EURO 2024 FINALS] Albania Vs Croatia - 19/06/2024

[Shpati]

Sylvinho is being overrated

Anyone could've qualified a team with 12 Serie A players, 2 prem, 3 La Liga, Besiktas/Dinamo Zagreb players to an expanded 24 team Euro.

Don't let Edi Reja's dementia convince you otherwise. Sylvinho didn't do any miracles. Just did the basics. If anything you can argue that he still hasn't gotten the best of them.

A lot of those players aren't starters.

That squad doesn't really stand out when compared to other teams of similar level. If all of those players were to be available for transfer, very few of them would fetch more than like 20 mill. Perhaps only Asllani, maybe Broja (even that is doubtful now), maybe Djimsiti, but there isn't a huge amount of quality there compared to similar nations.

Indeed, Poland and Czechs definitely have better squads. Our squad is one of the worst in this tournament, despite being quite good, European competition is very difficult and just having some guys on the books of top5 league clubs isn't always enough.

He has made some errors in his management of these matches, but the team has also very clearly progressed in their play and we can make simple adjustments to be able to take things much further. The team is showing a very high level and undoubtedly if we had drawn an easier group we would be odds on to qualify.

Yep. Last a check, lot of these players are getting regulated, don't have a club, or play for some crappy leagues like Russia ,Romania, or Korea.

The team still has a lot of work to do. It definitely isn't made up of 18 players playing in strong leagues and getting playing time lol. That might have been true on paper at one point in time. But it's not true anymore.

[artan]

Di Biasi had half the talent Sylvinho had. Di Biasi had to develop an aggressive defensive style to compete. Guys like Lila were amateurs but they served a purpose and fit his overall scheme. We would bash Di Biasi for not starting Gashi but in hindsight Gashi was not a good player.

Albania was able to compete with very good teams despite the lack of talent. Most of the guys in the current team would walk in that starting lineup. Mavraj is the only player who would start on this team. Maybe a young and motivated taulant Xhaka as well.

I dunno man. Di Biasi had the benefit of more Kosovars with them not having a legit NT yet.

You make it sound like Andi Lila was a life long Superliga player. He was a Greek regular for about 7 years.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to having Sylvinho back. He's still learning. But his debut season was great.

Di Biasi had years where he'd still start guys like Bulku and Cana when there was clearly better replacements. He even cut Djim.

Sylvinho had harder choices to make like benching Asani when he was their most important player in the qualification.

Yeah, I think Sylinho has the better team. But it's nothing great, and I don't think De Biasi could do a better job with it. It still has holes and people playing for 2nd division teams (or just got regulated) or just sub par leagues in general like Romanian, Russia, and of course Korea lol.

If we get rid of Sylinho now, then what? We just risk getting another Reja.

Andi Lila played for a mid table Greek village club for years. There's many Albanian players who are doing that right now but that doesn't mean they should be called up for the National team. It's amateur level.

Di Biasi only had three players who were playing in a top 4 league (Cana, Mavraj and Lenjani). Lenjani was a complete benchwarmer for Nantes (couldn't last a season) while Mavraj and Cana were spot starters for their clubs who were flirting with regulation. The bulk of the team were playing in Switzerland or random leagues like Croatia. Teams that are composed of guys in these leagues don't qualify and they most certainly don't make things competitive for teams like France, Portugal, etc. The quality of those teams were equivalent to what Bulgaria and Montenegro are today and both of these teams are absolute dog shit.

[artan]

Sylvinho is being overrated

Anyone could've qualified a team with 12 Serie A players, 2 prem, 3 La Liga, Besiktas/Dinamo Zagreb players to an expanded 24 team Euro.

Don't let Edi Reja's dementia convince you otherwise. Sylvinho didn't do any miracles. Just did the basics. If anything you can argue that he still hasn't gotten the best of them.

A lot of those players aren't starters.

That squad doesn't really stand out when compared to other teams of similar level. If all of those players were to be available for transfer, very few of them would fetch more than like 20 mill. Perhaps only Asllani, maybe Broja (even that is doubtful now), maybe Djimsiti, but there isn't a huge amount of quality there compared to similar nations.

Indeed, Poland and Czechs definitely have better squads. Our squad is one of the worst in this tournament, despite being quite good, European competition is very difficult and just having some guys on the books of top5 league clubs isn't always enough.

He has made some errors in his management of these matches, but the team has also very clearly progressed in their play and we can make simple adjustments to be able to take things much further. The team is showing a very high level and undoubtedly if we had drawn an easier group we would be odds on to qualify.

I would suspect that Albnania has 5 good starters in Gymcity, Asllani, Mitaj, Ramadani and Strakosha that can start for many teams in the tournament with the obvious exception of the elite teams. They have Broja who has shown immense potential but hasn't put it together and there's guys like Muci and Bajrami who are either talented with promise(Muci) or has some quality (Bajrami). Are you really going to tell me that the Croatian team is that much better than Albania?

The team has a core of good players and the problem is that manager has not figured out the wide positions and keeps playing amateurs in these spots. Playing amateurs in qualifying may be okay but they will get exposed especially in crucial attacking positions.

Also you can't judge transfer values too much. Mitaj valued at 2 million euros gives the illusion that he's not a good fullback but a guy like Sutalo is valued at 15 million euros and is constantly bashed for being awful. Lovro Majer is valued at 20 million euros but is he 5x better than Nedim Bajrami who constantly scores crucial goals?

[Dallku]

Yep. Last a check, lot of these players are getting regulated, don't have a club, or play for some crappy leagues like Russia ,Romania, or Korea.

The team still has a lot of work to do. It definitely isn't made up of 18 players playing in strong leagues and getting playing time lol. That might have been true on paper at one point in time. But it's not true anymore.

Current form aside, they are still very experienced.

Notice the worst player on this team is Seferi, someone with 0 experience in a strong league or big games. He couldn't even make Young Boys team in Swiss. His peak is FK Tirana. That's why he looks like a headless chicken out there.

Even someone like Arlind Ajeti is experienced because he comes from Basel, a winner team. He grew up as a good prospect with potential. Has plenty of tournament experience at every level and even though he failed at Torino he was still there and trained in a professional environment.

Besides Seferi and Asani, there is nobody on this team you look at and say: "this guy will be shook by the moment."

I was listening to Jurgen Klinsmann analysis earlier and he said the same thing about Albania. That people don't realize this because they don't have "famous names" but it's a team full of top league professionals.

[RedFootballs]

Sylvinho is being overrated

Anyone could've qualified a team with 12 Serie A players, 2 prem, 3 La Liga, Besiktas/Dinamo Zagreb players to an expanded 24 team Euro.

Don't let Edi Reja's dementia convince you otherwise. Sylvinho didn't do any miracles. Just did the basics. If anything you can argue that he still hasn't gotten the best of them.

A lot of those players aren't starters.

That squad doesn't really stand out when compared to other teams of similar level. If all of those players were to be available for transfer, very few of them would fetch more than like 20 mill. Perhaps only Asllani, maybe Broja (even that is doubtful now), maybe Djimsiti, but there isn't a huge amount of quality there compared to similar nations.

Indeed, Poland and Czechs definitely have better squads. Our squad is one of the worst in this tournament, despite being quite good, European competition is very difficult and just having some guys on the books of top5 league clubs isn't always enough.

He has made some errors in his management of these matches, but the team has also very clearly progressed in their play and we can make simple adjustments to be able to take things much further. The team is showing a very high level and undoubtedly if we had drawn an easier group we would be odds on to qualify.

I would suspect that Albnania has 5 good starters in Gymcity, Asllani, Mitaj, Ramadani and Strakosha that can start for many teams in the tournament with the obvious exception of the elite teams. They have Broja who has shown immense potential but hasn't put it together and there's guys like Muci and Bajrami who are either talented with promise(Muci) or has some quality (Bajrami). Are you really going to tell me that the Croatian team is that much better than Albania?

The team has a core of good players and the problem is that manager has not figured out the wide positions and keeps playing amateurs in these spots. Playing amateurs in qualifying may be okay but they will get exposed especially in crucial attacking positions.

Also you can't judge transfer values too much. Mitaj valued at 2 million euros gives the illusion that he's not a good fullback but a guy like Sutalo is valued at 15 million euros and is constantly bashed for being awful. Lovro Majer is valued at 20 million euros but is he 5x better than Nedim Bajrami who constantly scores crucial goals?

The Croatian team is comfortably better than Albania for multiple reasons.

First they have a ton of guys who play regularly for top league clubs or play in Dutch/Croatian league at a high level (Brozovic also is a great player even though being in Saudi now). They also have a few guys who are competing at the very highest level (Gvardiol, Kovacic, Modric).

In general, nobody in their team is amateur, they are all significantly experienced with the exception of a few young players and have all been good players. For every good player we have, they have a better direct comparison (you can look yourself).

The only area they are somewhat weak is the attack but then their attack is still generally better than ours. The only position we could possibly claim an 'advantage' is striker with Broja but we're not clear if Broja is even capable to play at the moment, and he might not be the same guy who initially gained plaudits. Even then, I would definitely take Kramaric for this tournament, who scored 15 goals and made 6 assists in the Bundesliga this season, and is extremely experienced in top leagues and internationally.

They are also far far more experienced on the international level and are not far removed from being World Cup semifinalists.

I think it's fair to argue that we missed a chance to win yesterday, because they looked poor and out of energy, and we were dominating the game until we chose to sit on our lead. Obviously, they were on an offday and we could capitalise. Criticism for that is okay, however, I don't think it's fair to argue they don't have clearly better resources than us at the moment. A lot of results are also about the context of the game on the day and even if they do have better team they were very beatable yesterday.

Criticism for not being more attacking is absolutely fair but keep in mind we don't have a great attacking crop either. With us here we have Hoxha, Seferi, Broja, Manaj, Daku, Asani and Muci. None of those players are presently able to hold down a spot at a top league team. Seferi and Asani are miles off that, Daku isn't particularly close either, Manaj maybe relegation level, Broja is totally out of physical shape and sorts and we have no idea if he's even the same guy, and Muci is a talented but flawed young player who's struggling in Turkey. We don't really know what kind of level Hoxha has but I'll say top league relegation for arguments sake. Conclusion is that they have a better team in all areas.

[Aurora Bulkualis]

I'm still laughing at how bad Gjasula was when he came on. He misplaced literally every pass.

Hysaj an even bigger disaster on a second look. For the second goal he was clearly beat, but for the first he went so far out for no reason than the winger ran behind him freely and made him. He is straight up costing us games and has become a massive fucking liability. It's incredible how bad he looks.

I think Sylvinho made the right choice with Ajeti. That would have been my first choice too even though I had doubts. But he was super professional.

[RedFootballs]

I'm still laughing at how bad Gjasula was when he came on. He misplaced literally every pass.

Hysaj an even bigger disaster on a second look. For the second goal he was clearly beat, but for the first he went so far out for no reason than the winger ran behind him freely and made him. He is straight up costing us games and has become a massive fucking liability. It's incredible how bad he looks.

I think DB made the right choice with Ajeti. That would have been my first choice too even though I had doubts. But he was super professional.

I don't know what is wrong with Hysaj but he's been costing the team for several years now.

He might just not be good at international football, or maybe him being the target of so much abuse by stupid Albanian fans is taking a mental toll and causing him to play poorly.

He's too ingrained in the lineup to be benched most likely but after this tournament we need to start replacing him, unfortunately.

Still grateful that he always showed up for our calls and tried his best for us.

[Aurora Bulkualis]

I'm still laughing at how bad Gjasula was when he came on. He misplaced literally every pass.

Hysaj an even bigger disaster on a second look. For the second goal he was clearly beat, but for the first he went so far out for no reason than the winger ran behind him freely and made him. He is straight up costing us games and has become a massive fucking liability. It's incredible how bad he looks.

I think DB made the right choice with Ajeti. That would have been my first choice too even though I had doubts. But he was super professional.

I don't know what is wrong with Hysaj but he's been costing the team for several years now.

He might just not be good at international football, or maybe him being the target of so much abuse by stupid Albanian fans is taking a mental toll and causing him to play poorly.

He's too ingrained in the lineup to be benched most likely but after this tournament we need to start replacing him, unfortunately.

Still grateful that he always showed up for our calls and tried his best for us.

He's literally costing us every game... It can't be worse than this.

[Aurora Bulkualis]

Btw, Gjasula had the worst passing accuracy on the pitch. A midfielder! LMAO! Even Strakosha who boots it up the field half the time is better

[Indrit Fieri 1]

Anyone has a link for this player?

I can’t find him anywhere.