Euro 2012: Day 3: Rep. of Ireland v Croatia match thread

[Bus-Conductor]

Harsh on Given for the first goal. He was going the opposite way, if you knew how hard it is to be a keeper and change your direction like that you'd know how difficult it was for him to save that. Not the most powerful of headers yes, but he managed to get fingertips to it. Had he not been moving the other way he would have saved it.

As for the second one, massive good fortune hitting off his head. Absolutely nothing he could do.

Fair enough, maybe not poor keeping for the first, just fortuitous that Given happened to be going the opposite way, just seemed like a bit of a soft goal. The header wasn't exactly powerful and was quite far out.

Either way, I don't think Croatia created much of quality and despite Ireland being poor looked vulnerable at times.

L10's just defending them because he's a huge fan of the 442 chocolate teapot tactics !

 

[Legend10]

Both were good enough headers, but both were fortunate to go in. The first one because of Given's poor keeping, the second one because it actually was put in by Given. I'm not so sure that would have "spun in".

But generally Croatia created very little, against arguably, the weakest side in the tournament, even when the weakest side were chasing the game and leaving themselves exposed.

If you see it again from the side angle you can see the ball spin up off of the post and immediately start to spin inwards, I've no doubt it would have gone in and frankly was a very very good header as was the way he improvised for the first.

At 3-1 Croatia really didn't need to score again so no need to commit, that said I do agree it's pretty hard not to create against that level of opposition and watching Dunne was like watching an old keystone cops movie, let's see if the Klingon Lescott can match him for shitness.

 

[Legend10]

Fair enough, maybe not poor keeping for the first, just fortuitous that Given happened to be going the opposite way, just seemed like a bit of a soft goal. The header wasn't exactly powerful and was quite far out.

Either way, I don't think Croatia created much of quality and despite Ireland being poor looked vulnerable at times.

L10's just defending them because he's a huge fan of the 442 chocolate teapot tactics !

Am I?

I don't think Croatia will play 442 against Spain and probably won't against Italy!

I've always said take into account the opposition etc, are you telling me if you were Croatia's manager you wouldn't have gone 442 yesterday?

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Am I?

I don't think Croatia will play 442 against Spain and probably won't against Italy!

I've always said take into account the opposition etc, are you telling me if you were Croatia's manager you wouldn't have gone 442 yesterday?

I don't think Croatia looked very impressive yesterday, no. I don't think it was just because they played 442, but a few reasons, very similar to spurs. They have some good footballers, but lack tactical discipline and a bit of coherence.

I was just pulling your leg re the chocolate teapot midfield by the way.

 

[Legend10]

I don't think Croatia looked very impressive yesterday, no. I don't think it was just because they played 442, but a few reasons, very similar to spurs. They have some good footballers, but lack tactical discipline and a bit of coherence.

I was just pulling your leg re the chocolate teapot midfield by the way.

I thought they looked ok, I don't expect them to get anything against Spain but yesterday was a must win match for both and Croatia v Italy will now be very interesting and i wouldn't like to call it!

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I thought they looked ok, I don't expect them to get anything against Spain but yesterday was a must win match for both and Croatia v Italy will now be very interesting and i wouldn't like to call it!

I think if Bilic plays the same way against Italy then Croatia are doomed.

 

[Legend10]

I think if Bilic plays the same way against Italy then Croatia are doomed.

But I doubt he will, I don't think Jelavic will start!

He knew that they had to beat Ireland yesterday, a draw would probably have condemned them both, so he went all out for the win and got it pretty comfortably.

 

[DuDe]

I got hammered last night.

 

[Legend10]

I got hammered last night.

Nice, jealous actually!

 

[Dinpomp]

they released him

No. And two wrongs don't make a right.

He doesn't play for Werder Bremen, but for Wolfsburg.

They didn't release him. They said he could go "for an acceptable fee" (much to the disgruntlement of Wolfsburg supporters).

If I had to estimate, I'd say the bidding wouldn't start below 10m euros. Lokomotiv Moscow (Bilic's new club) were rumoured to be bidding 14m euros last week. How credible, I really don't know, but he's definitely not going to be a free player. A good performance at the Euros (like yesterday vs. Ireland) and his stock will only go up.

 

[THFC_67]

How can you term the 3rd goal soft? a great header that as someone said above would have been in the net regardless. Mandzukic did what all good strikers do..the slightest of movements away from his marker and got his head on a good cross.

The other two, on the other hand....

And yeah..we we unlucky with Keano's penalty not given...though it was far from a stone-waller

The third goal was soft due to the amount of room that John O' Shea gave to the guy who crossed the ball, way too much room. Also I think that Mandzukic got to the cross too easily, crosses like that should be meat and drink to Dunne and St. Ledger. It was an accurate header but too easy in my opinion. Now Shevchenko's first goal tonight, that was a great header, second one not bad either.

We have an average side and need to do the basics right to get anything out of games at this level, that means full backs getting tight and trying their utmost to stop crosses and centre halves attacking that ball if it does come in, nothing easy should be the mantra. As I said if Croatia had cut us open with brilliant play then fair enough but they didn't, its only my opinion but I feel that the goals were soft because Croatia didn't have to do too much to get them.

 

[Dinpomp]

I thought the 3rd goal was greatly due to some very good passing and build-up play.

Perisic had time to cross the ball exactly because of that quick passing.



Action (for 3rd goal) starts at 2:47.

 

[THFC_67]

Ok I take your point that Croatia did move the ball around well in the build up to the cross, I also think that it was an excellent header. However I still feel that O' Shea should have got closer and that the centre halves should have done a better job of dealing with the cross.

For a team that relies on being hard to break down it all looked a little too easy. From a Croatian or a neutral's point of view it's probably a very good goal but I'm looking at it through green glasses and unless it's a contender for goal of the tournament I'll probably find something that we could have done better with. I do the same with goals that spurs concede but never look at what the opposition's defence could have done with goals we score. Biased and over critical ?, guilty I'm afraid.

I don't mean to detract from Croatia's desrved victory, I just feel that Ireland could have done a lot better on all three goals.

 

[taidgh]

i'm not saying it was the most wondrous of goals, just that the term 'soft' is thrown around all too easily for goals that may be nothing special, but perfectly legitimate. if no mistakes were made on the pitch, there would be no goals at all.