Group of Death Appreciation Thread

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This is not hyperbole, but Hungary was by far the most impressive team in that group.

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I would say they were the most impressive team for what our expectations were. They still got beat down by Portugal.

But obviously that’s just my opinion.

The entire trio of France, Germany, and Portugal set their teams up as though they expected teams to press them, rather than realizing they had either a world-class midfield, like France, or a world-class attack, like Portugal, or an experienced side that should work in younger players like Germany and that at the very least they should force other teams to accommodate their style. Very confused as to why they all chose to set their teams up conservatively, because it was the most retarded way of setting each specific set of players.

I honestly despise the pragmatism that seems popular now. The technical level is higher for elite European teams, all their players usually play possession-based attacking football, and yet their managers choose to be regressive, because the popular notion is that at the international level, being regressive is the same as being pragmatic.

That might be true for a very select group of teams each tournament, but it is hard for me to believe that you can eschew very basic attacking principles for the sake of defensive organization. It's very obvious that coaches like Santos and Deschamps don't think of the phases of the game as integrated, but Joachim Low's teams have variously employed a high press, a low-block counter-attacking system, and a possession-based system. His choices the last two cycles have been exceedingly odd, as the German teams of 2008-2014 look nothing like the last two versions.