Wow those are some spicy takes! 
I got France better at GK, CBs, Mid (with exception of Bruno) and ST? I guess youâd take Bernardo Silva over Benzema / Griezzmann, but itâs fairly close. I just assumed CR7 was washed since Juve didnât title this year.
ETA lol 29 goals to lead Serie A. Not washed it seems!
Yeah I was almost ready to call Ronaldo washed this time last year but he was insane this year. Best player in Serie A.
I really like Guerreiro and Cancelo. I think the French CBs are worth more as individual players but I just love the leadership/experience of Pepe. Ruben Dias got PFA player of the year in the PL. He might be the most on form CB in the world.
Both France and Portugal donât really ask their midfield to do much. Kante mostly sits, same with Pogba. Neves/Carvalho/Moutinho will do the same.
There is an argument that Guerreiro and Cancelo will be much more restrained for Portugal than for Dortmund/City, which is fair.
Portugal has largely just been a counter attacking team reliant on Ronaldo for the last 8-10 years now they have a ton of talent. I genuinely donât know if they will change their style.
France plays pretty restrained for their talent as well, but its worked.
Just wait until the next World Cup. Somehow theyâve found a format even dumber than the current Euro one.
Itâs almost impossible to overstate how football mad Brazil is. I thought Mexico was crazy about football, but itâs nothing compared to Brazil. In Mexico, kids play a lot obviously, but it seems more like a hobby. In Brazil, it seems more like life and death. Just walking around on the beaches in Rio youâll see guys and girls everywhere playing keepy uppy on the beaches with flawless touch after flawless touch, theyâll play a ping-pong version of football, beach football, footvolley. Iâve almost never seen Mexican kids playing soccer on the beach.
Footvolley is probably the most insane thing Iâve seen, the level of control they have with their chests and shoulders is otherworldy. It would make for an amazing Olympic sport, but I think all the best teams would just be Brazilian, so maybe for that reason theyâll never have it. Youâll also see Brazilian club team jerseys being worn constantly. In Mexico, it normally only happens on matchdays.
One other big thing is the average level of athlete each country has. It might be a bit racially insensitive to say, but due to the racial mix, Brazil has a big advantage. They have much more African blood mixed in (in Mexico there is almost none), and Mexico maintains more indigenous blood. As such, Mexicans tend to be short and weak and in Brazil youâll see quite a few guys who are just shredded and elite athletes, especially in Rio.
The final thing is the gym culture in Brazil is like no other. In Mexico, there is almost no gym culture and very few people work out regularly. In Brazil, you will constantly see people of all ages doing Crossfit like circuit drills on the beach. Itâs kinda nuts. Brazil is a fascinating culture and I would love to live there (in Rio mainly) but itâs way more complicated than Mexico.
In short: itâs absolutely absurd that Brazil doesnât constantly have a top 3 team ITW.
If youâve never seen competitive sepak takraw, you should check it out. It is more insane. Skills would transfer pretty well to footvolley, I assume (ball is very different), so it wouldnât surprise me if some Asian countries could put together some competitive teams.
Good football teams rely at least as much on partnerships as on an aggregate of individual abilities. Assessing a teamâs strength like this is futile.
Itâs one reason why the brave hearted should strongly consider laying England. Not only is Southgate still unsure of his best team, itâs also far from clear which partnerships work best.
Then thereâs also the draw to consider. To reach even the quarter finals England as group winners will probably have to face their old nemeses Germany or Portugal, and as runners up probably meet France in the quarter finals.
While I agree with all of this, I still think France, Portugal and England have so much more talent than the next tier of contenders. I really canât see anyone else winning except maybe Belgium.
Even if England started Rashford/Kane/Saka over Grealish/Kane/Sancho, itâs not a big difference in quality. Itâs miles ahead of what Italy, Spain and the Dutch have.
Greece won the Euros with barely a player anyone could name before the tournament.
Czechoslovakia won in 76, similarly (though everyone knows Panenka now).
That greek run was super flukey though IIRC. Reality is that single elimination football will lead to lulz.
Yeah they seem like more of an exception that proves the rule than anything else. Usually talent wins at international competitions, tactics are important but you canât build a team to the coaches system like you can with club football. Its hard to implement âsystemâ football with an international team because you end up jamming square pegs into round holes.
Mainly because they played at home Iâd think.
No one gave them a chance tbh.
Scotland has for once a decent chance of going forward with 2 home games and a slice of luck and a youngish team for a change that has
And his system brought Chelsea much success when he was under mourinho⊠Its not often we can say we have 2 CL winners in our team and a bunch of lads who you can count on to put every effort into winning and no one & I mean no one apart from Ronaldo will put in as much effort to win.
Our only real leak is upfront and tbh we wonât score many goals but yer gonna have to beat us.
If we can get that Draw down in Wembley which tbh shouldnât be to hard we got a good chance at qualifying and we play better against the big boys and they know it. Our failures tend to be against the tier 2 teams in Europe which tbh is our group and thatâs a worry.
Oh and we donât cheat err dive, so maybe thatâs also a hindering.
Tune in to hear the best atmosphere in European football when we play at the most historic place in the UK. 
https://mobile.twitter.com/FitbaPatter/status/1400892955079151619
And with the exception of 2016, where France lost in the final, the most talented squad has won in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018. The only team that wasnât the pre tournament favorite of late was Germany, and that was because a mediocre Brazil team was given way too big of an edge due to playing at home.
Chalk has won basically every time in recent history.
Iâve bet the tournament winner and golden boot winner in all but one of those, sadly biggest bet was $100.
Iâve had my best luck betting slight ML dogs the last few WCs that I thought should have been favored. Croatia +426 v England and Scotland +209 v CR seem like good value.
Iâll probably be doing my usual thing of laying favourites in bigger games that attract a lot of mug punter money. I love draws in normal time.
Works for me.
I donât remember it being particularly flukey tbh, like there wasnât a game where I thought the opposition had been robbed, unlike the travesty with S Korea in the 2002 WC.
I might throw a score on Germany as I usually would but apart from that I donât bet football in general & would be relying on total luck.
I hate betting on football tbh, I would have picked France when they lost in the final etc, picked Italy in a WC when bebeto & Romario ran the show, bla bla bla.
So hereâs my tip & it would have been France to win as I feel overall they can beat all the teams here and play a system that could put Portugal system out of joint, I think.
Only time I had a bit of luck was when RM/Zidane came to Scotland and I won a few quid for a change lol.
Top scorer/winner doubles are obvious fish bets but Iâve nailed almost every tournament the last decade.
I like both Hungary and North Macedonia for lowest scorers of the tournament, I doubt either team gets a goal. Hungary were 5/1, ND were slightly higher. Hungary do play against France and Portugal at home, but their best player is out for the tournament and they are overmatched even with Szobaslai.
I agree, it wasnât particularly flukey at all. They had a very solid defence, played somewhat tedious unambitious football that was within their ability with every player understanding his part, and didnât get overrun in any game.
2004 was in Portugal.
The Danes were the other shock winners back in 1992. They were only there because Yugoslavia had to drop out because of the war. Again, I thought they actually deserved the win once there, and they played some pretty tough teams.
