Anybody watching the EURO 2016 Soccer Championship ? Right now, they are still in the Group Round. When the Knockout Round starts, it should get interesting. Here is a link to the Group Brackets and Standings so far. http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/index.html
That's what makes Soccer so frustrating and at the same time, interesting. Soccer is such a low scoring game and many games are decided by one goal. A weak team that has great goalie or the goalie makes several great saves, can upset a much stronger team. If typical scores were 5-3 or 5-4 rather than 1-0 or 2-1 or 3-2, the stronger teams would almost always win.
There's usually one or two dominant teams but to me it is wide open right now. France has some late-game belief going on and home nation advantage, maybe a France v Germany final? Hard to call. Some of the smaller teams making noise, I like Poland as a dark horse.
I loved them talking about how Austria was playing for a tie just to get a point. Playing for a tie is like the least American thing ever. No wonder they suck if they are only aiming for ties.
Tie against a top level team is often ticket out of the group. You tie the top team and beat the ave and weak teams - you go on to the next round. This is a legitimate strategy when ties are allowed.
yet another nil-nil draw, this time the English unable to score against Slovakia both sides advance anyway England disappointing as always
top two advance, yes, but also some of the third place teams Slovakia parked the bus in the second half to try and ensure a draw so they'd get through. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2016#Ranking_of_third-placed_teams Slovakia just wanted the draw. England was ideally hoping for a win so they could take the group, but was also content with a draw.
Portugal has not won yet and they're now trailing Hungary. if they don't win today, they probably don't advance