Reading through a recent post published on EPL Index titled “Premier League 2011/12 – Top Creators & Their Positions”  the top 2 chance creators last season were David Silva and Juan Mata for Manchester City and Chelsea respectively. Indeed, over the course of Euro 2012, one talking point was Spain’s consistent use of 6 midfielders. [...]

The key is to control the game. If we have the ball, he’ll participate less and cause us fewer problems. The above quote by Gerard Piqué about Cristiano Ronaldo ahead of the semi-final with Portugal summed up Spain’s approach during Euro 2012. In a typically excellent piece by Sid Lowe for the Guardian (from which [...]

We’ll begin with a quick review of the Euro 2012 Semi Final Result: Italy 2 Germany 1…and ‘It could have been four, or five’.    This was the night that Balotelli finally came of age; where Pirlo was involved with 34% of the Azzurri’s play (received or played a pass) and boasted a 92% pass [...]

Winning is what matters and winning is what England are doing. Another hard-fought, battling win came on Tuesday as England recorded their first win over a Euros host. This is becoming a tournament for English firsts with a first competitive win over Sweden already in the bag. The all-important Group D decider pitted England with [...]

Sweden began their final game at Euro 2012 looking to exit the competition with some pride salvaged and some hope for the future restored. They faced a French side they had not beaten in a competitive game since October 1949 in Stockholm and a team that was looking to finish the group stages at the [...]

Here at EPLIndex.com we’ve spent some time over night collating the stats for you for England’s players over the three games. We’ve covered tackling, shooting, passing and creativity. Let’s take a brief look at the stats. As you can see from above John Terry has the highest tackle win percentage for any player of the [...]

Greece pulled off an incredible 1-0 victory over hot favourites Russia in Group A on Saturday. The result meant Greece qualified ahead of Russia based on their head-to-head result, rather than the traditional method using goal difference (Russia would’ve qualified if this was used). Russia will only have themselves to blame for their exit though. After [...]

Following a convincing display in Ukraine’s opening fixture versus Sweden, opinions were optimistic going into the match against France. After the attacking minded mentality of the Ukraine and their ability to stretch play, some thought there might be another Denmark vs. Holland on the cards. An achilles heel shown by the Ukraine during the Sweden [...]

With 60 minutes on the clock, Olof Mellberg put Sweden ahead as England wasted a lead for a second successive match. Luckily, for Roy Hodgson, Theo Walcott’s introduction, for the ineffective Milner, turned the game in England’s favour. England began the match in positive fashion with a Scott Parker effort forcing a good save from Andreas Isaksson. Andy Carroll justified his inclusion, giving England [...]

A tense Friday night in Kiev for both sets of fans, both Sweden and England knew that a positive result here was vital. England had never beaten Sweden in a competitive encounter, drawing five and losing two of the seven matches, reason for Swedish fans to be optimistic despite their poor performance against Ukraine. With [...]