Semifinalists Show that There’s No Place Like Home When You’re Picking Your Team

The collective wisdom is that it’s good for a national team to have players playing in the big leagues outside their own country. If your players are good enough to get noticed by, say, the English Premier League, it means they’re extremely good. And that can only be good for the national team. Right?

Egypt shattered that belief in the African Cup of Nations this year, demolishing star-heavy, European-based teams like Ivory Coast on their way to winning the Cup. I remember noticing in Egypt’s first game that they were already playing cohesively, like a team that had spent a lot of time on the field together. And I also noticed that the vast majority of their players plied their trade in the Egyptian league.

The Euros are also proving that there’s no place like home for picking a squad, at least in the knockout stages. In each of the first three games, the teams with the most domestic players went through. The teams with the most foreign-based players went home. (In the Italy-Spain game, the majority of players on both teams play domestically, so this wasn’t an issue.)

Here are the stats, based on the 23-player final squad lists. (And this is just based on quick-and-dirty Wikipedia flag-counting, so I’m not guaranteeing that it’s 100% accurate. But it’s definitely close enough to draw conclusions.):

QF Winners All less than 25% playing outside the country

Russia — 1 player playing outside of the country
Turkey – 5 players playing outside of the country
Germany — 3 players playing outside of the country
Spain – 5 players playing outside of the country*

QF Losers:

Netherlands — 14 players playing outside of the country
Croatia — 22 players playing outside of the country
Portugal — 12 players playing outside of the country
Italy — 4 players playing outside of the country*

Of course, we only have to look at England to see that this isn’t definitive. In England’s current squad, only David Beckham plays abroad. And we know all how far that got them.

There are also plenty of other factors affecting how teams play in tournaments. For example having a player on the roster of a huge club doesn’t mean that player is seeing time on the field.

But I’m curious as to what you think about this. High percentage of domestic players: Statistical anomaly, or competitive advantage?

*In the Italy-Spain game, both teams have less than 25% of the squad playing outside of the country, so this was not an issue in that game.

Source

The duel of two teams of the Surprise

Wina - Timnas Croatia currently becomes the new idol in Euro 2008.
However, The Blzers personally did not make the surprise in the tournament.
Because, in the quarter final later, Croatia will face Timnas Turki.
Whoever won?
Appear startling by overcoming the team of the German giant, Croatia changed into the frightening team.
Playing in the quarter final round, Croatia will face the Turki team.
Kroasi in his trip towards the quarter final really smooth Al iat without the defeat.
On the achievement, these Slaven Bilic troops at once became the public's subject of conversation.
Moreover, many that championed Niko Kovac et al could penetrate the final round and seized the Euro trophy 2008.
The surprise possibly could happen.
In the history then, the costumed team of these boxes also always could make the opposing surprise.
Moreover, in the Euro year 1996, Croatia could penetrate the quarter final round.
With the history incision, each Croatian opponent must forget that the team of the Bilic upbringing was the dark horse.
Already during him The Blazers got special attention in the world of football.
"We no longer get the revelation."
Despite everyone wanted that, said Bilic as being launched eurosports, on Friday (20/6/2008).
"In the eyes of us, we did not yet gain something that was spectacular."
So, Euro 2008 this time indeed has become our target, stressed the former Everton back.
Kedikdayaan Croatia precisely was different from the opponent tanding him, Turki.
The team of this Fatih Terim upbringing could in the Group's A elimination round drag him feet.
However, that became the Turki strength was the playing spirit up to the end of.
This weapon that was had by Turki until could slip away to the quarter final.
"Our big profit was us had not surrendered," revealed Terim.
The Turki spirit love must be disgraced with the number of core players who could not take part in reinforcing his team when facing Croatia.
In the note, from skuad 23 players, there were seven players who were forced to be able to not be dropped off good because of the injury or the suspension.

Euro 2008 Power Rankings, 1 to 16

The group stage is over and all sixteen teams have played three times.

So what finer moment than now to do our Euro 2008 Power Rankings?

Below are the Euro 2008 teams ranked 1 to 16, with a brief explanation why.

Disagree? Feel free to tear us a new one in the comments. We can take it.

1. Netherlands - Brilliant Oranje so far. Marco van Basten’s men demolished the World Cup 2006 winners and runners up so convincingly that they deserve a retrospective WC06 winner’s medal. And then the reserves went out and beat Romania 2-0. And they all seem to be getting along. What could possibly go wrong? (don’t answer that)

2. Croatia - Looked a bit average against Austria but then excellent against Germany. And like the Dutch, the reserves looked just as good as the real thing when beating up on Poland. Three games, nine points, and what looks like excellent team spirit. Fiery madness might sound like a terrible mental condition, but it appears to be working.

3. Spain - Two words: Villa and Torres. Spain have talent all over (when little Fabregas can’t crack your midfield, things are good) but that deadly combination of quality, pace and pace up front gives Spain an edge.

4. Portugal - The big worry was where the goals would come from. The answer was: everywhere. Even centre backs like Pepe have gone up front and done Nuno Gomes’ job for him. And with C-Ron and Deco on song, Portugal won’t struggle to create.

5. Italy - They always say Italy are slow starters. But never as slow as losing 3-0 to Netherlands and then nearly succumbing to Romania. But now the early bump is over, and Donadoni has done a u-turn on his original (and wrong) starting XI, things are looking up for Italy. Now if only they can find the real Luca Toni…

6. Germany - Favourites coming in, not so much now. Haven’t really clicked, but won two out of three games and were arguably more impressive in losing to Croatia than in beating Poland or Austria. Plus Michael Ballack looks up for it.

7. Russia - How does Guus do it? The team that Spain ripped apart in the opening Group D game is through to the quarters. The big difference is that now they have Andrei Arshavin back from suspension, which just (but only just) gives them the edge over…

8. Turkey - Great heart. And if we did a Power Ranking where only the last five minutes of games counted, Turkey would be top. But wonderful as those comebacks were, the teams above all took care of business long before the final whistle.

9. Czech Republic - Were just minutes away from qualifying, until Petr Cech forgot how to catch a football and Nihat remembered how to strike one. Never really impressed but take ninth place mostly because they were so close to qualifying.

10. Sweden - It was all about Zlatan Ibrahimovic. And his knee. When Zlatan’s knee allowed him to contribute, Sweden looked dangerous. When it didn’t, Sweden looked lost.

11. Switzerland - Desperately unlucky against the Czech Republic, and all kinds of unlucky to lose to a last minute Turkish goal. And though the mostly youthful teams was too inexperienced for an international tournament, they did claim a solid win over Portugal in the final game.

12. Romania - Went for the defend like crazy approach against France and Italy, and damn if it didn’t work. Could have had a win over the world champions if Buffon hadn’t pulled out that glove then boot save from Mutu’s penalty.

13. France - Oh dear. Who saw France finishing bottom of Group C? Didn’t impress at all over the three games, in any area of the field, and mostly looked old and lost. Very sad to have to rank so many great players so low.

14. Austria - Not the disaster that most expected and absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Ballsy? Yes. Plucky? Yes. Quality? No.

15. Poland - Oh dear. This went badly. Artur Boruc was magnificent, but mostly because he had to be. Howard Webb might be taking a lot of the blame in Poland, but his decisions weren’t half as bad as Poland’s avant garde offside trap.

16. Greece - Came to play the defensive football that won Euro 2004, but forgot that defensive football requires good defending. Some sloppy mistakes (Peter Hansson still can’t believe his luck) and a lack of any attacking threat saw the defending champions finish zero and three and bottom of Group D.

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