Quote:
Originally posted by Link:
I think the Greeks stand a good chance against the Czech Republic, even though everyone favours the latter one. There's a big difference between the Danes and the Greeks on the subject of playing style. The Greeks are a very defensive team (good solid defending, weak attackers, playing counter football), whilst the Danes are an offensive team (weak defense, mediocre midfield, and very decent front line; Tomasson just isn't a true striker, that's Ebbe Sand, and he was injured --> that takes the venom out of their attacks). The Czechs were good against the Danes because of that, I think they will have a very hard time with the Greek defense.
The Czech team has some good offensive players and midfielders (Koller, Poborsky, Baros, Rosicky and of course Nedved) but their defenders are nothing to write home about. It's not just plain luck the Dutch got a 2-0 advantage against them, not to mention both Germany and Latvia getting in front in their matches as well.
|
I see that a little different. The Greeks have ALWAYS been a defensive team, simply because they can't do much else. In their entire history, the Greeks faced the Czechs 10 times, only one time they got away with a draw, the 9 other times they got a severe spanking. It won't be any differnt this time, IF they only play defensively. The Czechs have too many weapons to hurt teams from basically anywhere on the pitch. Especially free kicks and corners are a problem for teams playing against.
The way i see it, this team can only be stopped if you play offensively yourself. Did you see how many scoringopportunities Holland got in the first half ? With a little more luck they could have scored 5 or 6 goals in the first half alone. Holland only got in trouble when Advocaat took out an attacker and replaced him with a midfielder. Defensively we don't stand a chance against them, simply because we suck defensively.
But offensively we have all the tools to make them hurt, because their defensive is their weakness too. Who cares if they score 3 or 4 goals against us ? As long as we score one more than them it's fine with me, and that's the classic Cruyff approach.
Should we reach the finals and meet them again, i'd field 5 strikers, let's see how they deal with that.