SOCCER fans in Bahrain have been busy ever since the start of the Euro 16 Championship, filling up coffee shops on Ramadan evenings supporting their beloved teams.
However, not everyone watches the games for pure enjoyment. Soccer connoisseurs, in particular, study the game to develop a better understanding of the tactics used.
Founders of Tekkers Academy Paul Shipwright and Deena Rahman are both professional coaches but differ vastly in naming their favourites.
Rahman believes that France will win the Euros because they have home advantage.
“A key factor to their success is Dmitri Payet, who has had a great season with West Ham and is taking his league form into the Euros,” said Rahman, who represented Fulham Pro and England’s under-19 side, before representing Bahrain’s women’s national team at the senior level.
Another advantage for the French from Rahman’s point of view is their young and pacy team.
“The team has a good mixture of youth and experience with the likes of Paul Pogba, Patrice Evra and Oliver Giroud,” the 33-year-old added.
However, the Bahraini football player does admit that the team has been underachieving at the tournament. But that should only motive them to double their efforts, she added.
“France have not been brilliant so far, but have done enough, and will feel confident that they can beat Ireland in the last 16 on Sunday and England or Iceland in the quarter-finals on July, then anything can happen in the semi-finals,” she concluded.
By contrast, Shipwright thinks Germany would win the title, calling them a big occasion team.
“They always get their tournament preparations absolutely perfect and are totally ready for the big challenges,” Englishman Shipwright, 54, said.
“With Mesut Ozil orchestrating the midfield, and Mario Gomez, Thomas Muller and Mario Gotze to score, they are a major threat going forward, and when you can boast of Manuel Neuer in goal - probably the world’s top goalkeeper at the moment - they are difficult to score against,” he added.
“Their tactics are based on a passing game, with sharp, accurate passes coming from the midfielders for the strikers to make the most of it,” Shipwright added.
“While the strikers are tall and can therefore score from high crosses into the box, they are also fantastically skilful for big men and are just as comfortable with the ball at their feet,” Shipwright concluded.
On the other hand, Egyptian sports reporter at Kingfut.com Malak Hassouna sees the event more competitive now than in the group stages.
“This tournament is weird. The big teams were underachieving in their first two matches but suddenly felt the risk of all falling under the same path in the knock-out stages,” Hassouna said.
“On one side you have Portugal and Belgium as the toughest teams, with all due respect to their competitors, but on the other side you have England, France, Italy, Spain and Germany. This is not very common but I really hope someone from the latter five mentioned wins it,.
“Any team that gets through the likes of Spain, Germany and France should deserve the trophy, but I would personally go with England. They have a dynamic squad that can finish matches easily, however it all falls into the hands of their coach to choose his right set of players,” Hassouna, who is also a political science student added.
England will be facing Iceland on Monday. Iceland qualified thanks to a last minute winner against Austria.
For Bahrain football enthusiast Portugal is the team to watch out for.
“I think Portugal have a good chance to get into the final. They haven’t been performing good enough in the group stages, but they got their game up in the last match and managed to put in a good performance,” said Ibrahim.
Also for Ibrahim, 22, the fact the that Cristiano Ronaldo is back in form with two goals in the 3-3 draw with Hungary after failing to score in the first two games is a good omen for Portugal.
Maged Haleem, a Bahraini partner at a private accounting firm, is backing Italy.
“Coach Conte has an agreement with Chelsea to take over next season and I’m pretty sure he would want to end his time with the Italian national team with a trophy,” Haleem said.
Haleem, 59, also feels that the Italians have shown strong tactical skills in the competition and that should give them an upper-hand.