Shadow Scholar Syndicate: EM 2020--Day Eight Recap

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With warm preemptive congratulations to Kanzlerin Baerbock :)

Your friendly bookie wholeheartedly endorses a German velvet revolution. Let's go Europe!

Day 8: Recap

Bookie’s Stats—

Spread: 6-15

Straight up: 9-9-3

Who shall we award the day to in this case? How about the bookie himself, who raked in the dough by tipping the much-hyped "historic rivalry" to end in a draw. Slight bit of subterfuge from ol' Vicey there, mates. I could have revealed a bit more, including a straight 0-0 under bet for you.

It was patently obvious when one considered how the two teams matched up. Your friendly bookie doesn't like to play it slick. On occasion, however, a red-ink-laden start to a tourney demands it. Have to get back in the black in addition to keeping you gentlemen amused.

Let's award the day to the Scottish fans shall we? A hard-fought effort that was to keep Highland hopes alive. Despite the fact that their men's team still hasn't scored a goal in a major tournament in 23 years, yes sir they can boogie.

Admittedly, it's a different story outside of Wembley. UK news sites are jammed with stories about the litter in Leicester Square amid all the drunken reveling.....as if it's all that different after most major club football matches in the capital.

Sigh. There should have been some sort of public viewing available. Fan miles help these sort of thing, at the very least because they can be patrolled and controlled easier. It's about time we moved on.

See! Not everyone's a thoughtless drunken miscreant. Teenagers and twenty-somethings do their thing after drinking all day. Can't be avoided. They too shall grow older, humbler, and more responsible.

If your hobbies include sitting at home, tweeting pictures of crowds, and shaming people for not social distancing.....perhaps it's time you grew up too.

You could also read something reputable to get caught up on current events.

S.S.S. Tactical Breakdown

Must we really, Vicey? Afraid so. Even if the football today didn't constitute much of advertisement for the beautiful game, there's useful information for bettors in there. We'll check in with the boring-ass Swedes, slowly thawing out of their frigid 4-4-2 ice-block.

We'll then check in with the "Croats in Crisis" before examining the state of both teams in the match that every football fan on the planet felt let down by today. Swedes first. Eventually they'll be able to let it go. For now, the cold never bothered them anyway.

Lineup—Sweden—PROJECTED (4-4-2) (6/6/2021)

Your friendly bookie's more hopeful interpretation of the 4-4-2 we all knew we'd see. We could still see it later on in the competition. Andersson did employ lots of changes as the team progressed deeper in 2018. In addition to more familiar faces, we've also seen a much more subdued constellation through two rounds this time.

Lineup—Sweden—Match 1/2 (4-4-2) (6/14-18/2021)

Like Welsh interim trainer Rob Page on Day Six, Andersson saved us some drawing time by deploying the exact same XI in the exact same shape. Note how far back the wingers are stationed. Leipzig's Emil Forsberg is probably the only interesting actor in the set-up. He roves around, frequently cutting in and pushing up underneath the strikers to light a creative spark.

As everyone knows by now, the Swedes only managed some 10-15 percent possession in their opening 0-0 draw with Spain. They enjoyed a a great deal more space to operate in against the Slovaks today, demonstrating in the first half that they had absolutely no clue what to do with it. Wretched stuff. It was sorry as hell.

Much to the chagrin of Bundesliga enthusiasts, a player we all hope to see succeed played a match befitting of his age. Alexander Isak could not get his positioning sorted out. He literally ran into attacking partner Marcus Berg twice. After the break he looked even more confused. Communication problems persisted as he kept running down the wrong channels.

Finally, around the 60th, the Swedes and the match thawed out a bit. The introduction of your friendly bookie's preferred starter, Mainz's Robin Quaison, helped out matters quite a bit. The new duo up top generated numerous chances, making the very soft penalty that gave the Blaugults a 1-0 victory deserved at least.

Isak and Quaison together up top lends this team a bit of promise heading forward. They're probably already through on four points after today. Andersson goes for the slow thaw. There's a sculpture inside this block of ice. Instead of taking a chain saw to it, however, old man Olof appears content to just let the excess trim melt away. Figures.

At least they figured out how to drop the yellow shorts today. This is football, dammit. What's with the solid color kits? Are we trying to put these guys in gymnastics leotards? I better damn well see my Nationalmannschaft in black shorts tomorrow.

We're getting to England, mates. First, I'll explain why I thought Sunday's 1-0 win over Croatia constituted a very soft debut for the Three Lions. I've referenced the post-Mandzukic identity crisis a bit in passing. Some visual elucidation is in order.

Lineup—Croatia—PROJECTED (4-3-3) (6/3/2021)

This is how I thought it would look if Zlatko Dalic simply treated Andrej Kramaric as Mandzukic's natural heir. There's reason enough to do just that. Instead, the Croat manager has been playing around too much. England should have done much better against this.

Lineup—Croatia—Match One (4-1-4-1) (6/13/2020)

An absolute mess with five players supposed to be working a far too intricate cycling scheme. Kramaric, Modric, Kovavic, Persic, and Rebic were all as confused as I’m sure you are trying to tell them apart.

The problem we have here is that the team not only lost Mandzukic, but Rakitic as well. Don’t ask me what that has to do with Rebic being deployed as the lead striker, but Modric certainly isn’t the same player.

Against the fairy bang average Czechs today, Dalic had the insatiable “itch” to make some major changes. We saw something a bit more in line with the bookie’s projections, though still not entirely sensible.

Lineup—Croatia—Match Two (4-2-3-1) (6/18/2020)

Wise to drop Caletta-Car, whom shouldn’t have started in the first place. Kramaric at least plays through the middle in a centralized role. Might be a bit of Bundesliga bias at work with the criticism of still using Rebic alone up top. I honestly haven’t seen how he performed in the Serie A after Frankfurt dumped him.

I still just don’t like it. The only real contribution the former SGE forward made today was on the defensive end. His responses on that 39^th minute chance showed that he’s not really on the level. I guess the lack of a true right-winger hurts Dalic’s chances of building properly.

On the whole, one had every right to expect more from this constellation. Modric, under considerably less pressure in midfield, was a bust. Brekalo and Gvardiol, two players the bookie knows for a fact are capable of so much more, produced nothing.

Persic’s fine finish keeps slim hopes of advancement for this team alive whilst subs Petkovic and Vlasic added nothing to the team. We could see them continue to struggle against the Scots in the final match and get booted out of here early.

That furnishes us with a nice segue to the Scots themselves. Yes, you Limey bastards, your time is coming! Relax. Bookie merely can’t listen to you trash your team for passing sideways and backwards all night long without showing you why.

Incidentally, I’m the one who does all the trash talking about his country retreating constantly in possession around here. My Krauts had no excuse. Your lads did.

Lineup—Scotland—Match Two (5-2-1-2) (6/18/2021)

How does one get through this? You don’t have much of a choice but to paint around the edges as there’s really no way through! Really nice tactics from Tartan manager Steve Clarke, who of course got a nice boost from Kieran Tierney’s return.

A lot of the chatter during the match revolved around what a great job 20-year-old Billy Gilmour was doing as the lone holding defensive midfielder in a 4-1-4-1. A nice story that. He wasn’t even capped before receiving his call up for the tournament.

The thing is, it didn’t look as if Gilmour was, in fact, running the show all by himself to my eyes. Callum McGregor held his hand, keeping the stagger shifts synchronized as they took turns running counters.

It seems fair to say that England did miraculously get some balls back behind this during the first half hour of play. It’s very difficult to penetrate this and extremely hard to get looks at goal. It’s a small wonder that they did at first.

Okay, the last half hour was total crap. Now you get your draw-up.

Lineup—England—Match Two (5-4-1) (6/18/2021)

A subtly different formation than the one we saw on Sunday. I’m comfortable calling that one a 5-2-3 and this one a 5-4-1 because Mount and Phillips appeared to be stationed further back while Sterling and Foden were spread out wider. Kane….yes….he sucked hard again. Not much one could have done about it as he’s hard to reach when one takes the two basic constellations into account.

The main talking point remains the new fullbacks, both of whom were unquestionably slow on the ball and very hesitant when looking up at the blue shirts ahead of them. I’m afraid you don’t really have good options at these positions. Trippier and Walker didn’t do especially well either.

Bookie is also sorry to say that starting Jack Grealish probably isn’t a silver bullet either. Liked watching how he moved around all sides of the penalty area trying to make something happen and demanded give-and-goes late on. That’s what one wants from a fresh-legged sub, however, as opposed to a starter.

You could use Grealish as a ten. I also see no real harm in starting Sancho on the left after Sterling completely tanked again. Best to be patient and see if Sterling and Foden can get their rotations sorted out. Remember that you’re already though on four points and play a weak Czech side next.

You won’t take the European crown. You might have if this were 2020. You’ll still likely complete a respectable run to the quarters. Work on getting those public viewing stands up.

What are you two girls doing here?

This isn't the "riffs" section. 23-M hasn't checked in yet. I thought we left the Scottish behind when discussing how the vast majority of Scottish buffoons caught on camera looking like total arseholes in London today would eventually mature into adults.

Oh well. On the occasion of the men's Scottish national team reaching their first major international in 23 years, we'll dedicate these 23-year-old girls to 23-M. Sometimes a bunch of coincidental numbers can't be ignored.

They say there are no coincidences in God's world. They're wrong, of course.

“Riffs of the Day”—Day Eight

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Reader: Shifting a bit more into the funny gear, Vicey? You're not drinking are you?

Vicey: Sleep deprivation, 11-M. That's much more effective for finding one's sense of humor. It also won't kill you. That's a plus.

Reader: Giving up on the culture minute?

Vicey: Sleep deprivation, 16-M. I knew you'd give me shit for that. Let's get some of these teams out of this tournament. I'll be happy to share some more of my favorite international books, movies, and music....once I reach something other than football buried in the deep recesses of my mind.

Reader: You told me to get up early for Sweden-Slovakia!

Vicey: Sleep deprivation, 90-M. I should have known better than to expect that the Blaugults would provide us with anything other than a energy-sapping snoozefest.

Consider this a warning. Deprive yourself of enough sleep and those male Swedish supporters with the pigtail wigs will start to look good to you.

Hey honey! Why you crying? Put a quarter in the jukebox.

Reader: Isn't it about time the ESPN crew gave Chris Coleman a good shave?

Vicey: Always wondered about that, 33-M.

Vicey: It's one of those things that always seemed like an easy job, sort of like telling Sami Khedira he doesn't have to stare into the camera light as if it's an oncoming bullet train.

Reader: Fuck Denzel Dumfries. Thomas Hubacan has the coolest name in the tournament.

Vicey: ....not sure I can argue that point, 15-M. Sleep deprivation.

DAY NINE--PREVIEW

Hungary vs. France

vs.