Euro 2020 Part 6 - (One More Game and Maybe) It's Coming Home

England Celebrate a 1-2 Off the Keeper

Day 20 – Tuesday 6^th July (Italy 1 Spain 1 (4-3 on pens)

Semi-Final time

Both managers made somewhat surprising changes with Roberto Mancini bringing in Chelsea reserve (who never plays), Emerson Palmieri to replace the injured Spinazzola and Luis Enrique decided his team will be better served at not having a centre forward as opposed to Álvaro Morata. Enrique picked Oyarzabal upfront with Olmo on one wing and Ferran Torres on the other. They also had the very average Eric Garcia in central defence alongside every Spaniards favourite Frenchman, Aymeric Laporte - he who still can’t close his Spanish passport in case the ink smudges.

I generally thought these two teams were going to cancel each other out and it would be a bit dull but the opening of the game showed it was never gonna be like that. Italy were the first to show, tearing into their opponents and Emerson worked an opening down the left and put Barela throughout his chip over the stranded goalkeeper bounced off the far post. In the event, the flag went up afterwards anyway. Spain then got into possession mode and in the main didn’t create much because they were trying to play without a centre forward, so they didn’t actually have anyone in the box.  Olmo had an effort from the edge of the box which was well saved by Donnarumma and Oyarzabal had a good opening for a shot from the edge of the box but Row Z. Half-time and 0-0, Cracking game though. The Spanish looked the more accomplished footballing side but Italy looked more the more dangerous when they did attack.

After 10 minutes of much the same in the second half, Italy took the lead when after a break up the left hand side, Chiesa picked up the ball and scored an almost identical goal to the one Insigne scored Belgium. This time it was Laporte and Garcia not covering themselves in glory as defenders as he bent his right foot effort around them and inside the far post with Simon not even managing a dive as it went past him.

Morata: Good Times

Louis Enrique utilised his bench, one of which was bringing on Morata because there was no way Morata could be worse than Oyarzabal who signed off by missing an absolute sitter of a header from an Olmo cross by basically shutting his eyes and missing the ball. Unbelievably, Morataa had a brilliant 15 minutes and was a constant menace to the imperious Chiellini and Bonucci, culminating with him driving forward with the ball, playing a 1-2 with the impressive Olmo and then sliding it past Donnarumma to make it 1-1 with 10 minutes to go.

Extra time and the Italians were just content to suck it up and Spain didn’t have enough about them to create any more real clear-cut chances. Anything they did create floundered on the twin rocks of Bonucci and Chiellini and so we came to inevitable penalties.

Chiellini Finds A New Way to Shithouse an Opponent

The first incident was the coin toss with Chiellini doing his level best to intimidate the hell out of Jordi Alba by basically treating it as a big joke and smiling and laughing and hugging the Spanish captain. Would’ve been interesting to see if he would’ve tried that if Sergio Ramos was the Spanish captain. Anyway, Italy first and Locatelli produced a piss weak effort easily saved by Simon. Spain sent up their most impressive player, Olmo, next and he skied about 6 foot over the bar. Dreadful. Five successful kicks followed and then up steps Morata. For a guy who has come on and scored in a semi final, you would think he would be confident but he looked absolutely terrified.  As a fan, you always look for the little signs of who is going to miss and I have never felt more confident that this wasn’t going in.  Needless to say, his half hit penalty was easily pushed aside by Donnarumma and with a hop step and a jump, Jorginho, passed the winning penalty into the corner of the net to put the Italians through.

Morata: Bad Times

Overall, a brilliant game that had everything and neither side deserve to lose. I actually felt sorry for Álvaro Morata. There is no way that he should’ve been sent up to take a penalty because he clearly has massive confidence issues and doesn’t respond well to pressure. The Spanish would’ve taken the semi-final before the start of the tournament I’m sure but losing at this stage is heartbreaking. No such problems for Italy though who will grace the final. Even though they haven’t lost a game for 33 matches, the opposition will feel that they have a chance, simply because of the way for Italy commit players to the attack.

Day 21 Wednesday 7^th July (England 2 Denmark 1)

What’s going on today then? Oh yes, England are in the semi-final of a major tournament. The bad guys who we are up against are Denmark who are of course, not bad guys at all.

Once more the team leaked on the morning of the game and there was just one change from the Ukraine match with the fit again Bukayo Saka taking the place of Jadon Sancho. Again, I am not here to pick holes in Gareth Southgate’s selection, I am just here to report on it.

There’s a decent chance each in the opening minutes of the game.  Kane drives forward and feeds Sterling who cuts in and then scuffs his shot.  Dmasgaard gets on the ball on the left of the England penalty area, works a yard and then shoots just wide of the far post.  The first 25 minutes flies by despite no more goalmouth incident.

Lying on the Ground Behind the Wall, Didn't Help Much

On the half hour, Denmark win a free kick on our left hand side about 50 yards away but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was when the free-kick was fired over towards the edge of the box, the referee, in amongst about 30 people wrestling, arbitrarily gave a freekick against Luke Shaw who didn’t do very much at all. Now the freekick was 25 yards out. Up steps Damsgaard and it’s over the wall and into the net with Pickford absolutely nowhere. Fuck. He’s played so well this tournament but Pickford will be disappointed as the ball has gone nowhere near the corner of the net. How would England respond to going a goal down?

The answer was, very well indeed as we immediately got down the right hand side and a cross came in from Kane and Sterling met it 5 yards out and managed to put it in the only place where the keeper could possibly save it and it hit Schmeichel before he could move and was cleared away. Great save said the commentators… I guess that’s one way of looking at it… but it really was a diabolical miss.

No one cared a few minutes later though as Saka got down the right hand side beyond Vestergaard and Maehle and as Sterling closed in to tap the cross into an empty net, Simon Kjaer had to do something and ended up doing his job for him. 1-1.

A patchy first half from an England point of view, came to an end. It had been 15 decent minutes, 15 terrible minutes and then 15 good minutes again. Denmark always looked dangerous when they got the ball down and played with Braithwaite, Damsgaard and Dolberg giving the England offence all sorts of problems with their movement. England’s midfield doesn’t seem quite to be at the same pace as it was in previous games.

England start the second half the strong and there’s a “yeaaaaaah- fuck” moment when Mount’s cross from free kick is superbly met by Maguire’s big fat head but Schmeichel’s having a worldie. Great save.

And 67 minutes the Danish manager Hjelmund, rolled the dice with the substitutes with Stryger Larsen, Dolberg and Damsgaard being replaced by Wass, Norgaard and Poulson. That’s three downgrades. Two minutes later, Southgate sent on Grealish for Saka which is certainly not a downgrade.

It’s all England now and Denmark are hanging on.  Kane bundles his way into the box and is taken out  - has to be a penalty but the ref is pointing the other fucking way.  He’s pinged Kane for a real non-event challenge just before.  Fuck’s sake.  It was just a case of whether England could get a winner before the 90 minutes and take advantage of the territorial dominance. Didn’t happen of course and we went to extra time.

The first period of extra time is all England possession and desperately hanging on from Denmark.  Kane barges through on right and with no support, shoots from a narrow angle but once again, well saved by Schmeichel.  Grealish has a lash from the edge of the box and Schmeichel this time has to punch it away.

Denmark may as well be wearing “we want penalties” t-shirts and there were two minutes to go in the first period when Sterling picks up the ball on the right hand side and runs directly at the goal in between Maehle and Jensen and down he goes. Penalty given. On first viewing, it certainly look like a penalty and when you see the replay, not so much. There is the slightest of touches by Maehle and the slightest of touches from Jensen and when that goes to VAR, it isn’t going to get overturned. Soft.

Harry Kane is of course a formidable penalty taker for Tottenham but even he gets the shits in a moment like this and his penalty is dreadful, so dreadful that Schmeichel almost dives too far and the ball gets away from him and back to Kane he buries it to send everybody batshit mental.

I Think Phil Was Pleased

Half-time in extra time and Southgate rolls the dice again, bringing on Trippier and taking of Grealish, which is a bit of a kick in the nuts for a player he was only been on as a substitute for about 40 minutes. We are clearly intent on holding what we have but I don’t think anyone realise that Denmark were playing the last 15 minutes with 10 men because one of their subs Jensen, was unable to continue and they had already made six substitutions. What this meant was that we just sat back with a flat five along the edge of our penalty area, which made the second half of extra time a lot more uncomfortable than it should’ve been.  When we got the ball, we managed it well though, keeping it for 50 odd passes at one point and booked our first appearance in a major national final for 55 years.

You have to say that it was another Southgate masterclass. The team selection was right and the players he put out there did the job. The substitution of the substitute when he took Grealish off the second half of extra time, showed a toughness and an absolute determination to do what he thinks is right. You can’t argue with it and it’s a testament to the spirit in amongst this group of players that he has cultivated, that Grealish seemed to take it quite well. I wonder if Southgate realised that Denmark have gone down to 10 men because we certainly didn’t need to play with five at the back and if anything, that just encouraged Denmark to push on top of us which made the second half of extra time slightly more nervy than it should’ve been.  In reality though, Denmark didn’t really threaten our goal from the 45 minute mark onwards.

Denmark have had a remarkable tournament.  To reach the semi-final after what happened in their first game is remarkable.  They have unearthed a real talent in Damsgaard and Hojbjerg, Maehle, Stryger Larsen, Christensen, Kjaer,, Vestergaard, Delaney, Schmeichel and Braithwaite have proved that they belong at the business end of tournaments.  Overall though, the way that they and their suppoters have conducted themselves has been absolutely first class.  I sense that they just ran out of steam a bit today.

Whattaboutery is one of the biggest curses of the social media age but I’m going to engage in a bit of it. Sterling’s penalty is soft but then so was the free-kick given to Denmark that they scored from. If you’re a bitter supporter from another country complaining that England got a hometown decision, well we didn’t get one in the first half. There was also a much clearer penalty shout on Harry Kane which wasn’t given and would’ve been given in the Premier League. So, you bitter and twisted supporters of other nations, especially the Scots, Welsh and Irish can just jog on. Was it a penalty? I’ve seen them given. Would I be angry if it was given against us? Fuck yeah. That's football.

This game was covered by ITV. Of course, you accept having to go to commercial break just when the atmosphere is building but I don’t accept Sam Matterface as a commentator because he is absolutely fucking dreadful. He was bad throughout but at the end of the game when he was telling everybody to have a day off school or a day off work when we were all just trying to take in the atmosphere as best you can through the TV.  It was absolutely peak “shut the fuck up man“. I’m not a fan of Lee Dixon either and I don’t think Lee Dixon is a fan of Sam Shutyerface, judging by a couple of putdowns in the second half. Another Peak Partridge moment came at 1-1 in the first half with “Another goal for England now would be….. good”.  No shit Sherlock.  Basic rule of TV commentary – if you’re not adding anything worthwhile – shut the fuck up.  Also, Twatterface knew he was shit as well, practically begging viewers to watch ITV on Sunday, rather than BBC.  Thanks for your recommendation mate… no.

I Wonder Why Every Other Country Hates Us

It was brilliant seeing Wembley 70% full and the atmosphere was incredible, despite Matterface trying to ruin it. He wasn’t alone though in trying to ruin everyone’s fun. Did the gammons boo the national anthem of Denmark? Of course they did. It’s embarrassing and pathetic. Did Boris Johnson & Priti “Send ‘em Back” Patel grab a photo op wearing an England shirt in the ground, of course they did. It’s embarrassing and pathetic. Did someone bring a fucking laser pen just to point at Kasper Schmeichel? Oh yes, It’s embarrassing and pathetic.  Ever wonder why other countries hate us?  It used to be because our team and/or manager wasn't very likeable - there's no issue on that score now.

England will take on Italy in the final of the European Championships. I would not have believed that this was possible and it is not a final that anyone would’ve predicted before the tournament. It’s going to be emotional.