OlympicsFan

Convincing win for Scattolo from Italy (Born 2003). I think she has the quality to finish Top 10-15 in the Senior IBU Cup with Good shooting. Hard to imagine that the Italian IBU Cup Team is Too Strong for her to make the Team. Hopefully she will get a chance soon. Andexer from Austria and Zorc from Slovenia also with promising skiing times. Only the top 2 were within a minute, so that isn’t a good sign for the overall depth (with France/Norway/Russia missing).

He isnt the Main reason. I think they have pretty much the Same Problem as Germany (or More the other way round). They just don’t Produce enough World class players anymore (mainly defenders + True strikers) and Stick to an outdated System. I think Germany has More Quality than them, so you could say that they at least got closer to their Potential than Germany. I think best case for them would have Been to reach the quarterfinal. I think with a Better Coach they could have beaten Croatia (After winning their group) or Morocco (After Finishing second in their group), But Even with the best possible Coach they would have Been a clear Underdog against Portugal/Brazil (since they have clearly less individual Talent).

No, But still a decent ranking and pretty much what i Said a while ago. The Top 6 in the ranking are the 6 strongest Teams on Paper of we exclude Germany and it was obvious that Germany wouldnt Play a role at this tournament. My Top 8 of the remaining Teams would be: France Brazil Portugal England Netherlands Argentina Croatia Morocco

But no Norway or France (or Russia) + many of the best talents are Competing in Senior IBU Cup instead. Those Things will have to be Kept in mind when Looking at the results.

They have by far the best depth of all nations. Not sure if we have ever seen something like this, maybe Brazil had a comparable depth some decades ago. If we assume that Benzema would normally be in their starting team, then this would be their 2nd/3rd team: Maignan L. Hernandez Fofana Saliba Pavard Camavinga Kante Coman Nkunku Diaby Giroud Areola Mendy Kimpembe Konate Kalulu Pogba Ndombele Saint-Maximin Fekir Rutter Kolo Muani Digne, Disasi, Ndicka, Soumare, Kamara, Lemar, Thuram, Simakan, Badiashile, Koné, Guendouzi, Kalimuendo, Lacazette, Gouiri, Ekitiké, Bamba, Aouar, Mukiele, Lukeba, M. Dembele, Cherki, Ikoné, Martial, Cho, Gusto, Tolisso, Lenglet, Gourna-Douath ... I think their 3rd best team would still be at least on par with any other team except Portugal/Brazil/England.

I said some days ago that this would be necessary for Portugal to do if they want to maximize their chances. The team as a whole works better without him and especially against teams like France or Brazil you probably you can't afford to play 10 vs. 11 on defense.

Crazy that Portugal now has so many strikers who are (almost) elite. Some years ago they had no serious striker and even Germany had better attackers. Nowadays Germany has noone and would kill for one out of Ramos/Silva/Leao.

Doesn't look good for Switzerland. So far everything went pretty much according to plan, only Morocco was a bit surprising (although i already stated some days ago that Spain is clearly overrated, they have only 1 or 2 world class players nowadays). It is almost shocking that the teams with the most quality (France, England, Brazil, Portugal) are looking the best so far. I think in the past this often wasn't the case. Too bad that France and England meet so early, both had the quality to reach the final.

I think she had the 4th fastest second run, only 0.03 seconds behind 3rd. If she has a natural progression for a girl her age and becomes more stable, then she might make the podium at some point this season.

After Aicher missed the second run of all three slaloms so far, i thought that german coaches "destroyed" her, but now it all makes sense. Obviously they try to turn her into a second Rebensburg. Not sure if i like this strategy (given that the speed events are more competitive and injury prone and that Aicher seemed more like a natural slalom/giant slalom talent), but in the end athletes like Gut/Weirather/Rebensburg/Fenninger can win medals in three different events (super g, downhill, giant slalom), while athletes like Hector/Vlhova/Holdener can win medals in only two different events (slalom, giant slalom). I had the hope that she could be competitive in all four events, but i guess the german coaches gave up on that idea. I am interested what she can do in her first giant slalom this season. If she doesn't have the level to compete for the top 20, then the decision to shift away from slalom will look like a mistake, at least short term.

Please tell me that Schouten is a joke ... ?

Then they only need to beat the european champion in the semifinal/final to complete the job ... If they beat Argentina, then they also beat the team that beat the oceanic "champion".

1) I think McIntosh is a bigger favorite in the 200 fly than in the 400 free. 2) I think that Guo might be a bigger medal contender than Harvey. 3) I think men's decathlon deserves a mention. 4) If the US for some reason doesn't send their best men's basketball team and Canada does send its best team, then they will be the clear favorit.

The strategy should be pretty simple. If you want to get more attention, then give the people what they want. My assumption is that most viewers prefer tight races, so if certain types of races are more likely to have tight finishes, then have more of those races. I also would assume that shorter distances tend to produce more tight finishes.

The era of Grotian has offically begun today. I am proud to say that i was one of the earliest to join the hype train. She is still young enough to compete at the youth level this year (and too young to even compete at the junior world championships), but hopefully she will get a chance to compete at the senior world championships.

Sadly no podium for Germany, but great team performance even without Preuß. With Hettich winning the IBU Cup race today + Hinz hopefully coming back to her best and Braun/Grotian showing promise at IBU Cup level, Germany seems to have better depth than they had at any point during the past decade.

Didn't you make pretty much the same prediction for their men's team some years ago? Personally i don't see it happening. They have promising juniors (but the same is true for Norway, France, Germany), but i don't think that they will ever have the skiing speed to match the Öberg sisters. I think the most promising juniors on the women's side are Kirkeeide and Grotian.

1) I think you might be overestimating the spanish team. I think even at their best a win against Japan wouldn't have been safe. 2) They did what was best for them (getting an easier path), so i can't blame them. I wish german athletes and officials would show this kind of pragmatism more often.

I would be pretty shocked if France, Argentina or Brazil would be eliminated, but all other matches in the round of last 16 seem at least somewhat open.

1) Why the hell wouldn't they be able to use doping in Qatar? 2) Wouldn't they usually use doping in training camps before the start of the season (which took place outside of Qatar)?

1) You think portuguese people are as likely to show such a behavior in a country that took them up? 2) You think portuguese people who went to Switzerland are the same kind of "crowd" as morrocan people who went to Belgium? 3) You think Switzerland is as likely as Belgium to let this kind of behavior fly?

1) If i remember correctly, many/most of those "qatari fans" weren't actually qatari. 2) Their whole act was extremely embarrassing. 3) I think cutting up photos of Özil doesn't achieve anything and seems pretty childish. 4) I was very glad when Özil was gone and would have wished to see him thrown out of the team before the 2018 world cup. 5) German football certainly wasn't at its best between 2010 and 2016. If you really feel that way, then you probably don't know anything about the history of the german national team. 2010-2016 was a very good period with mostly very good football, but during thee 70s and 90s the german team was better (in terms of titles). Edit: I just looked up how many european/world finals the german national team made in any given 6 year span (starting in even years) since 1972. Between 2010 and 2016 the german national team made 1 final (2014 world champion). Between 1972 and 2002 there was only one 6 year period where Germany made as little european/world finals: 1972-78: 3 1974-80: 4 1976-82: 3 1978-84: 2 1980-86: 3 1982-88: 2 1984-90: 3 1986-92: 3 1988-94: 2 1990-96: 3 1992-98: 2 1994-00: 1 1996-02: 2

I think some people on here are overestimating the quality of Spain and to some degree Brazil. Spain has probably only one world class player (Rodri) and they are using him out of position. Even Germany was the better team against them and probably has a better team on paper. Brazil has clearly more quality than Spain, but also only a hand full of world class players. I think France has clearly more individual quality and Portugal is roughly on the same level. Before the start of the tournament i had the following ranking of potential world champions: France Brazil/Portugal England Argentina Netherlands On paper France, Brazil and Portugal are the only teams without obvious holes in their squad, but after watching the group stage i would say that things might be a bit more open. Argentina looked a bit better than i expected and Portugal looked a bit worse. I feel that Portugal will have to bench Ronaldo (in favor of Leao) if they want to have a realistic chance to win the title. In my opinion England and Argentina have almost the same problem. Both don't really have an elite goalkeeper/defense, so they need to hope that their individual quality up front makes up for it. The Netherlands have a good defense, but no good goalkeeper and no elite offense. Still baffled that the Netherlands didn't nominate Flekken and Danjuma.

Ok, probably for the better. None of your comments are remotely coherent. A discussion doesn't make any sense when one of the parties involved doesn't even understand how to lead a discussion.

I think many of the groups have been exciting, but some teams clearly didn't belong. I think with teams like Italy or Sweden the quality would have been ever better. Also not sure what happened to Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Chile. All those nations used to produce lots of good players. I think in 2026 the quality for sure will be worse, but everything else (atmosphere, conditions, performance of the home team(s)) will certainly be much more enjoyable. Hopefully european federations find a way to prevent a repetition of this disaster (Saudi Arabia 2030), but i don't have high hopes (given that they didn't even have the balls to agree on the softest kind of protest this time).