Six games out of eight down, and it has been a delectable treat to the senses, with today being potentially the most entertaining day of tournament football we have witnessed. EVER. But before I rush to tell you how delicious the main course was, let me do justice to the antipasti that was first served up over the weekend.
Wales v Denmark
Comfort food to start. Everyone loves the Danes! They just do. And it feels so good... it felt like they would have enough for Bale and co, and sure enough, Wales were second best throughout. Wasn't really a contest.
Italy v Austria
Finally, our old familiar friend returns like a fine red wine! All it needed was the pressure of knockout games for the nervous and cautious Italian way of life to show itself again. Gone was the pressing and energy seen in the group games, everyone looked a little more stressed. The game slightly petered to extra time before the Italians showed that little extra bit of quality needed to avoid a shootout. My tournament wager stays alive.
Holland v Czech Rep
I'm not going to point out I called this one, but.... I did feel the Czech's would give the Dutch a game, and boy did they! Superbly organized, but with craft and guile also, there was no hard luck story here - they got exactly what they deserved. An excellent performance, but the Dutch were equally disappointing. An aberration of a handball - although this shouldn't cloud the fact they were second best before the red card - and the forward players off-key, with the biggest miss coming directly before the sending off. Malen being promptly hauled off like an undercooked fish sent back to the kitchen and ensured he had plenty of time to rethink how he should have played the 1 on 1 with the keeper.
Belgium v Portugal
With the first few courses of the tasting menu out of the way, came the first meaty dish - a clash of the heavyweights, and it didn't disappoint for me. It was a high quality tactical game vs pure entertainment, with both teams keeping each other at bay. Quality strike won it, but Portugal can consider themselves unlucky to not find a goal to take it to extra time. It was also great to see the injection of spice into the game as the second half developed, there were tasty challenges flying in all over the place! None more so than everyone's favourite baddy, Pepe, who decided he needed to leave his mark on the game as it became apparent it wasn't going to be by winning the game. Fernandes again proved a shadow of what we've seen this season... with this being game 827 of his season I'm sure most will point to that as the reason. And now Martinez may have to dust off his managerial handbook as page 1, 'Play KDB', may have been ripped up, at least temporarily.
Ok, well, I've done well to remember all of those early games as it's hard to ignore the spectacular nature of today's offerings:
Spain v Croatia
A Las Vegas-esque all you can eat buffet of action! No restrictions, and not really any defending, but what a game! If it wasn't for what followed after, I would say this game had everything! Comedy goalies again! A great Spain fightback to take a 3-1 lead despite sticking with Morata upfront who was that friend wearing the wrong shoes and not allowed into the restaurant. And that was the end of the game, Spain saw out the last 15 minutes professionally without incid..... aagh. What's this? Penalty box pinball, 3-2? Ok, well, still keep it nice and tight in injury time, let's not get sloppy! Gah! Sliced open again and 3-3! Cue Croatian bedlam, and credit to them for really going for it & making this the game that it was. Excellent.
Extra time brought the biggest shock of the tournament. From nowhere, the friend with the bad shoes burst through the door to tell everyone he'd won the jackpot on the slot machine! A fantastic strike to silence his critics (basically everyone!). Luis Enrique is proving to be an entertaining watch on the sideline, and went suitably crazy as his fitted jeans would let him, as goal number 5 went in. Hard to ignore that's 10 goals in 2 games...
France v Switzerland
Here in the U.S., we have the dulcet tones of Efan Ekoku talking us through some of the games on ESPN. While temporarily erasing from my memory that he once scored 4 goals against Everton, I don't mind him so much, he offers some snippets of insights. But when commentating on the Spain game, remarking words to the effect of, "well, France and Switzerland have their work cut out matching this", I don't think he realised how wrong he would be!
This perfectly cooked steak of a game was the best of the tournament, hands down. It had all the right ingredients - including the most talented team in the world playing amazing footie, and dissecting their opponent with ease, scoring glorious goals. That this only explains about 20 minutes of the game goes a long way to telling the story of the match. Very similar to the Hungary game, the French just didn't seem to give the Swiss enough respect, needing the energizing intervention of Lloris' penalty save to spark them into life. (Well played VAR btw!). As Pogba ran through his new repertoire of goal celebrations at 3-1 (he looked as if he had about 10 saved up and wasn't sure which one to use, so he just went with them all), Les Bleus were convinced they were through and reapplied the handbrake. But the Swiss had other ideas, and fully deserved their comeback, even if Arsenal fans may be slightly bewildered at who this all action captain is they have.
I said in my earlier post, France needed to see Mbappe and Griezmann come alive. They didn't, and while the penalty miss will grab the headlines, Mbappe's miss when put through by an outstanding through ball from Pogba proved more painful for me and a punctuation mark on what has been a poor tournament for him. As for the Swiss, a magnificent game. And while a quarter final spot is a fine dessert, it appears they have also rekindled Roy Keane's love of the beautiful game....praise indeed from the Gordon Ramsay of the pundit chairs!
With all that excitement and enjoyment out of the way, we can now focus on England. I honestly don't know which way this game is going to go, with both teams really showing a lot of inconsistency. Similar to the Italians reverting to type, do the Germans click into gear now the knock-out tournament starts? I wouldn't bet against it, but we go into the game with the hope that if we play to our potential, we have a much better chance than some previous encounters with the Germans. Given all of the goals and action so far, a tepid soup of a 0-0 to penalties could be on the menu....
Special mentions...
- Argentinian referees in the Euros?
- 3rd place teams. As a sign of how competitive the Euro's are as a tournament, it's not implausible that Ukraine beat Sweden. If they do, that would mean 3 out of the 4 qualifying 3rd place teams will have made it into the quarter finals.
- VAR checks of goalkeepers feet during penalty shootouts? An unwelcome sight to see Sommer hold his emotions in check for 10 seconds or so, to make sure the video gods had not ruined his glory, rather than immediately wheel away in delirium
No comments:
Post a Comment