I repeat: A surprisingly good Italy
Man of the Match for me: Claudio Marchisio
That worked better when they had David Villa (not a pure striker), but without it and with Xavi underperforming its indeed a strange line up, still they scored, but what really surprise me was how slow Ramos and Pique were, anyway Spain’s bench is full of quality, and they have several solutions, except for the center back position, alas their weakest point to me.
Italy never real should be underestimated, even more with a class player like Pirlo a a kind of player that is a rarity these days. Best game so far and the result is bad news for both Ireland and Croatia
England - France
Phlegmatic game
a fairly good result for England but not a good performance from what i saw ( to be fair missed first 35 mins as coming home from work). after that from what i saw was a defensive performance and letting France keep coming at you like that is a dangerous tactic. we won’t always get away with it and i’m rather surprised we did here. nothing to stir the english blood here. still think we will come home after the Ukraine game.
Yes, nothing to strike fear into the hearts of any upcoming opponents unfortunately but at least a solid defensive performance which, considering the number of players out, is something positive.
The French looked better on the ball but created very few chances and were reduced to shooting from distance, one of which squeaked in for their only goal. I think a draw was a fair result really. We certainly didn’t deserve to win but I must say the referee was appallingly one sided with his decisions in favour of the French. A few blatant fouls which could easily have been yellow cards and yet not even judged to be fouls left me somewhat despairing of the reliability of the officials to be competent or impartial. The sending off of the Polish lad in the first game was possibly an indicator of what to expect in this tournament.
Had to work, so I have only seen the second half of Ukraine - Sweden, which wasn’t bad, by the way.
I heard the England game was rather poor, but I guess both teams didn’t want to loose their first game, and when it’s 1-1 at half time in those circumstances, you often get a lethargic kind of football in the second half.
Good to see that the old warrior Shevshenko still has it, what a keen eye in front of the goal.
About the referees: I’ve seen quite a few bad decisions so far. The red card in the first game, a clear penalty not given in the Holland game (I know, a poor excuse, but a penalty is a penalty) and overall bad, inconsistent refereeing in a couple of other games, notably Portugal - Germany and Ireland - Croatia. I must admit the referees aren’t helped by all those players who (again) are showing their diving abilities. It’s a pity to see that some of the best players are also some of the best divers.
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:46, topic:3016”]Had to work, so I have only seen the second half of Ukraine - Sweden, which wasn’t bad, by the way.
I heard the England game was rather poor, but I guess both teams didn’t want to loose their first game, and when it’s 1-1 at half time in those circumstances, you often get a lethargic kind of football in the second half.
Good to see that the old warrior Shevshenko still has it, what a keen eye in front of the goal.
About the referees: I’ve seen quite a few bad decisions so far. The red card in the first game, a clear penalty not given in the Holland game (I know, a poor excuse, but a penalty is a penalty) and overall bad, inconsistent refereeing in a couple of other games, notably Portugal - Germany and Ireland - Croatia. I must admit the referees aren’t helped by all those players who (again) are showing their diving abilities. It’s a pity to see that some of the best players are also some of the best divers.[/quote]
We’ve discussed the diving issue before so you know where I stand on this. But the incidents in the England game involved nothing close to a dive. They were just clattered into and the ref waved play on. Difficult to understand what was going through the official’s mind. In this particular game I could take it. We didn’t deserve anything more from the game but the number of bad decisions I’ve seen so far, despite them having more officials on the pitch than ever before makes me worry about what is to come in this tournament.
yes, agreed Phil the referee gave us nothing and the republic of Ireland should have had a penalty against Croatia. where did they get some of these referees from the Blue Square Premier? 
Now, who will win tomorrow evening?
I think there’s no real favourite.
I don’t know, the Italians have a good chance provided they are as disciplined, focussed and concentrated as against Germany.
I hope Italy (I’m a bit fed up with this tick-tick-tock-tack-tick-game of the Spaniards), but I think Spain is slightly favorite.
FORZA ITALIA
Thumbs up
Portugal made a lot of progress in the last two years: in South-Africa they virtually had no chance against Spain, this time it was a very balanced game.
I even thought Portugal were the slightly better team during the 90 minutes; Spain clearly dominated extra time though.
The main problem was our bench, non existent for that matter, all of Spain players in the bench will easially made oour main eleven, what a luxury to have players like Mata or Llorente without any minute in the tournament, that why we had to wait for the penaltys.
Anyway for a team that started this campaign like we did, with a lost in Norway and a home tie with Cyprus, we finished up pretty well I think, no luck but well
Anyway, with a team that started theis campaign like we did, with 21 points from the first 7 games, we … we didn’t do well at all, me thinks
No spines Spain still the team to beat, and not even boring I’m afraid. Shit I can’t believe with only eleven or twelve players to show we almost beat them. Anyway I can’t see any European team beat them apart from Portugal and Germany. Germany and Italy both made a crucial mistake, change their tactics and style of play one against Italy and the other agiasnt Spain, and were punished for that.
Best Euro players for me
Goalkepper - Buffon
Left Back - Jordi Alba
Center Backs - Pepe and Sergio Ramos
Right back - Aberloa
Midfield - João Moutinho Xabi Alonso and Khedira
Forwards -Ronaldo, Balotelli and Iniesta
You almost beat them, but they were a lot better today than last wednesday.
They looked very focussed today, and nearly all players reached their best form (most of them hadn’t so far)
Goalkeeper: Casillas
Defense: Arbeloa - Pepe - Sergio Ramos - Jordi Alba
Midfield: Khedira - Pirlo - Iniesta
Attack: Ronaldo - Balotelli - Cassano
Bench: Neuer, Moutinho, Xavi Alonso, De Rossi, Ibrahimovic
Spain is incredible. The once eternal quarter finalist has become world’s dominant football nation.
There main players are in 2014 still in the best football age.
I’m still in shock that Germany did not made it.
@ Spain - And they have a lot of talented younger players. I saw the qualification game against Scotland last year. It was the final game, Spain was already qualified and played with a B-team, only three or four players from the actual team were lined up, the rest were all younger players of about 20-22 years. Scotland hardly reached the Spanish half, they were torn apart by thes young Spanish players who were all technically brilliant and were masters in this ‘passing game’.
@ Germany - I watched the game on German television, and noticed during and (especially) after the game how great the shock was. It reminded me of 2000, when we lost the semi-final to Italy in Amsterdam after (how Dutch) missing more penalties than any team before in the history of mankind (well, maybe Phil knows a British team …).
There were several reasons for what happened. In the first place the people in Germany (including the players) were too sure of themselves, they were with their mind in Kiev, thinking about Spain, not Italy. The coach was the only one who realized that the Italians were a tough team to beat, so it seems. And then he made a few mistakes. I still don’t understand why he changed his line-up again and why he brought Podolski and Kroos. it was to be expected that the Italians would play close together in order to use their own technical skills and minimize the German physical skills. Podolski is a player who needs space, he’s not a dribbler (actually I find him a rather limited player), Schürrle would have been a more logical choice (and he had played well against Greece). And Kroos? I don’t know what Löw had in mind with him, but if you see your plan with the guy doesn’t work (and it didn’t, Kroos was all over the place …) why not replace him? He’s not an exceptional player, and in the second half he was positioned on the left. What kind of idea was that?
In other words: I’m a fan of Löw (nice guy, always honest and polite, tactically clever) but this time I didn’t understand what he was doing, or what he could’ve had in mind before the game.
And then there were a few other things. In retrospect it wasn’t a good thing for Germany to play Greece in the previous round. That was no serious opposition (what a disaster, that Greek team) and gave people and players the idea that they were at the gates of Kiev. Finally I have the idea Germany (like Spain) only occasionally reached its best form. They were great for about 45-50 minutes (minute 15-65) against Holland and they devastated Greece, but overall they weren’t completely convincing. The best player, Özil, was struggling and Gomez seemed to get more nervous in every consecutive game because of these discussions about ‘him or Klose’. By far the best German player in this tournament was Khedira, but he’s not really a play maker (he’s not a Pirlo but a De Rossi).
But don’t cry for me, Germany. The players are all young and talented. Within two years, they’re one of the hot favorites, along with … guess who …
It was pleasing to see the goals from the two subs, gives me hope for next season.