⚽ UEFA Nations League ⚽ - Discussion Thread

[Daniel91]

For the Italian teams, it's probably because they operate with significantly lower budgets, and they also can't entrust their faith in young players as compared to other teams in Europe and that's a big drawback for them. To this day, not saying this to talk down on any player and whatnot but why did Milan choose to sign Luka and they even made a contract extension for him?

As for France, why should that even be a debate if they're lucky or not? We're witnessing the product of hard work and sheer determination on display and luck has nothing to do with that. Fwiw, most key players in the France national team don't play in the league 1.

No, I wasn't saying that France's recent success is luck. What I meant is that you probably have to have some luck as a nation to bring out so many exceptional players at once. Having Mbappe, Dembele and Olise is like a lottery jackpot, Barcola being a standard bench player. It is not always like that and who knows what the French team looks like in 10 - 15 years from now. Just see how Germany declined when once they had players like Neuer (prime), Lahm, Kroos, Hummels, Schweinsteiger, Özil, Müller, Klose etc. Now they are in serious trouble because no good strikers, not enough great midfielders, defense sucks. So I think there is some luck involved when you literally have 15 star players at once.

I don't think it's just luck.
French football didn't start with Mbappe, they've always had fantastic players, from Fontaine who was the top scorer of the World Cup with 13 goals in 1958, to Platini who excelled in the 1980s, and to Zidane who led France to their first World Cup title in 1998 and the final in 2006.
The Zidane and Mbappe families, as far as I've heard, have African roots and I think that's perhaps one fact that has helped French football, the large pool of players from their former colonies in Africa.
Of course, the very good system and organization in French football and the great work with young footballers have also helped.
Germany used to have that too, but apparently their system no longer works and since 2014, when they were last world champions, German football has been in a crisis of play and results.

There was talk about Mbappe having to play for Cameroon because his father is from Cameroon. Both Zidane and Mbappe have Algerian roots, Mbappe through his mother, and Zidane through both of his parents. In general, France has always had good players, you forgot to mention Henry when talking about those big stars

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
France was led to their World Cup by star players who could have easily chosen to play for another team, but they chose France anyway.
We can wonder what would have happened to the French team (would they have won the World Cups) if Zidane had chosen to play for Algeria and Mbappe for Cameroon or Algeria, but we'll never know.
France is a big nation, with a large number of registered footballers and many professional clubs, but their main stars still came from the diaspora, thanks to their colonial history.
Yes, I forgot about Henry, thanks for the reminder, but I actually wanted to mention their best players, with the biggest contributions to the World Cups.

[Moreno233]

Change is always constant. I believe that the Italian players have woken up from their slumber this time and have decided to go hold the bull by the horn in this international break Euro Nations League. No one expected to see them standing up to fight with the fire of the Italian football burning in them. If they can continue like this and improve their performance, they will return to their glorious days.

For sure there are lots of improvements among Italian clubs and that is partly because of the influx of investments into the league. Clubs like Como is one of the biggest beneficiary of such investment and see these improvements, other teams have no choice than to buckle up and that is why you see everyone doing their best to remain at the top division. Despite these improvements, Italian teams are still far behind when compared to other teams from the top leagues and that will take time to change.

[Bigjoe33]

For the Italian teams, it's probably because they operate with significantly lower budgets, and they also can't entrust their faith in young players as compared to other teams in Europe and that's a big drawback for them. To this day, not saying this to talk down on any player and whatnot but why did Milan choose to sign Luka and they even made a contract extension for him?

As for France, why should that even be a debate if they're lucky or not? We're witnessing the product of hard work and sheer determination on display and luck has nothing to do with that. Fwiw, most key players in the France national team don't play in the league 1.

No, I wasn't saying that France's recent success is luck. What I meant is that you probably have to have some luck as a nation to bring out so many exceptional players at once. Having Mbappe, Dembele and Olise is like a lottery jackpot, Barcola being a standard bench player. It is not always like that and who knows what the French team looks like in 10 - 15 years from now. Just see how Germany declined when once they had players like Neuer (prime), Lahm, Kroos, Hummels, Schweinsteiger, Özil, Müller, Klose etc. Now they are in serious trouble because no good strikers, not enough great midfielders, defense sucks. So I think there is some luck involved when you literally have 15 star players at once.

I get what you mean. Well understood.

The French team has arguably the best attack in current football. Both the starting players and the substitute players are of equal quality. Barcola for Doue or Dembele, Michael Olise, Cherki, and Mbappe. The most interesting part of this team is that all the attacking players have the ability to play in different positions.

When all of them retire, and age becomes a hindrance to how they perform, France may suffer a setback just as the Germans are suffering, unless lots of young talent keep coming from France.

In the case of France, we will see this, France will be able to maintain this continuity of their team's improvement over time and they will never let this continuity be lost. France's attacking part is very strong and their attacking part is much stronger than any other team in my opinion. The only reason I have watched their matches during this World Cup is to see some surprises from their attacking part.

Referring to the Garman team, they are not completely written off. They still have good players. There country have top players in Europe and they are doing very well. It's just that they have not really found the best ways to arrange there players of featuring them to enhance productivity. Maybe, they just need that magician of a coach that will perform the miracles.

France are all good now, and maybe, they will continue. You don't expect a team like that to drop performance in years to come. There are always younger players coming up. They have the under 14,16,17,18 etc team where they will always pick out players. So a team cannot totally go down like that. We remember the days of Zidane and Henry in France, and now they are all gone, but new players are doing the work. There is always continuity.

[Adbitco]

I can imagine how the headlines would have looked like if this stinking and dirty behaviour portrayed by Messi was actually done by Ronaldo, we wouldn't have heard the last of it because all media outlet would be talking about it. Just last week, something happened in the Portuguese camp and Ronaldo left in anger, every media outlets carried the news, from last week it's still making the rounds, but after this stinking, dirty and arrogant behaviour from Messi, they have kept quiet, shielding him as they have always done ever since. Fabrizio still posts about Ronaldo leaving the camp till today but no single post from him concerning his Messi dirty attitude, he butt licks Messi at will. Yesterday he posted about Ronaldo, today I saw his post about Messi, and it was Messi being at Inter Miami, he didn't say anything about Messi attitude. We all know Argentina is a racist country just that lots of people have refused to admit the obvious. All of a sudden all Messi fans are blind, the media is blind all because they are trying to protect their arrogant player as usual.

[Umulala-alala]

I can imagine how the headlines would have looked like if this stinking and dirty behaviour portrayed by Messi was actually done by Ronaldo, we wouldn't have heard the last of it because all media outlet would be talking about it. Just last week, something happened in the Portuguese camp and Ronaldo left in anger, every media outlets carried the news, from last week it's still making the rounds, but after this stinking, dirty and arrogant behaviour from Messi, they have kept quiet, shielding him as they have always done ever since. Fabrizio still posts about Ronaldo leaving the camp till today but no single post from him concerning his Messi dirty attitude, he butt licks Messi at will. Yesterday he posted about Ronaldo, today I saw his post about Messi, and it was Messi being at Inter Miami, he didn't say anything about Messi attitude. We all know Argentina is a racist country just that lots of people have refused to admit the obvious. All of a sudden all Messi fans are blind, the media is blind all because they are trying to protect their arrogant player as usual.

Cristiano Ronaldo is a public figure, what ever he does go viral as most people are always interested in his case because talking about Cristiano Ronaldo always bring attention to the public and that's how many of these media do make there money.

Today i heard some news that Cristiano Ronaldo has been temporarily suspended from the Portugal national team after he has made some apologies, he has done wrong for leaving the Portugal camp at of anger due to how he has treated, no body is above his country but Ronaldo has done so much for his country, i think he wasn't to be suspended since he has already apologize for what he did.

[Lucius]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
France was led to their World Cup by star players who could have easily chosen to play for another team, but they chose France anyway.
We can wonder what would have happened to the French team (would they have won the World Cups) if Zidane had chosen to play for Algeria and Mbappe for Cameroon or Algeria, but we'll never know.
France is a big nation, with a large number of registered footballers and many professional clubs, but their main stars still came from the diaspora, thanks to their colonial history.
Yes, I forgot about Henry, thanks for the reminder, but I actually wanted to mention their best players, with the biggest contributions to the World Cups.

It's always been strange to me that players who come from countries that were colonized (not to use a harsh word) don't choose their country of origin, but the country that exploited them for centuries. Realistically, it is a kind of betrayal of personal identity and belonging to the people you come from.

When we look at some other European countries, we see similar things - and the conclusion is that without "foreign" players, those countries would be only average and nothing more than that. Here, once again, you can see the big difference between the West and the East of Europe, not only do they have stronger national teams, but they also have the strongest football leagues in the world.

[KTChampions]

I can imagine how the headlines would have looked like if this stinking and dirty behaviour portrayed by Messi was actually done by Ronaldo, we wouldn't have heard the last of it because all media outlet would be talking about it. Just last week, something happened in the Portuguese camp and Ronaldo left in anger, every media outlets carried the news, from last week it's still making the rounds, but after this stinking, dirty and arrogant behaviour from Messi, they have kept quiet, shielding him as they have always done ever since. Fabrizio still posts about Ronaldo leaving the camp till today but no single post from him concerning his Messi dirty attitude, he butt licks Messi at will. Yesterday he posted about Ronaldo, today I saw his post about Messi, and it was Messi being at Inter Miami, he didn't say anything about Messi attitude. We all know Argentina is a racist country just that lots of people have refused to admit the obvious. All of a sudden all Messi fans are blind, the media is blind all because they are trying to protect their arrogant player as usual.

I watched the video, and honestly, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary (though I can't read lips and don't know what he said to the Benin goalkeeper), when emotions run high, all sorts of things can happen. And even though Messi is quite experienced when it comes to retiring from the national team, since this is the second time he’s done it, emotions might have gotten the better of him.
However, I completely agree with you on the issue of bias: some players receive positive PR their entire careers, while others are being made to look dirty for no reason.
It is surprising that people don't notice the oddities - for instance, Blatter and Infantino seem to be regarded as scumbags and crooks by fans of every club, yet for some reason, their obsession with Messi doesn't bother his own fans.

[Pandorak]

I can imagine how the headlines would have looked like if this stinking and dirty behaviour portrayed by Messi was actually done by Ronaldo, we wouldn't have heard the last of it because all media outlet would be talking about it. Just last week, something happened in the Portuguese camp and Ronaldo left in anger, every media outlets carried the news, from last week it's still making the rounds, but after this stinking, dirty and arrogant behaviour from Messi, they have kept quiet, shielding him as they have always done ever since. Fabrizio still posts about Ronaldo leaving the camp till today but no single post from him concerning his Messi dirty attitude, he butt licks Messi at will. Yesterday he posted about Ronaldo, today I saw his post about Messi, and it was Messi being at Inter Miami, he didn't say anything about Messi attitude. We all know Argentina is a racist country just that lots of people have refused to admit the obvious. All of a sudden all Messi fans are blind, the media is blind all because they are trying to protect their arrogant player as usual.

I thought i was the only one who ever thought this way. It’s clear that the media treatment of Ronaldo and Messi often differs. At first, i thought this was just my perception, but the reality is that Cristiano Ronaldo is always the subject of discussion whenever he shows his emotions, as if it were a fatal mistake. Take what happened recently, for example, when he officially announced his retirement from the national team via social media. I saw it on his Instagram, Afterward, the media and perhaps most people who don’t like him, said this was a childish move, even though at that point he hadn’t clearly explained why he did it, yet many of them had already jumped to conclusions.

This is different from Messi, who is often involved in controversies, but the media prefers to highlight only the positive aspects, such as his achievements, rather than his bad behavior. This is unfair and i don't want to comment on it any further.

[Ale88]

Well, I’ve waited four matches to give my first thoughts on Roberto Mancini’s Italy.
We’ve picked up 7 points out of a possible 12, which is obviously a good result. But if we take a closer look at the situation, it’s not quite as rosy as it seems.
Six out of seven points came from victories against Turkey, whilst one point came from the draw against France and the defeat against Belgium – to me, this is a terrible result. Although we drew against the strongest side, we played a dreadful match against Belgium, who are our direct rivals for second place.
As things stand, I don’t think the Azzurri have achieved a great result – unless we beat Belgium, but I reckon that’ll be very tough.

It was indeed strange to draw against the strongest team in the group & then lose by such an embarrassing score against Belgium. IMO, Italy was fortunate to play the match against Turkey early on, as it allowed them to approach subsequent matches with clear motivation. Being second in the table doesn't really make them safe, things could go bad when they lose again to Belgium.

It makes me wonder, can Italy win the second match when they lost the first one, even with the home advantage?

I disagree with you two: yes, Italy lost to Belgium at home but let's not forget that 1) it was the first match with the new manager 2) it was kind of experimental tactic 3) the first goal was conceded because of the mistake of a 20-year-old guy playing his first international match ever. Was it disappointing? Yes. Is it enough to say that Italy are a disaster after they've beaten Turkey twice and drew with France away? Absolutely not.

[ArabBTC]

Sometimes if we are making comparisons let’s be realistic, can you compare what Ronaldo did with the alleged attitude allegations against Messi in their friendly match against Benin? Ronaldo’s own is proven while Messi own is assumption simply because he didn’t pose well for the camera, especially with the initial attitude of the Benin goalkeeper, Messi is not so much of a media person and might not be moved by so much of selfies, especially with all the controversy surrounding the match.

Do we really know the implication of walking out of your countries team simply because you weren’t featured in a match? Can you compare it with Messi’s refusal to take a selfie with a Benin player after a friendly match? even Messi’s demeanor doesn’t show rudeness, he could have probably just been tired after the match, there are evidences that he still took selfie with some players so i don’t see a big deal in it, let’s call a spade a spade, Messi incident can’t be compared to Ronaldo working out on his team, it is a slap to the country, leaving the team because the coach didn’t play you is just like saying that you are bigger than the coach and country, the Portugal team must not be all about Ronaldo, am even happy that even without him on the pitch Portugal has still been winning their matches.