FFXIAH.com

Incoming games, Don't forget to post your Tipps (guesses)!

Contents
Introduction
Group A, B, C, D, E, F
Teams
Tippspiel (guessing game)
Media section

Introduction

It's starting soon, the teams announced who they are taking to the training camps, the sponsors start to bombard the TV with advertisements filled with stereotypes.

I will first run this thread as pure discussion thread. The more users are participating, the more I will add info to the OP to allow quick check ups.

The tournament takes place from 10.6 till 10.7 in France.
For the first time there will be 24 teams instead of 16. This is already led to heated debates. In my own opinion, I do not like this change. Not only does it increase the games played from 31 to 51, it hugely drops the quality density that nurtured the reputation of it being better than the FIFA World Cup.

Now for the teams. Everyone can present their national team (or if interested those of other nations) here, so I will only start with my own.

Group A	GP	.±.	Points
France	3	+3	7
Switzerland	3	+1	5
Albania	3	-2	3
Romania	3	-2	1
Group B	GP	.±.	Points
Wales	3	+3	6
England	3	+1	5
Slovakia	3	0	4
Russia	4	-4	1
Group C	GP	.±.	Points
Germany	3	+3	7
Poland	3	+2	7
Northern ireland	3	0	3
Ukraine	3	-5	0
Group D	GP	.±.	Points
Croatia	3	+2	7
Spain	3	+3	6
Turkey	3	-2	3
Czech Republic	3	-3	1
Group E	GP	.±.	Points
Italy	2	+3	6
Belgium	2	+1	3
Sweden	2	-1	1
Republic of Ireland	2	-3	1
Group F	GP	.±.	Points
Hungary	2	2	4
Iceland	2	0	2
Portugal	2	0	2
Austria	2	-2	1

TEAMS

Germany

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

We take 27 players to the training camp and have to reduce the squad to 23 players.
Like always we look very good on the goalkeeper position.
Manuel Neuer will be the number one. World Class.
The backups consist of Marc-André ter Stegen (played only Champion's league for Barcelona this season) and Bernd Leno.

The next is defense... that will be one of the two major problems. We are very good in the center with
Jérôme Boateng (world class) and
Mats Hummels (very good).
Emre Can (Liverpool) is young and too inconsistent but might be good in the future.
The others ~~Sebastian Rudy~~, Antonio Rüdiger (AS Roma), Shkodran Mustafi (the surprise nomination of the World Cup 2014), Benedikt Höwedes , Jonas Hector (the only left wing defender we have) are barely worth mentioning at all.

So if you want to defeat us, abuse our weakness on the wings! Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if we played with 4 nominal center backs.
If that is the case we will most likely shift the midfield listed Joshua Kimmich to defense (young, made a few big mistakes but those were only on CL-niveau, but otherwise is quite good, played as central Defender for Bayern this season).

The Midfield provides some hope. Toni Kroos (no words needed w),
Sami Khedira (in national dress he somehow always plays better than on club level pushing him to top class easily at those times),
~~Marco Reus~~ (did not develop much anymore in Dortmund, but he did not drop in quality either),
Bastian Schweinsteiger (currently injured like 2014 but will be avaible at some point in the tournament),
Mesut Özil (not as good as 2010, seems to have a good form at the moment),
Thomas Müller (...'unique' playstyle, surprises us and opponent alike sometimes, always good for a weird goal) are all very good to top class and renown everywhere.
Our back ups will be ~~Karim Bellarabi~~ (only decent), Julian Draxler (once a talented player he is only decent now),
André Schürrle (the one who prepared the World Cup goal in the final by Götze, did fall into a hole afterwards and still looks for a way out, decent).
The young ones who are most likely in the training camp for experience gathering: Julian Weigl (Dortmund) and ~~Julian Brandt~~.
I doubt Lukas Podolski will survive the training camp. He is too outdated for our system. It's time to drop him.

Now our second big issue. Attackers will be
Mario Gómez (might have a second spring in Turkey, but he really is outdated and it's a shame we have to take him to the tournament.),
Mario Götze (the one who scored the World Cup winning goal, The Prodigy is currently unhappy at his team and might be under the new coach as well. His form is as good as ever though.)
and lastly Leroy Sané (young one, but a lot of good teams are interested in him, I don't think we will leave him at home and he will make it into the final squad, if only for experience gathering. Worth the investment).

England

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Alrighty, what can I say about England? We used to be a nation that overhyped our chances, always having dreams of winning every tournament we went into. However expectations have dulled, probably a combination of the failures of the so called 'Golden Generation' (Beckham et al) combined with mediocre showings at more recent tournaments, most notably not qualifying for Euro 2008 and crashing out in last place at the 2014 World Cup.

However, glutton for punishment that I am, I'm optimistic for our chances, this seems possibly our best squad since Euro '96 in my opinion and they certainly should be expecting to do well, so let's look at the players.

Goalkeeper
This is an easy one, I won't even go into much detail here, Joe Hart #1, he's not in the same class as De Gea, Neuer or the legend that is Buffon but he is on par with Lloris and Courtois, Forster will be back up and Heaton I'm sure will get a good experience out of it.

Fraser Forster (FC Southampton)
Joe Hart (Manchester City)
Tom Heaton (FC Burnley)

Defense

Our supposed weak spot, to be fair that would be a pretty accurate assessment, no real stars amongst that lot but it's worth remembering that Rose and Walker were part of the Spurs side that had the joint best defensive record last season, of course as wing backs who like to push up, they might not be going by on their defensive talents, as for centre back, I think it's likely to be Cahill and Smalling, both have been around for a while now and are very dependable, while Stones is still young, has plenty of time to improve and frankly, didn't have the greatest season, but then Everton were a massive flop.

Ryan Bertrand (FC Southampton)
Gary Cahill (FC Chelsea)
Nathaniel Clyne (FC Liverpool)
Danny Rose (Tottenham Hotspur)
Chris Smalling (Manchester United)
John Stones (FC Everton)
Kyle Walker Tottenham Hotspur)

Moving on to probably my favourite part of the England team, the midfield, particularly the Tottenham players, Eric Dier and frankly the guy who came from nowhere, Dele Alli, it's hard to believe this was his first season in the Premier League as he took it by storm, previously he had been playing League One football at MK Dons, a remarkable rise and remarkable talent. As for who will play, Hodgson seems to fancy a 4-4-2 diamond and a 4-3-2-1, a document spotted suggests a 4-3-2-1 so we're likely to see Dier sitting deep, Rooney and Alli in central midfield, with Sterling and Barkley on the wings, of course it could be a psyche out by the England staff!

Midfield
Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur)
Ross Barkley (FC Everton)
Eric Dier (Tottenham Hotspur)
Jordan Henderson (FC Liverpool)
Adam Lallana (FC Liverpool)
James Milner (FC Liverpool)
Raheem Sterling (Manchester City)
Jack Wilshere (FC Arsenal)

Attackers

Up front is a bit of a conundrum, whilst Vardy had a great season with Leicester, a lot of that came from his partnership with Mahrez, who being Algerian, obviously isn't going to be there, while Kane's season was complimented by Alli, who will be with him in the England team, so really, based on that Kane has to be the 1st choice striker, especially in a 1 up top system, that said if we play 2 up front or are chasing the game, Vardy is very likely to be involved. Rooney as previously mentioned is more likely to play a midfield role while Sturridge will most likely end up being 3rd choice. Rashford, like Heaton probably will get low or zero game time but will hopefully gain a lot from the experience.

Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur)
Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)
Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)
Daniel Sturridge (FC Liverpool)
Jamie Vardy (Leicester City)

France

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Spain

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Italy

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Portugal

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Sweden

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Belgium

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Poland

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Croatia

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Russia

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Turkey

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Tippspiel (guessing game)

Rules (want a change/addition/whatever in this section, post in the thread)
3 points for winning team/draw + correct result
2 points for winning team/draw + correct Goal difference
1 point for winning team
0 points for losing team
for KO-stage the result after 90 minutes.

Post before the game begins, the earlier the better.
For Changing the Tipps (guesses) do that in a new post, don't edit the original.

Score

Spoiler Alert! Click to view.

Media section

And lastly one of those already mentioned advertisments:

YouTube Video Placeholder

The picure of the EURO 2012:

I WANT REVENGE! And I will get it on the 02.07.! Unless your team messes up and just get second place behind Belgium. We would have to wait all the way to the final to face each other in that case.

From:
To:
Subject:
Body: