Sitting in the 'V-League village pond' discussing EURO 2016

(Baonghean.vn) - A close look at the 36 group stage matches of EURO 2016 reveals why people consider EURO to be the world's top quality football tournament, even more dramatic and exciting than the World Cup. UEFA was right to increase the number of teams participating in EURO this time from 16 to 24.

According to our statistics, after 36 matches, 69 goals were scored, an average of 1.92 goals/match, this number seems to be lower than the average of V-League 2016 with 2.82 goals/match, if anything, it is higher than SLNA with 1.33 goals/match. There is a similarity that 15/69 goals in the EURO 2016 qualifiers were scored in the first 15 minutes of the second half, the time when the Nghe team often "warms up".

There were 7 goals scored in the second half's extra time, this is explained by the fact that the team had to play professionally until the last second to get this result, Vietnamese football rarely has goals at this time. For a long time, people have been blaming Phi Son, Cong Vinh, Thanh Luong... for not scoring goals, but we should remember that European players are also lacking goals. Of the 58 players who scored in the EURO 2016 qualifiers, 47 scored 1 goal (not counting own goals).

There were only 2 players who scored 3 goals (Morata of Spain and Gareth Bale of Wales) and 5 players who scored 2 goals: Lukaku (Belgium), Ivan Perisic (Croatia), Payet (France), Ronaldo (Portugal), Balazs Dzsudzsák (Hungary). Again, many people blamed Van Khoa (2- B.Binh Duong), Truong Khanh, Hoai Xuan (Dong Thap), Franklin (Long An) and Tien Duy (Than QN) for scoring own goals, now let's see that there were 2 own goals scored by Ciaran Clark of the Republic of Ireland against Sweden and Birkir Mar Sævarsson of Iceland against Hungary, no different.

For a long time, people have blamed Dinh Dong, Ngoc Hai, Tan Tai… for being too tough, but now watching EURO 2016, they saw elbows to the nose, bleeding, kicking the ball like martial arts, tearing 3-4 shirts during the match. In the match between Albania and Switzerland, the referee had to give out 8 cards, and many people said that there should have been 4-5 more.

More than anyone else, the V-League 2016 Organizing Committee can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the average number of yellow cards in the tournament is 3.7 cards/match, while at EURO it is 3.58 cards/match, which is considered to be approximately the same. The sports media will also have a more sympathetic view of violence on the field of a sport that has no place for the faint-hearted.

Is it possible that our "village pond" is close to EURO?. Expert Dang Gia Man - a veteran football commentator leisurely asked the writer: Just look at the match between Hungary 3-3 Portugal, in the past 10 years, has there been any match in Vietnam that has all the elements of a good match such as many goals, drama and brings so much emotion to the audience, Ronaldo's backheel goal is like a magical picture. Is there any Vietnamese team that has the highest ball possession rate with 65% like Germany, is there any team that has a successful passing rate of 93% (1876/2023) like Spain.

Mr. Man said: For a long time, I have been proud of my son (national player Dang Thanh Phuong) who can sprint up to 18 km/h, but when I learned that French player Kingsley Coman can sprint up to 33 km/h, honestly, I took off my hat and salute him.

Mr. Tran Song Hai, a fan who is in France, said that across 10 football fields, there has not been a single match with less than 20,000 spectators coming to cheer, while that number in V-League is 7,743 people/match, far less. With such a game, it is only natural that there would be many spectators.

And you? How do you feel about EURO 2016? Send us your feedback!

Phan Hao