Stan

2-0 Germany. Mittelstadt sets up Gundogan about 10 yards out to finish. 

Thought that was in! Would have been one of the best team goals. 

Germany been relentless since the goal. 

Hungary player conned the ref there. Stepped on Musiala's foot but feigned injury. 

Brilliant defending from Tah. 

Not a foul for me. 

Scrappy goal but Musiala eventually got it in the back of the net 

Pure mayhem at the end. Proper end to end football. Great to watch., 

Amateur defending from Sutalo. 

Albania!!! Wow. 

3 minutes ago, Redcanuck said:

I think they thought they had managed the game better, took off an attacker and brought on a defensive midfielder.   Give up two scrappy goals a couple minutes later.  Harsh on Albania but at least I am still alive in the Last Man Standing.

I meant by players on the pitch. I know they want/need the win, but when it was 1-1 they were still under lots of pressure, and the keeper is rolling the ball out extremely quickly and giving no time or chance for his players to recover or just have a bit of a break. 

2 minutes ago, Michael said:

The thing is the difference in quality usually shows. Croatia have the depth to bring on subs that make a difference, Albania don't have that luxury and over the course of a match, these things usually make a difference. Croatia are still not going to go far in this competition in my opinion. They will probably get knocked out in the Round of 16, if they even get out of the group. Albania have not shamed themselves and they have some good players. But they are ranked by the bookies as the weakest team in this competition alongside Georgia for a reason.

Yep, you're not wrong there and Croatia do have better depth. All the more reason to try and manage the game situation better and slow things down, slow the momentum of Croatia and take the sting out of the game, as they say. 

Albania must be absolutely knackered. The first Croatia goal was coming, then they carried on rushing and rushing. Should have managed the game better. 

Seems like only a matter of time before Croatia score now. Vastly improved since HT. 

3 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/13155319/steve-cooper-close-to-being-appointed-new-leicester-city-head-coach
 

Steve Cooper to be their new manager. Weird one, but I do think it’s a bit hard to judge how he’s done with Forest considering they’ve been a circus since getting promoted.

But definitely doesn’t feel as safe as appointing Potter, but he must have turned them down.

Apparently we were ready to progress with Potter as of last night but he wanted more time. Now sounds like our owners are just getting a bit sick and tired of waiting around so have moved on.

The glaring and mostly disappointing problem here is that the next answer isn't to then go for Cooper. It's massively underwhelming in our position, considering he has a different style of play to Maresca and his record in PL with Forest is pretty dire. Something like 12 wins only in 50 odd games, and barely any away wins.

The points deduction is bad enough but it just seems like it'll be a season of misery, distinct disappointment and just a constant feeling of underwhelming failure. 

This, on top of news yesterday that match tickets are increasing by up to 38% in some areas. We are not the once well-respected club off the pitch we used to be. We're so badly run and our owners are hugely out of touch with the fans of the club that were here way before they were. Sad thing is there's a lot of people that will pay the money but your normal, average match-goer and die-hard fan is now being priced out of the game. Which I appreciate is a general problem with the game itself but it would have been nice for the club to not follow that pattern and be the ones to stand out for the right reasons, like before. But now we're just a small cog in the same football machine. 

Croatia have been worse than shit. 

Lovely goal. 

Asllani crosses for Laci to glance a header in. 

Reminder

@Coma @Panflute @Bluebird Hewitt @londonerlilie

If you miss any predictions and thread is locked, please PM me. 

10 minutes ago, Michael said:

@Stan, just a question about players and their transfer values changing based on their performances after matchday 3. We are all given a budget of £100m at the start. But if we say hypothetically that we have players in our team who have really played well in the group stage and by the Round of 16 our squad value is worth say £110m instead of the original £100m. Does this mean that we can say transfer a player out now worth £7m, who was originally worth £6m, for another player worth £7m? Can we also do this for example for other players in the team whose value has increased?

To summarise, would we have more money to play with after the group stage, because of the increase of value of our players in this hypothetical situation?

I believe you should be able to keep the money you have if sold at a higher price than when you bought the player.

So if you buy a player at £6m, sell at £7m, you then have the £7m to play with. 

There's one free transfer (plus any carried over) you can do between each matchday unless using one of the wildcard/limitless boosts. And you get -4 deducted from your matchday total if you make any transfers on top of the free transfer quota.

The rules on the site state:

 You can also make as many free transfers as you like between the group stage and round of 16.

Player prices
Player prices will stay the same until the Matchday 2 deadline. Once the Matchday 3 deadline has passed, some players' prices will be adjusted based on their performances in the previous games. Prices will keep changing throughout the season depending on how many points players score.

First round is already complete!

Of the 12 matches so far, only 2 real shocks as Romania thrashed Ukraine and Slovakia surprisingly got a 1-0 win over Belgium; while no-one opted for a Romania win, two players - @Beelzebub & @Redcanuck did wisely choose Slovakia victories.

The stand-out performer though is clearly @Viva la FCB, gaining a big 24 points with 3 perfect scores to kick Round 1 off. He is clear by 4 points of @Pep Talk, while @Dan & @6666 both achieved 19 points. 

Average points scored for the round were 14.6. Only a minor difference of 6 points separates 5th to 18th...

PREDICT FOR ROUND 2 HERE - deadline is 2pm (BST) TODAY

PREDICT FOR ROUND 3 HERE - deadline is 8pm (BST) on SUNDAY 23rd JUNE.  

@Bluebird Hewitt @Viva la FCB @Spike @RandoEFC @Redcanuck @Rucksackfranzose @Bluewolf @Coma @Tommy @Devil @Michael @JoshBRFC @Lucas @Pyfish @LFCMike @OrangeKhrush @MUFC @Dan @6666 @Beelzebub @Panflute @Pep Talk @londonerlilie @The Palace Fan @CaaC (John)

PLEASE GET ALL PREDICTIONS IN BY SUNDAY 23rd JUNE - Topic will be LOCKED at 20.00 (BST)

Sunday 23rd June, 2024
Group A
Switzerland vs Germany, 20.00
Scotland vs Hungary, 20.00

Monday 24th June, 2024
Group B
Croatia vs Italy, 20.00
Albania vs Spain, 20.00

Tuesday 25th June, 2024
Group C
England vs Slovenia, 20.00
Denmark vs Serbia, 20.00

Group D
Netherlands vs Austria, 17.00
France vs Poland, 17.00

Wednesday 26th June, 2024
Group E
Ukraine vs Belgium, 17.00
Slovakia vs Romania, 17.00

Group F
Czech Republic vs Turkey, 20.00
Georgia vs Portugal, 20.00

Just now, Michael said:

No, you just  misheard what they said. They said it's his competitive debut, which is true. He's only played in a friendlies for Portugal before this match. Attention to detail my friend.

That's what I meant all along

4 minutes ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

He needs much more than a slap.

One from each of us on this forum. 

Still won't be enough

A goal in every group game. So far so good...