Euro 2024 Qualifiers & Tournament

(22-06-2024 17:11 )Charlemagne Wrote:  I'm just watching the Turkey v Portugal match. Just to see how a 39 year old Ronaldo manages to run around the pitch. And then I suddenly notice that they have Pepe in defense and find out that he's 41 and 116 days old. And a lot of the other players are very experienced.

This has to be the oldest team to feature in a finals.

No, not the oldest team to feature in a finals. Not even the oldest team to feature in this finals. In fact not even close.

The average age of the Portugal starting XI in the match you refer to was 29.3. Not particularly young, but not particularly old either. Older than England, whose starting XI so far averages 27.5 and older than Germany (just) at 29.1. But not as old as the Croatia team against Albania at 30.3, the Slovakia team on both their matches at 30.6 and the Switzerland team against Scotland at 31.3 (which is a full 2 years older).

You claim that a lot of Portugal's players are very experienced, but in the match you refer to, apart from Ronaldo and Pepe, they only started with one other player over the age of 30 and that was Cancelo who was only 30 last month. The Croatia team against Albania featured 5 players over 30 and the Switzerland team against Scotland had 7. Even the fairly youthful England started with 5 (Pickford, Walker, Stones, Trippier and Kane).

So no, at an average age of 29.3 this Portugal team is not the oldest team to feature in a finals. I don't happen to know which team would be the oldest, but I know who the oldest team to actually win a finals is. It was the Brazil team who won the World cup in 1962 - the team that played in the final match had an average age of 30.7.

Does this account for the fact that the England starting 11 aged a couple of years during that 90 minutes against Denmark?

Will scotland win tonight ?

I do question Charles describing Ronaldo as running around. I suppose an occasional uplift in speed from statue to walking to brief jogging then running for 5 yards is meritorious for a 39 year old but I thought his impact was limited.

(23-06-2024 16:18 )poo Wrote:  Will scotland win tonight ?

They have it in them to win tonight, it's just a matter of not making stupid mistakes.
As much as I want to give a solid yes of course we will, in reality it's 50/50.

just over half hour to go it's 0-0

Does Steve Clarke have any aces left up his sleeve??

As a neutral observer looking in the trouble for Scotland is that it's slow ball and too easy for Hungary to defend against.
They need to move the ball quicker and generate some overlaps to stretch the Hungarian defence.

All that being said they should have had a penalty imo.

Bad head injuries for the Hungary player got a bad feeling he die no officially news yet.

Hungary confirm Barnabas Varga is conscious and in a stable condition in hospital