Nuntius wrote:Human Being wrote:aporel18 wrote:
Group E looks a bit more clear, with France, Lithuania, Serbia as favorites, and Ukraïne looking like the other team to advance. Belgium and Latvia have played really well, but they need to win almost every game in this stage.
I doubt that Ukraine wins against Serbia or Lithuania, so as soon as Ukraine loses to Latvia it is Latvia's spot to lose, unless they lose to Belgium when it is down to point difference.
Why do you doubt this? Ukraine has played really well so far and they matched France point to point until the last 5 minutes.
People have to stop underestimating some teams because they are not traditional powerhouses and overestimating some other teams because they are. Just look at what happened to Turkey and Russia.
well, I don't know - we will have to wait and see the game Latvia vs Ukraine. If I wanted to play my Devil's advocate I could say that just going by the results:
- Yes, Ukraine was in game with France up until that last five minutes of the game?! Same France who lost to Germany, was 15 down to Belgium?! The worse version of France than nearly lost to the Latvian team 2 years ago, Latvian team that didn't have 2-3 better players that they have now (while still missing their 4 best players), and that was 2 years less experienced and the youngest team at the time?
- Going by these results it could be argued that none of the teams from France-Belgium-Ukraine would have made out of the group B.
- Latvia was in the game till the end with Lithuania (despite having their worst shooting game) and Serbia (despite the fact that Latvian leader barely could contain himself not to cuss out the refs on public tv).
But all I said was that it is not correct that Latvia needs to win all their games to get to the next stage - it might be enough to win just Ukraine.
P.S. I wouldn't be surprised if Ukraine beats Lithuania - they were lucky against Montenegro, Latvia had the worst shooting game against them, and they still were couple less offensive rebounds away from being eliminated by Bosnia.