Losing is the New Winning at Euro 2008

June 23rd, 2008 | by: Daryl |

Your Euro 2008 semi-finalists are: Turkey, Germany, Russia, Spain. Of these four teams, only Spain are unbeaten. Turkey lost to Portugal, Germany lost to Croatia and Russia lost (4-1!) to Spain. So seems losing at least one group game was the way forward at Euro 2008.

And here’s why:

If you win your group early, you’re screwed. Because that makes your final group game essentially non-competitive. Not even on par with a friendly because you deliberately pick a weakened team.

And it makes perfect sense: Players need a rest. Players need to avoid bookings. Squad players want to get a game. But seems it isn’t worth the trade off for the inevitable loss of momentum.

Portugal, Netherlands, Croatia and Spain all looked good in their first two group games, secured six points and then gave their main men a day off.

But when the first choice XI stepped back up for the quarterfinals things didn’t go quite to plan.

First Portugal were taken apart by a German team that had to field their best eleven to beat Austria and secure second place in Group B. Then Croatia lost to a Turkey team that had fought back for a famous late win over the Czech Republic in Group A and a day later the Netherlands were outplayed by a Russia team who had needed to beat Sweden in their final Group D game.

And Spain came within spot kicks of going out last night against Italy, who had needed a win over France in their final Group C game to make the quarters. Spain avoided the curse of the Group winners, but only just.

So teams who had to fight for their lives in the previous game had the edge over teams who coasted through the last game safe in the knowledge they had already qualified. Seems it’s all about momentum and maintaining a competitive edge.

And maybe it’s also true that losing a group game forces players and teams to take a long hard look at themselves. So there you go international managers, a free tip from World Cup Blog: if you want to win an international tournament, all you have to do is start losing.

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Comments

By George | June 23rd, 2008 at 9:20 am

Correction: Russia lost to Spain, not the Netherlands.

Posted from United States

By Daryl | June 23rd, 2008 at 9:34 am

Thanks George, been corrected.

Posted from United Kingdom

By Yevy | June 23rd, 2008 at 11:44 am

I’m going to have to go ahead and shoot down the hypothesis that playing an extra competitive match during the course of a week improves a team’s performance in a subsequent match. Logic dictates that fitness and availability of players have the most impact on a team’s performance. Playing another match could only negatively impact a team’s ability to put their best eleven on the field. The teams bounced out of the quarters didn’t lose because of rust.
Portugal lost because they could not defend set pieces, which is something you have to work out in practice anyways.
The Dutch lost because they played a team that forced them to defend the whole match and ran them into the ground, something their group opponents were incapable of.
Croatia lost because because they couldn’t break the Turks playing for a nil draw, and after scoring they left time on the clock for the luckiest team in the tournament.
Spain could have been in the same boat as Croatia, but Donadoni was ready to go home.
For reference, of the runner-up teams only Russia played better in the quarters than they did during the group stage as a whole, and they had to add the best player in the tournament to do so. Italy and Turkey played like crap, and Germany still does not look like they can consistently create chances from open play.

Posted from United States

By Terrycarvallo from FLORIDA | June 23rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm

an italian loss bring as much joy as a french win,especially in the manner it did, now they know how it felt,the difference is that France in 2006 deserve to win

By Timba | June 23rd, 2008 at 2:41 pm

Boycott South Africa 2010. Force South African president Thabo Mbeki to confront Robert Mugabe! http://zimsolidarity.blogspot.com/

Posted from United States

By A. | June 23rd, 2008 at 6:12 pm

Turkey was no more playing for a nil-nil draw than Croatia. There is no doubt that the possibility exists that players will switch off mentally when they are given a match off and may not regain the right sort of focus once they play again.

Posted from Australia