I can give you that, though I still say arguably the 4th strongest team was Italy. If we ignore name by name comparison (which I already gave Italy a slight edge in), Belgium lost to that same Italy and later to Wales, so they obviously weren't a very good team. Croatia are always chokers like the rest of former Yugoslavia, they rarely go past the group stage and when they do, they are all but one time in their history go out in the 1st knock out round to a team they should be better than nominally. So yeah, if it's a close battle name wise, I'd never pick one of Croatia and Belgium over Italy at a tournament.
Mertens like I said wasn't the player he is now, he was behind Insigne in Napoli and Insigne barely even played for Italy. Now, I'm not saying Italy had better players than those two in their starting lineup, but you can see how Mertens of 2016 wouldn't walk into Italys team if even Insigne doesn't (which again was a bad move imo)
France, Spain and Germany were better, but not vastly. In fact, they all had their fair share of problems, but I'm not gonna expand the topic even more now
We agree on Portugal except I don't think it's luck, it's called being smart, which is what Italy should have done too (finish 2nd) instead of showcasing their "winning mentality"
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And I love how you just ignore half of what I say and focus on meaningless things. What does it matter where these guys are now? 2015/16 (especially second half of the season), they were most in great form. ElSha should have made the starting XI on form alone over Eder (who was great in the 1st half of the season for Sampdoria, but disappeared once he joined inter in January). ElSha started the season in Monaco and joined Roma in January, after which he had a fantastic run of games for them, probably the best spell of his career other than the 16 goals for Milan in 2013. Jorginho was a key starter for a contender Napoli, Bonaventura was Milan's best player.... But let's not go over that again, you obviously will ignore it all again
Conte didn't have to lose, Conte just had to hold on to the draw he already had vs Sweden at 0-0, that is 4 pts and guaranteed 3rd place basically, with good chances to win 2nd place and go on a easy path to the final. That's shameless? Ask Pau Gasol how he felt in 2012 when Spain intentionally lost to Brazil, I'm sure he's very mad at his coach. Oh no wait, he has a Olympic silver medal, while Brazil finished in QF, how is that? Shouldnt the team with the winning mentality have gone further. Well obviously no, Gasol understands it was to avoid Argentina in the QF and USA in the semis, and have a much easier path to the final. Spain has done so in many other tournaments in the last 10 years, but atleast those losers have no medals to show off for, right?