a cup final and take a good Hearts team to Extra Time is rightly overshadowed by Rowan Alexander's ridiculous kilt.

They also didn't beat anyone above Championship level (St Johnstone, Clyde, St Mirren, Dundee) to get there.  

I'm bitter as having beaten Celtic we were denied a blatant penalty at Broadwood in drawing the first tie 0-0, before having to play into the worst wind I've seen in a match down at Raydale. We literally struggled to get the ball out our box at goal-kicks etc. Probably the best chance of getting to a Scottish cup final we'll have in my lifetime.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Lurkst said:

Notts Forest in the late 70s for me, with one or two exceptions a fairly ordinary squad but with an extraordinary management team.

 

Forest won too much to be an ordinary team, at a time when English sides dominated the European Cup.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did they not get the benefit of some ridiculous decisions?
The ref for the game ended up being suspended a few times in South America for poor decisions but there was never any proof of match fixing in the Italy game or anywhere else. He did go to prison for trying to smuggling heroin into the US though.

Although watching the highlights back, the penatly S.Korea got looked like a clear penalty and some of the offsides which were criticized were borderline. The Totti second yellow for diving was really poor but if he was trying to fix the match wouldn't he have done something earlier in the match? It was a mistake by Panucci with 2mins left that let S.Korea back in the game after all.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...