Day 18 Friday 2nd July – Spain 1 Switzerland 1 (3-1 on pens), Italy 2 Belgium 1
The first Quarter Final was Spain against Switzerland. Spain
had started the tournament sluggishly and were actually in danger of going out
of the tournament in the group stages until they clicked and hammered Slovakia 5-0
and some people somewhere one assumes, made some money at the bookies. The Spanish scored five again against Croatia in
the Round of 16 but somehow, the perception is that they are a team that can’t
score goals. This image is of course because of the performances of Alvaro Morata.
Nevertheless, he will no doubt be present again today as they take on the
Swiss, surprise conquerors of France in the last round. The more I think about
that, the more glorious it gets. Also though, I would find it surprising if
they are able to go to the well one more time today.
Spain took the lead early on in somewhat fortuitous fashion
as a ropey corner from the right was hammered back into the penalty area by Jordi
Alba, flicked off a defender and gave Sommer absolutely no chance. The rest of
the first half is nothing much to write home about but the Swiss start of the
second-half well and started taking the game to Spain. Ekanji headed wider and Zuber
had a close range effort blocked by Simon. They eventually got back in it when
Laporte thought he was playing for France and combined with Pau Torres to
completely fuck up a harmless looking ball forward. The ball broke to Froyler,
who teed up Shaqiri and the little fat bloke knocked it into the net. Having worked so hard to get back into the
game, the Swiss then attempted to commit suicide with Froyler steaming into a
challenge on Moreno and catches him with his trailing leg. It’s harsh as you
like but off he goes.
The last 10 minutes of the game and the extra time period were
basically an attack versus defence training exercise and as we know, the
Spanish don’t have that clinical striker so couldn’t force to win so off we
went to penalties.
The Swiss must’ve been confident going into the penalty shoot-out because they won one a few days ago and the Spanish have 100% record in major tournaments of losing every single fucking one. Anyway, the form book was somewhat turned on its head as Switzerland, with four out of the five penalty takers who took one the other night available, contrived to miss three out of the first four with only Gavranovic finding the net whilst Ekanji, Schaer and Vargas all missed horribly. Spain just about did enough with Oyarzabal knocking in the winner. It was tough on the Swiss to go out that way, especially after fighting their way to the penalty shoot-out with 10 men but if you’d offered them a quarter-final place before the tournament started, they would’ve taken your hand off for it. They can leave the tournament with their heads held high, knowing that they beat the World Cup holders and any team that knocks France out is a friend of mine. The Spanish didn’t look entirely convincing but they are the first team through to the semi-finals.
Italy and Belgium was the heavyweight clash of the
quarter-finals. De Bruyne was fit for the Belgians and they brought in Doku to
replace the injured Hazard the Better. The Italians made a couple of changes
with Chiesa coming in for Berardi and Georgio Chiellini was fit again. At 38,
he has of course been around for years but it’s amazing to see the man who is
probably the last to old school Italian defender, Still playing international
football at this age.
It was his defensive partner, the 34-year-old youngster Bonnuci
who looked to put the Italians head after about 10 minutes when a free kick was
delivered from the right hand side, di Lorenzo nudged it on and Bonucci
eventually bundled it into the net with his stomach. Unfortunately, the touch
on by di Lorenzo meant he weas offside and so one replay was all that was
needed to show that it was going to be ruled out. The Italians responded to
that setback by just playing in exactly the same way and Belgium had their
first decent effort on goal as De Bruyne carried the ball forward before
smashing it with his left foot from 25 yards and forcing a sprawling one-handed
save from Donarumma, who according to Danny Murphy, is going to be quite a good
goalkeeper one day. The Belgian defence was good one day… but it was a long
time ago. They have a combined age of about 120 between three of them and they
creaked alarmingly as Barela got free inside the box and smashed it across
Courtois and in at the far post. The most
remarkable thing about this goal was the contribution of Ciro Immobile. He was
basically lying on the ground feigning injury and this put off the very
experienced Thomas Vermaelen who forgot about defending just to go and tell him
to get up. As soon as the ball hit the net then Immobile was mobile again,
funny that.
Having had a warning, the Belgian defence then allowed Insigne
to do what he’s always trying to do, which is cutting from the left, onto his
right foot and hitting it at the far corner. Neither Alderweireld or Vermaelen
covered themselves in glory, static as they were but it was a brilliant strike
and Courtois once again had absolutely no chance. The Italians looked to be
going in with a very well deserved 2-0 halftime lead until Doku took on Di Lorenzo
on the outside, DeLorenzo lent on him and Doku hit the deck. Penalty was given by
the Slovenian referee and VAR wasn’t about to overturn it because there was
contact. Not enough contact to shove him to the floor but there was contact.
Let’s just say that Doku earned the penalty and put himself on the ground
rather than the Italian putting him there. Up stepped Lukaku to halve the
arrears.
Belgium should’ve been level just after half-time as the
ridiculously quick Doku went down the right hand side and pulled the ball across,
taking out three Italian defenders and the goalkeeper and it looked like a tap
in at the back post for Lukaku but there is no such thing as a tap in for Lukaku
when it’s on his right foot. He managed
to poke it goalwards but Spinazzola had got back to block the ball on the line.
The miracle of this is that it was Spinazzola, nominally a left back but rarely
back on his own and a half. Doku was the main man, weaving across the pitch
from the r left hand side, beating three men before crashing over from the edge
of the box. For the last 15 minutes, Italians were the Italians of old with
some of the most incredible shithousery techniques you have ever seen to waste
time. It was almost beautiful in its execution. The one bit of bad news for
them was that the excellent Spinazzola collapsed to the ground and whilst Dr
Vertonghen insisted he got back to his feet, it turned out afterwards that he
had ruptured his achilles and so will be out for the rest of the tournament.
The Italians seem to have a lot of momentum and are going to be tough to stop. The injury to Spinazzola is going to mean a change in style of play but they'll adapt. Mancini is a good manager of course and their defenders, whilst as old as Belgium's, are still putting in top level performances. Chiellini in particular, was brilliant today.
The Belgians meanwhile, can console themselves with the meaningless title of being the Number One ranked team in the world which they have been for the last three years. You don’t get a medal for that, which to my mind, shows what a load of old bollocks it is. They need to find a new defence before the World Cup in 18 months and I also have a feeling that when it comes to their business end of tournaments, when you are playing the really good sides, their manager isn’t up to it either.
Day 19 - Saturday 3rd July (Denmark 2 Czech Republic 1, Ukraine 0 England 4)
Denmark versus Czech Republic was the appetiser on Saturday and of interest to England because we would hopefully be playing whoever won this game. The Danes were favourites but I expected this to be a close game because the Czech’s looked decent against the Dutch. However, if you leave players free at corners then you’re in for a long day and it was 1-0 to Denmark after only five minutes as Stryger Larsen’s corner was powerfully headed home by Delaney, who had the freedom of the penalty area to run into. The Czech’s tried to get back into it but in reality, Denmark looked really comfortable and made it 2-0 after 25 minutes when Vestergaard put Maehle away on the left and he curled in a ridiculous cross with the outside of his right foot and Dolberg come steaming in at the back post to double the lead. The Czech’s had to make a better game of it in the second half and Schick added a few more zeros to his price tag by guiding home a cross from the left wing with a smartly taken volley to make it 2-1. They didn’t seem to have the energy however to make Denmark really work for the win and they held out relatively comfortably to make their fairytale continue.
England had had to travel for the first time in the
tournament and were in Rome to play against Andrei Shevchenko’s Ukraine. As
usual, the team leaked on the morning of the game and according to that, we
were back to a four-man defence and despite therefore, us having an extra
attacking player on the pitch and despite his involvement with two goals in the
Germany game Jack Grealish was again left out with Mason Mount and Jaden Sancho
coming in for Trippier and Saka. Coincidentally I’m sure, Sancho had that
morning been revealed as a Manchester United player. So, the talk was that now
he was free from distractions, he would be picked. As it turns out, Bukayo Saka was carrying a
knock and Sancho it’s probably the nearest like for like replacement in the
squad. I still don’t get it really but after the Germany game, I have decided
not to take issue with Gareth Southgate’s decisions. Let’s just go with it and
trust that he knows what he’s doing.
We have barely been going three minutes and Raheem Sterling
looks like he’s run up a dead end on the left hand side but when off-balance,
manages to slide in a wonderful ball to Harry Kane who is clean through and he
almost toe pokes it past the keeper into the net. What a fucking start – Harry is
alive! The rest of the first half was
fairly controlled, limiting Ukraine to one half chance and having a couple of
attempts ourselves with Rice smashing one straight down the keepers throat and
then Sancho really should’ve done better when he took a marvellous touch and
turn on the edge of the box before firing straight the keeper.
If we were worried that Ukraine were going to come out and
have a serious go at it in the second half, such fears were dispelled within
five minutes as England won a corner on the left. Shaw’s delivery was on the money and there
was Maguire to get that big fat fucking head of his on it and bullet it into
the net. A couple of minutes later and Shaw again down the left, crosses for
Kane to head powerfully through the keepers legs from 8 yards to put the game
completely to bed. The rest of the game was an absolute cakewalk with England
keeping control of the ball for long periods of time and Ukraine waiting for
the plane back to Kyiv. Southgate even had the luxury of being able to
substitute all the players who were on yellow cards, with Rice and Phillips
being replaced with Henderson and Bellingham and it was a nice moment when the
corner from the right by Mount was headed in by Henderson at the near post for
his first international goal after 50 odd games. Easy.
With a semi-final place secured in such emphatic fashion, there
is course the problem now of keeping a lid on expectations. England have a semi-final against Denmark at
Wembley and win that and the final is of course at Wembley as well. However hyped the fans get, we can rest assured that Southgate will keep a lid on it in camp. He has undoubtedly created an atmosphere which has a lot more humility than previous England groups and the players all seem to be supporting eachother, no matter what.
Denmark will be the best team England have played so far, by
a long way. The attacking talents of Dolberg and Damsgaard and the full backs Stryger
Larsen and Maehle will need to be contained but if England can do that then,
with the players we have in the front half of the pitch, we should have enough
to get through, no matter how much Denmark are carried on a tide of Christian
Eriksen emotion. They are a popular team so maybe the gammon headed element of our fan base won't boo the Danish national anthem this time.
I’d just like to highlight by Quarter Final predictions, which picked 4 out of
4 winners, with one perfect score… they were:
Belgium 1 Italy 2, Czech Republic 1 Denmark 3, England
2 Ukraine 0, Spain 2 Switzerland 1
Anyhow, for the semi-finals I’m going with:
Spain 1 Italy 2
England 3 Denmark 2 (aet)
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