Belgie

UEFA Euro 2024: Group E Focus

Jon The Blogcentric2 Comments

Before I dive into reviewing the Group E teams, I’ll say it’s interesting when UEFA did its Euro draw, it did the draw before the three playoff berths had their teams decided. This is not the first major tournament to do so. Both the men’s World Cup of 2022 and the women’s World Cup of 2023 also had draws before playoff teams were decided. This must be a new thing to do draws before playoff teams are decided. One of the three playoff teams will be here in Group E.

So here is my look at Group E. Interesting note is that Ukraine shares its border with two other nations in this group:

Belgian Flag

-Belgium (3): For a long time, the world has been dazzled by the Red Devils. Starting back in 2014, Belgium went through their greatest era ever showing teamwork like never before and leading the nation to a third-place finish at the 2018 World Cup. Unfortunately, they choked in the Group Stage at the 2022 World Cup. Soon after, Eden Hazard, Toby Alderweireld and Dries Mertens retired from the national team and Roberto Martinez was sacked as coach.

Belgium’s success comes in waves. There’s a period when they’re one of the best and there’s a period where they slump. Their new coach Domenico Tedesco will assure the team isn’t heading into the slump phase. Despite a lot of retirees since Qatar 2022, veterans like Romelu Lukaku, Kevin DeBruyne, Axel Witsel and Jan Vertonghen will be in Germany. Since their World Cup disappointment, they have not yet lost a game. They’ve had wins to Estonia, Azerbaijan and Germany. They’ve had a win and a draw to both Sweden and Austria as well as draws to England and the Republic of Ireland. Euro 2024 is the opportunity for Belgium to redeem itself and possibly even chase their first-ever Euro win.

-Slovakia (48): It’s tempting to call the Sokoli an underdog team. Slovakia have only been to one World Cup back in 2010. This is their third consecutive Euro. Surely, they want to do better than their best-ever Round of 16 finish from back in 2016. It won’t be easy ever since their B status in the UEFA Nations League fell to a C.

The team is coached by Italian Francesco Calzona. The irony being Italy was the defending World Cup champions in 2010 but Slovakia ended all chances of Italy qualifying for the Round Of 16 with a 3-2 win! The team has stars like defender Peter Pekarik, and midfielders Juraj Kucka and Ondrej Duda. Play in the last year and a half has been off and on. They’ve had wins over Iceland, Wales and Bosnia-Hercegovina. They’ve had a win and a draw to Luxembourg, a draw to Norway and lost to Portugal. Germany is the opportunity for Slovakia to show Europe what they’re made of and possible deliver a surprise or two.

-Romania (46): It’s been a lot of difficulty for the Tricolorii to establish themselves in world football. Right after Communism was overthrown in Romania, their football came alive with three World Cup appearances in the 1990’s and even progressing past the Group Stage for the first time. Now it’s a struggle. Their last World Cup qualification was for 1998. Their last win of a Euro game was in 2000 despite participating in 2008 and 2016. Romani is hoping to get their reputation back after moving up to the B status in the Nations League.

Since 2022, the team has been coached by Edward Iordanescu. Their top players include midfielders Nicolae Stanciu, Razvan Marin and forward George Puscas. They’ve had a win and a draw against Belarus, Switzerland and Israel. They’ve also had draws to Bulgaria, Liechtenstein and Northern Ireland and a loss to Colombia. Germany is the stage to show the world what the current Romanian team is made of.

-Ukraine (22): A war can sometimes hurt a nation greatly, or a war can inspire a pride in a nation like no other. The Blue and Yellow is one team that knows how to play strong even as their country is going through a devastating war. The war caused a delay in playoff games for the qualification for the 2022 World Cup. It was postponed until June of that year, but Ukraine won over Scotland and then lost to Wales in the last match needed.

The Ukrainian team is managed by Serhiy Rebrov who played in Ukraine’s first and only appearance at the World Cup in 2006. Top players include defender Mykola Matviyenko and midfielders Taras Stepanenko and Andriy Yarmolenko and forward Roman Yaremchuk. In the last year and a half, Ukraine has delivered wins against Iceland, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Moldova and North Macedonia. They’ve drawn against Germany, had a draw and a loss against both Italy and England, and lost to Poland. You can bet Ukraine is ready to play hard and do better than their quarterfinal finish from the last Euro.

My Predictions: For this group’s qualifiers, I predict they will be Belgium and Ukraine. Slovakia will have enough points for third but not enough to get a wildcard qualification.

EURO 2024 MASCOT: ALBART

Euro 2024’s mascot is a teddy bear named “Albärt” whose name was voted on by the general public.

World Cup 1974 mascots Tik and Tak are tacky by today’s standards. World Cup 2006 mascot Goleo was confusing because a lion is more associated with The Netherlands or England instead of Germany. For Euro 2024, the mascot is an anthropomorphic teddy bear with a full football uniform named “Albärt.” He was introduced at the Germany vs. Colombia game in June 2023 but was unnamed at first. After his introduction, a public poll was released to choose his name. Choices included “Albärt”, “Bärnardo”, “Bärnheart” and “Herzi von Bär”. The winning name was revealed on July 5, 2023 with “Albärt” receiving 32% of the votes.

And there you go. That’s my look at Euro 2024 Group E and a look at the Euro 2024 mascot. That means only one group left to review! It is catching up fast!

WORK CITED:

WIKIPEDIA: UEFA Euro 2024 – Mascot. Wikipedia.com. 2024. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2024#Symbols>

World Cup 2022 Preview: Group F

Jon The Blogcentric2 Comments

As we move on throughout the groups, just to let you know it’s not easy to make a call on which groups are going to qualify and which aren’t. Even the surest of sure shots aren’t a guarantee.

Some may wonder why I include past games as references for how I feel teams are going to do. Sure, it’s most often a case that they did not play the same teams before in the recent past, like the past year and a half. However past play can tell a lot about a team. It may not tell everything, but it does give a good sense of how the team is doing. I’m also aware that such a viewpoint isn’t all that accurate either. A team could be lackluster in qualifying and in friendlies but suddenly come alive at the World Cup. Plus the COVID pandemic changed a lot. Players were out of training as a team for months, games were cancelled and tournaments were delayed. How each team dealt with the pandemic differed team by team. How some of the bigger-name teams do here in Qatar will tell a lot of how the pandemic affected them. Whether they dealt with it best or whether they were hit hard.

Next group of focus is Group F. Interesting is that two of the teams in this group are teams that both finished in the Top 3 of the last World Cup! It’s all about the luck of the draw how we get these World Cup groups, or sometimes lack thereof.. This is a very interesting mix of nations, as I’ll review henceforth:

-Belgium (2): The run of The Red Devils’s luck actually started with their failure to qualify for Euro 2012. It began as they hired Marc Wilmots who played for three World Cups as coach. Soon the changes were noticed. They qualified for the 2014 World Cup with one game to go and got as far as the quarterfinals during the Cup. Their “Golden Generation” was just being born, but not without bumps. After they only got as far as the quarterfinals in Euro 2016, Wilmots was replaced by Spanish coach Roberto Martinez. Martinez led Belgium to its best-ever World Cup finish in Russia 2018: third. Belgium still ranks as one of the top teams in the world.

Despite only going as far as the quarterfinals in Euro 2020, Martinez is still head coach. Many of the big names from 2018 — Vertonghen, the Hazard brothers, de Bruyne, Alderweireld, Witsel, Lukaku — are back, along with some new faces. The World Cup squad has eight players that rank among Belgium’s ten most capped players ever. Recent wins include Estonia, Poland and Burkina Faso. They drew against Ireland and had a win and a draw against Wales. They also lost both their recent games against the Netherlands. Qatar is the stage for Belgium to continue their greatness and even reach new levels.

-Canada (41): For Canada, the World Cup has been mostly an ethnic affair. In the past, the team only qualified for the 1986 World Cup. Since then, Canadians normally cheer for the team of their ethnic background at the World Cup or just simply pick a favorite. Things really changed leading up to the qualifying rounds. In 2018, they hired John Herdman, who guided Canada’s women’s team to be a top power, to be their coach. The turnaround was amazing. In the first round of CONCACAF qualifying, Canada won all four of their games. In the second round, which consists of a single game, Canada won their match against Haiti thanks to a single goal by Cyle Larin. In the third round which consisted of eight teams and fourteen games, Canada clinched qualification with one game to go! They ended the round with the best results of all CONCACAF teams.

You can be sure the Maple Leafs want to deliver a good show this World Cup. Back in 1986, they lost all three of their group stage games, scored no goals and conceded five. Most of the current squad play for teams of the MLS. Active on the team are Atiba Hutchison, Milan Borlan and Samuel Piette who all rank among Canada’s ten most capped players ever. Also on the team are Cyle Larin and Jonathan David who are Canada’s two biggest goalscorers ever. Not to mention forward Alphonso Davies, who is a rising talent at 22 and considered one of the best full-backs in the world. As for their Group F opponents, Canada has never previously played Croatia, and they’ve never had a win against Belgium or Morocco. Their most recent wins came to Mexico, the US and Japan. They had a recent 2-2 draw to Bahrain. They’ve also had recent losses to Costa Rica, Uruguay and Honduras. Whatever the situation, Qatar is the area for Canada to go better than they ever have before, and maybe even pull a surprise or two.

-Morocco (22): Morocco is a sentimental favorite for many. They are the first African team to qualify for a World Cup, back in 1970. They are the first African team to qualify for a World Cup knockout stage, back in 1986. However they’ve continuously been trying to get their team’s top form back and even trying to take the team to new levels. Their last World Cup had them out in the group stage and their last Africa Cup in 2021 had them out in the quarterfinals.

Managing the Atlas Lions is French-born Moroccan Walid Regagui who played for France’s Ligue 1 team Toulouse and represented Morocco at the 2004 African Cup. Regagui was named Moroccan head coach this August 31st. The current team plays for a wide variety of teams in European leagues and leagues in Arab countries. Recent wins they’ve achieved include Chile, Ghana and South Africa. They’ve had a win and a draw against DR Congo. They’ve also endured recent losses to Egypt and the United States. 2022 is Another chance for Morocco to write another chapter for the team.

-Croatia (12): There’s one World Cup rule that you should never dismiss the “minnows.” That especially holds true for Croatia. They’ve only been in five previous World Cup s since their independence but when Vatreni are on, they go way further than expected. That was especially made true when they made it to the World Cup final in Russia 2018. Their player Luka Modric was also awarded the Golden Ball for being the top player of the Cup and won the Ballon D’or that same year.

The team’s coaching staff is predominantly Croatian with Zlatko Dalic head coach since 2017.Modric is back and is captain of the team. Returning with Modric are other renowned players Ivan Perisic, Dejan Lovren and Domagoj Vida. Most of the team plays for teams in either Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A , or Croatia’s Prva HNL. Recent wins include Bulgaria, Denmark and France (for the first time ever!). Recent draws also include France along with Slovenia. Their only loss came to Austria in UEFA Nations Cup play. Nothing is guaranteed in football. One thing that can be certain is Croatia can go further than you expect it to.

My Prediction: It never fails. Once I’m done reviewing, I have to predict the two that will advance. For this group, I anticipate the advancers to be Belgium and Croatia. Best chances for an upset will be Morocco. With the World Cup being played in a desert climate, they could do it.

And there you go. This is my review of the Group F teams and prediction. Only just six days to go until the start of the big event. Already close to 3 million tickets have been sold. Stay tuned!