We are after the whole first round, so I thought let’s do fun experiment and confront stereotypes we all know about the teams with the reality and how they played in the first round. Shall we?

DISCLAIMER: By using stereotypes I don’t mean to offend any nation. I know that stereotypes in many cases are unfair.

***

Stereotype:
Turkey is always underestimated in big tournaments. Can play great offensive football. Hakan Sukur was a great player.

Italy is always defending its 1:0 lead. Plays boring football called catenaccio.

The Match:
Turkey 0
Italy 3
Turkey played blandly. Italy plays offensive football. Both stereotypes proved wrong.

***

Stereotype:
Wales has one good player. His name is Gareth Bale. He can win a match alone.

Switzerland has one good player. His name is Xherdan Shaqiri. He cannot win a match alone.

The Match:
Wales 1
Switzerland 1
I have no clue why Bale is still playing football if he clearly doesn’t enjoy it anymore. Shaqiri haven’t won the match for Swiss, though. 50% of stereotype accuracy!

***

Stereotypes:
Denmark means energy and always does a good performance.
Finland. No clue.

The Match:
Denmark 0
Finland 1
Till the moment Eriksen fell on the field, the stereotypes were on point. The rest is history.

***

Stereotypes:
Belgium is called Red Devils. Is playing offensive football, always are considered pretenders to win tournament. Rarely do, though.

Russia is unknown. You never know how they play. They have potential due to the size of the country and the amount of talent, but did they win anything in history?

The Match:
Belgium 3
Russia 0
Belgium confirmed the pretender position. Russian confirmed being an unknown. Both stereotypes on point!

***

Stereotypes:
England (and the football) are always going home… far before the final. Generation after generation, all those Scholes, Beckhams, Gerrards, always great players, always going home.

Croatia has heart. Never gives up. Team that leaves heart on the pitch. The team that wins your heart on the pitch.

The Match:
England 1
Croatia 0
Where is my Croatia? What happened? What the hell happened?!

***

Stereotypes:
Austria wishes they play like Germany.
Northern Macedonia… sorry your data transfer is suspended. No stereotype found.

The Match:
Austria 3
Northern Macedonia 1
In the end, I think Germany wishes they play like Austria.

***

Stereotypes:
The Netherlands is like Belgium but actually with some spectacular successes. They play beautifully for the eye. Always had players we loved, Berkamp, Overmars, Van Basten. Everybody loves The Netherlands.

Ukraine is Shevchenko. Yes, I know he doesn’t play anymore. He is a coach now. As I said, Ukraine is Shevchenko.

The Match:
The Netherlands 3
Ukraine 2
We still love The Netherlands. And we always will love Shevchenko.

***

Stereotypes:
Scotland! Place to live, place to love! Kilts, red hair, castles, rain, bagpipe, and… what? Ah, football. Sorry, no data.

Czech is the team to respect. Always good, always solid team. Not as strong as France, England, Germany, but among the medium strength teams Czech excels.

The Match:
Scotland 0
Czech 2
Love to Scotland confirmed. Czech class confirmed. Stereotypes have never been more accurate!

***

Stereotypes:
Poland means boring, chaotic football and Lewandowski. Noone in Europe believes Lewandowski really is Polish. Neither do I.
Slovakia means no data. No stereotypes. Sorry Slovakia.

The Match:
Poland 1
Slovakia 2
It’s your fault. You should know better before you turned TV. Wasted 90 minutes of your life. Stereotypes fully confirmed.

***

Stereotypes:
Spain plays tiki taka and we all hate it.
Sweden has Ibrahimović. They don’t? Oh, so I don’t watch.

The Match:
Spain 0
Sweden 0
Spain had 85% possession. Scored 0 goals. We all hate tiki taka.

***

Stereotypes:
Hungary used to play a great football. Like 100 years ago or so.
Portugal has Ronaldo. Portugal can do anything with this card in hand.

The Match:
Hungary 0
Portugal 3
Apparently every 100 years Hungary has a new injection of talent. They played pretty awesome. Portugal had Ronaldo, but decided not to play this card. Stereotypes missed this time.

***

Stereotypes:
When Zidane ended career, France won’t win anything for the next 20 years.
Germany always wins at the last minute of the match.

The Match:
France 1
Germany 0
Sometimes, my friends, stereotypes are wrong.

WHAT STEREOTYPES I GOT WRONG? WHICH ONES I MISSED? 

Thomas Jansen is the designer of Eleven: the football manager game. Ignacy Trzewiczek is the developer of the game. They both will share their thoughts about EuroCup 2021 and also talk about the design or development of Eleven. Be with them every day during Euro! If you like football and board games, please, share the news about Eleven!

You can learn more about Eleven HERE!

Ignacy:
We discuss tactics. We argue if 4-4-2 is better than 4-5-1, we debate about choices managers make, we spend countless hours talking about who should play on that position and that position and if this player is better from that player. We discuss football all day long, and there are as many opinions as there are fans.

Poland lost against Slovakia yesterday, and as you can imagine, the whole country is debating. We debate manager personal choices. We debate tactics. We debate if our goalkeeper made a mistake. We argue why Lewandowski didn’t score a goal. The Internet – as expected – literally exploded after the match.

That’s all bullocks. Tactics, personal choices, individual player mistakes are all bullocks if there is no heart left on the pitch. There is no tactics that win the game if you don’t run. There is no winning personal choice, if the team plays no pressing. There is no football without giving everything you got on the pitch.

The heart makes a difference.

That’s why Ukraine, which lost against the Netherlands, gained thousands of new supporters last week.

That’s why no one could care less for Poland after their bland, boring, uninspired performance.

We should not discuss tactics. We should not discuss personal choices. We should discuss if that’s the performance of a person whose lifetime dream was to play in the National team during the EuroCup. Did we see that? Did we see the fire, the passion, the manifest of the moment of their life.

In Eleven we have Team Spirit stat. It breaks the rules. Unlike all other stats, it has no fundamental function, no general description. It’s freaking magic. It allows you to do everything. It allows you to break almost any rule in the game. If your team has high Team Spirit, you can do crazy things.

Watching my National team having Team Spirit on level 1, the lowest possible, was a dreadful experience. I am sorry if you also had to watch it.

Thomas:
19-year-old defender Jurriën Timber was in the Dutch starting line-up in the game against Ukraine. At the start of this season, he only played in the second division of the Dutch league. What is it that makes a player grow?

In Eleven we have young players as well. They are eager to learn from the other players on the pitch or from a good coach. Make sure you put them in the line-up, train them, and they probably will become better.

At the beginning of the game, your veteran players form the trusted core of your team. They are essential for the team. They have great abilities, but will get older once you use them. Soon there will be other players developing themselves to take over their roles.

(of course, we are still in the middle of the development of Eleven, so keep in mind things may change!)

This Euro2020 day I watched 2 matches. I missed the one between Sweden and Spain.

The first match of the day was Scotland – Czech Republic. It was played at beautiful Hampden Park. It is home to Queens Park, the oldest football club in Scotland that still exists. After Rangers and Celtic, it has won the most Scottish cups (10), all won during the 19th century. The stadium is also home to the Scottish national team.

It all started well. The national anthem of Scotland was played, and all 15 000 Scots in the stadium sang loud and proud. Beautiful.
The absolute star of the Scottish team was Robbertson. He led his mates in battle. They were the better team in the first half, but it didn’t bring them any goals. And just before halftime, Bayer Leverkusen’s striker Patrik Schick scored at the opposite end of the pitch.

It was a great start to the second half, with chances on both sides. But then Schick struck again. He saw the Scottish goalkeeper was outside the penalty box and took a shot from a great distance. It resulted in the best goal of the tournament so far.

I liked the Scottish way of playing, but they lack a world-class striker. The Czech Republic has one. He goes by the name of Patrik Schick. I will remember him.

Next up was Poland – Slovakia. All members of the Portal Games team were probably watching this one nervously. Unfortunately, the game wasn’t of the highest quality. The best players on the pitch were Zielińsky (Poland) and Hamsík (Slovakia). They brought movement into the teams and functioned as a connection between midfield and front. Poland had the most of the possession, but Slovakian winger Mak scored the first goal.

Right after halftime, Poland got back into the game by scoring the 1-1. Poland got their hope back. But then Krychowiak got his 2nd yellow card, and a couple of minutes later, Slovakia scored again. Poland tried to fight back. Bednarek missed the biggest chance in the 91st minute to equalize. Full time 1-2. Without having great players, Slovakia managed to defeat better quality players by playing organized and being a better team.

Thomas Jansen is the designer of Eleven: the football manager game. Ignacy Trzewiczek is the developer of the game. They both will share their thoughts about EuroCup 2021 and also talk about the design or development of Eleven. Be with them every day during Euro! If you like football and board games, please, share the news about Eleven!

You can learn more about Eleven HERE!

Thomas:

Let’s get back to football and board games today.

After 2 days of the tournament, I am most impressed by Belgium and Italy. To me, Belgium is getting more and more used to the fact they belong among the big ones. They have an experienced team, with great talented players. Lukaku was great against Russia. He contributed both in attack and defense. Italy made a good impression as well. But it took a while to break through the Turkish wall. For the neutral football fan, these kinds of matches can be intriguing…

When you play Eleven, you can send scouts to watch the opponent’s team. This way you learn if it is a strong team and in which line up they play. If you are about to meet the favorites for the league title, you may choose a defensive lineup with defensive tactics. One of them is called ‘Play for a draw’. It boosts your defense and decreases your attacking power at the same time. lt often saves you, and sometimes you even steal the victory. Imagine the Turkish own goal didn’t happen and Turkey scored in a counterattack.

Have you ever been on that side as a fan? Remember how you exploded in joy? Or burst into tears, if on the other side. That’s football.

I bet Turkey would have chosen these tactics too if they had the card available.

Of course, yesterday I was looking forward to the game in my home country: The Netherlands.

I remember the first moment I got interested in football. It was in 1988. The Dutch team won the Euros that year. I was… Eleven.

I literally remember every single game. For us, the semi-final was the real final. We won against Germany with a superb goal from Marco van Basten. For the Netherlands, it was revenge for the lost World Cup final in 1974 against Germany.

This year our team is OK. We’ve had a better team, but they can definitely grow during the tournament.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to watch England – Croatia. I took my kids to the playground. We had a great time. Some things are more important than the beautiful game. Nevertheless, England managed to win without me watching. Raheem Sterling scored the only goal. They took their revenge for the loss against the same opponent in the World Cup semi-finals 2 years ago.

I was really interested in North Macedonia. I’m an underdog man. And I hope they will do well. And become… 2nd in the group. Right behind the Netherlands of course.

They played against Austria, a team which is ranked about 40 places higher in Fifa ranking. The first half was full of mistakes but was entertaining. Austria had better players, but North Macedonia fought hard as a team. Austria opened the score with a beautiful goal, but Macedonia scored the equalizer in a way that looked more like pinball than football.

In the second half it could have gone both ways, but substitutes Gregoritsch and Arnautovitz showed why they should have been in the lineup by both scoring one more goal.

Full time: 3-1. I have been entertained, but I don’t expect these teams to reach the quarter-finals.

I put on my orange 2010 World Cup finals jersey. I was ready for the game. In the first half, the Netherlands were off to a good start. 3 chances in about 7 minutes. But the blue wall got thicker each minute. Sometimes it opened in a flash and the Ukrainians came out for a dangerous counterattack. It was clear the Dutch had the better players, but Ukraine used the ‘play for a draw’- tactics card with thought.

Finally, in the second half, the Dutch broke down the wall. Wijnaldum and Weghorst each scored a goal within 5 minutes. Everybody waited for the third Dutch goal, but instead, Ukraine scored. Twice! They tried the ‘play for draw’ card again, but it didn’t work. In the 85th minute, Dumfries scored the final goal of the game for the Netherlands: 3-2. Ukraine worked hard, but the Dutch took the victory in the end.

Satisfied, but a bit worried. I‘ve seen some good attacks, but although they played with 5 defenders, defensively it didn’t look great.

Thomas Jansen is the designer of Eleven: the football manager game. Ignacy Trzewiczek is the developer of the game. They both will share their thoughts about EuroCup 2021 and also talk about the design or development of Eleven. Be with them every day during Euro! If you like football and board games, please, share the news about Eleven!

You can learn more about Eleven HERE!

Thomas:

And then you realize: In life, there is one thing more important than football and board games: It’s life itself.

During the game between Denmark and Finland, Christian Erikson suddenly fell down on the pitch and had to be reanimated. He was fighting for his life. Thousands of people in the stadium, friends, and family, and millions of people watching at home, were shocked. Erikson was brought to the local hospital. After a while, rumors suggested, Christian was conscious, but no one knew for sure. About an hour later, the good news came out: Christian Erikson was awake and was even able to talk. A huge sigh of relief.

I couldn’t imagine the rest of the game would be played that night. But it happened. Players decided to play again. It was said, Erikson also wanted the game to continue.

It was great to see the fans of Finland and Denmark, sharing their emotions together. Shouting Erikson’s name. When the Danish team entered the pitch again, the Finnish players applauded for them. It was a terrible event, but there were some beautiful moments.

I once experienced myself, there was a situation with a fan who had to be reanimated during a match of my hometown club. It’s shocking, but at the same time, it’s great to see how many people want to help.

Of course, Denmark was shocked. There’s only one subject to talk about on the streets today. For the Fins it was a strange evening as well; This, being their first-ever match in a big tournament. They will never forget. But of course first of all it’s about Christian and his family. I hope they get through this and I wish them well.

Finland won the game 0 – 1. But who cares today. I hope Denmark will pick themselves up and play a fantastic rest of the tournament.
Tomorrow I will talk about board games (Eleven) and football again. Somehow it feels less important today.

Thomas Jansen is the designer of Eleven: the football manager game. Ignacy Trzewiczek is the developer of the game. They both will share their thoughts about EuroCup 2021 and also talk about the design or development of Eleven. Be with them every day during Euro! If you like football and board games, please, share the news about Eleven!

You can learn more about Eleven HERE!

Ignacy:

The whole world is watching—the opening ceremony and then the first match—the highest pressure possible. It’s the start of the four weeks worldwide event, the first of 51 games. It’s the hour you were waiting for your whole life. I cannot imagine what’s happening in the dressing room, what’s happening when you walk out of the tunnel and enter the pitch. What’s in your mind when you hear the crowd and realize this is it – the opening match of EuroCup, and you are in. The moment you will remember your whole life.

It’s your hopes and dreams. It’s all the fans, supporters, media, everyone’s hopes and dreams to be part of the great game, to experience something exceptional, to see goals, and saves, and tackles, and beautiful passes, and smart plays, and effort, and heart, and drama too.

It’s the first game. The whole world is watching.

Thomas will write and analyze yesterday’s match below, so let me diverse from Euro for a second and talk about the first game… in board games.

When I told my friends and playtesters that I signed a football manager game, they were more than intrigued. Many of them work with me on my designs for more than a decade. Martin was helping me in 2009 with Stronghold, and then in 2010 with Pret-a-Porter; Maciej, on the other hand, was my main playtester for Imperial Settlers. He also designed a solo variant for Imperial Settlers.

They have trust in the games Portal is doing. They are with me for years, being one of the most trusted playtesters I have. It’s a great team of geeks.

They are also football freaks. We play football every Monday forever. We share two passions – board games and football.

So as I said, when I told them that I signed a football manager game, they were more than intrigued.

This first game of Eleven was like opening the Euro. Excitement, hopes, dreams. Martin came to my house to play it. I set up the game, explained the rules, and we played.

That very evening, the first time I showed him Eleven, we played only one round. After the last phase of the round, Martin smiled and gave me that look. It said everything.

This look said, ‘It’s really good.’
This look said, ‘You lucky bastard.’
This look said, ‘I’m in. I want to be in the dev team.’

We talked for an hour about the game and were super excited about upcoming months of work.

Eleven delivered. Eleven was everything Martin hoped for. Eleven is a football manager game we all waited for.

***

Thomas:

For me, Euro2020 started yesterday, right after work.

I like football. My main focus is on club football. Especially the smaller clubs. They were part of the inspiration for designing Eleven. The fight against relegation has intrigued me just as much as trying to become champions. I enjoy the stories behind a season of small clubs. Not being relegated at the end of the season can feel just as good as becoming a champion. I wanted players—when playing Eleven—to experience these dramatic emotions in one of the scenarios of Eleven. Just try not to relegate. Easy, right?

After a disappointing season with my club, I had to change focus. So, I went into a supermarket and bought the ‘Guide to Euro2020’. I read about all the national teams, star players, and stadiums. I really got excited. This is going to be great. I picked my favorite countries, mostly underdogs, and I was ready for the tournament. Ready to watch the first match between Italy and Turkey the next day.

Of course, Italy was the favorite to win this match. If it was about the national anthems, they are definitely finalists to me. What a great song! But it’s not. And Turkey has a dangerous team. They took 4 points from France during qualifying. They beat the Netherlands with a deserved victory. They are fast and deadly. Unfortunately for Turkey, as the first half progressed, the Italians got more and more dominant in the game, resulting in lots of chances. The Turks weren’t able to counterattack, which is normally their strength, due to the fast intervention of the Italians.

But Nevertheless, 0 – 0 at halftime. After the break, Italy got their well-deserved goal; unfortunately, it was own goal. I felt a bit sorry for Turkey because they defended quite well and were unlucky here. After the goal, it went loose. The Turkish wall collapsed. Full time: 3-0.

Italy has shown its strength, and I definitely think they will become the group winner. Although Turkey failed both in defense and attack against a different opponent, they may be able to play the game they like and still end up as number 2 in the group.

I enjoyed this game! I have seen worse at the start of a tournament. I am looking forward to tomorrow’s games!

Thomas Jansen is the designer of Eleven: the football manager game. Ignacy Trzewiczek is the developer of the game. They both will share their thoughts about EuroCup 2021 and also talk about the design or development of Eleven. Be with them every day during Euro! If you like football and board games, please, share the news about Eleven!

You can learn more about Eleven here: https://bit.ly/3xidfAg