Poland and Switzerland got the ‘Round of 16’ (shit expression) under way and it
was a cagey, kind of rubbish game for the first half with Poland being slightly
the better side. Blaszczykowski lashed in the opening goal after a break up the
left and a left back who disappeared and that was it until half time. Poland
sat back after half time, partly due to Switzerland upping the energy levels
and partly due to Poland giving the ball away every five minutes. When the
Swiss equalised it came it was no surprise as they’d been getting progressively
closer but what an incredible goal it was as a cross from the left was knocked
out and it was 3 yards behind Xherdan Shaqiri until he took two steps towards
his own goal before producing a scissor kick to smash it past Fabianski and in
off the post. The goal of the tournament competition may as well close now as
this was ridiculous. On we went through the 90 minutes and extra time with
Switzerland looking the more likely but it was no surprise to anyone that we
ended up with the first penalty shootout. Lewandowski actually scored his
penalty after having yet another very mediocre game and the first miss was
provided by Arsenal’s new midfielder Granit Xhaka who hit his penalty midway
between the left-hand post and the corner flag.
The Poles just kept on scoring and so it fell to Krychowiak to win it
for them and it was never in doubt. He
looks like a player.
It’s the Battle of Britain with Wales facing Northern Ireland and Northern
Ireland were the better side from the start. Wales were unable to get the ball
to Bale in any space and the Irish looked the more threatening but a shot from
Dallas which produced an easy save from hennessy was as close as either team
got in a crap first half. As far as the quality football goes, it was a
complete non-event. Wales had a goal disallowed when Ramsey was miles offside
and from Bale’s one free kick of the day, McGovern showed the crap goalkeepers
how to keep it out. One goal it was
always going to win it and in the second half and player with the most ability
on the pitch made the difference when Bale got the ball out on the left and
fired over and inviting low cross between the goalkeeper and the defenders,
leaving Gareth McAuley with the choice of touching it and hoping for the best
or leaving it and hoping that the Welsh striker (Robson-Kanu) behind him would
miss it. If he’d known it was
Robson-Kanu I dare say he’d have left it. In the event he decided to touch it and
predictably as you like, knocked it into his own net. It was a crushing
inevitability that Ireland would not produce anything to get back into the game
and so Wales advanced into the quarter-finals. Chris Coleman at least had the
decency to point out afterwards that the best team lost.
After the crushing bore of the British match, we have two quality sides in
Croatia and Portugal. Portugal had decided to re-jig the defence after the
shambolic display against Hungary and in came Jose Fonte and Cedric Soares. The
good performance of the two Saints players distracted me from 90 minutes of the
most tedious football I had ever seen in my entire life. How can there be so
many good players on the pitch and produced this pile of shit? I decided to watch the last 30 minutes in the
hope that Ronaldo would’ve missed his penalty like a big shiny twat but it
didn’t get that far as with five minutes to go, it’s suddenly got entertaining.
Perisic hit a post for Croatia and the rebound ended up with Strinic on the
left and he’d been an arsehole all game so it was no surprise to me that he
lost the ball and Portugal broke away, Sanches played in Nani on the left and
he poked it across the goal with the outside of his boot to the shiny twat. Ronaldo’s
shot was well saved but dropped for Quaresma to knock it into the net to send
Portugal through but not before Vida nearly equalised with the last kick,
hooking an effort about three inches wide.
So, three games and 98% of it was complete bollocks to watch, all of it in the
half of the draw that England would have been in if they hadn’t failed to break
down Slovakia. Roll on Sunday.
Sunday 26th June
Host Nation France (having had 5 days off) were up against Republic of Ireland
(2 days) and who said that it had all been rigged in France’s favour. Ireland
made a great start with Pogba making his first big contribution to the
tournament by clumsily carting Shane Long over in the box to give Ireland a
penalty within a minute. Up stepped Robbie Brady to drill it in off a
post. It wasn’t one way traffic towards
the Irish goal after this but it was a case of whether France could break down
the Irish rearguard. Paul Pogba is an over rated, over hyped and has no end
product. I guess we’re all told he’s brilliant because he used to play for
Manchester United reserves so naturally, he must be brilliant. Despite Pogba’s
averageness and Giroud having the turning circle of a tractor, the Irish
couldn’t hold out though and within five second half minutes, the game was
over. Griezmann made it 1-1with a good header from Sagna’s cross and then 2-1
with his next chance when Giroud managed to get off the ground and nod one down
to him. A slim hope for Ireland became
no hope when, in an attempt to stop them going 3-1 down, Shane Duffy took out
Griezmann when he was the last defender and so he walked. From that point on
the game was dead and the Irish produced very very little by way of dangerous attacking
play in the final third and France just queued up to miss chances through
Matuidi, Gignac and Griezmann..
It makes me smile in a way that both Irish teams have gone out and everyone
thinks they were great. Northern Ireland won one game and lost three and the
team they beat was Ukraine who lost to everyone. That Republic won one match
against Italy’s reserves who had absolutely nothing to play for. They were
slightly better in that they drew with Sweden, who were crap and gave France a
decent game. I also guess that it’s an
improvement on Euro 2012 when they lost all three matches.
If ever one game in this round was going to be one sided it was Germany against
Slovakia and so it proved as the Germans absolutely pissed it. Jerome Boateng gave
them the lead on 10 minutes with a volley from the edge of the box and they had
a chance for 2-0 but Ozil’s penalty following a fucking hopeless challenge by
Skrtel on Gomez, was shite and too close to the keeper who pulled off a
comfortable save. No matter as Mario
Gomez soon doubled the lead as Draxler got down the left and gave him a sitter
to knock in. Slovakia barely got into the Germans half throughout the game and
the Germans decided that they would score a third goal after all as the half
ticked down through a close range Draxler volley to win easily without
expending any energy at all. The one that hope is that when they play someone
decent, they won’t know how to handle it. This is Germany however.
Belgium and Hungary made up the line-up for today and it was a good game but
Hungary played exactly the way Belgium would have wanted them to and made it an
open game. If it had been a tight game then Belgium’s defensive organisation
would have been tested a bit more and the piss week with Witsel and Nainggollan
in midfield, who would have had to have done some work without the ball. As it was,
once Alderweireld and had put Belgium ahead with a header, it became a game of
“we attack, now you attack” and there was only going to be one winner with the
class of individual player that Belgium have got. They had to take the shit
Lukaku off before they could score again but no sooner then they had done that,
Hazard twinkle toed down the left and put a cross on a plate for Batshuayi to
make it 2-0. Hazard himself got the third goal as he cut in of the left-wing,
drifted past a couple of defenders in exactly the same way as he didn’t for
Chelsea this season and then fired past fat man Kiraly in the Hungarian goal.
Another substitute got the fourth goal as Nainggolan played Carrasco through
against Fatboy and he simply rolled it into the near post to make 4-0 and very,
very comfortable. Fellaini managed to
come on as a substitute and the first thing he did was throw an elbow at
someone. He really is a massive twat.
Monday 27th June
Italy and Spain wasn’t supposed to be happening now as Belgium were supposed to
win the Italians group and Spain were supposed to win their own group and not
Croatia. So, what we have here, far too early in the competition, is a clash
between two of Europe’s traditional heavyweights. Spain passed the ball about nicely
as you would expect but the Italians were so organised defensively and broke on
the Spanish and created all the good chances in the first half. Pellè had a
header well saved by de Gea and the Spanish keeper was at it again to deny a
Giaccherini from an overhead kick and another low effort from the same player.
He did however make a complete bollocks for the first Italian goal as Pellè was
brought down by Ramos on the edge of the box and Eder smashed in a low free
kick which was spilled by the keeper, all the Italians piled in and Chiellini
knocked it into the net. De Gea pulled off another save from Giaccherini but
the Spanish got to half time just the one down.
There was Spanish pressure in the second half but without any real
conviction Italy broke away again with a marvellous Pellè flick putting Eder
through but guess what? De Gea again. It
wasn’t until the 85th minute that Buffon had a serious safe to make as he got
down well to keep out Pique’s close range effort. After defending, yet again
the Italians broke and the ball ended up with Darmian on the right hand side
and his cross flicked up off of Ramos for Pellè to smash home on the volley in
much the same way as he did against Belgium in the opening game. This was a great game which had everything,
passion, tactics, great skill. Wonderful
stuff and Italy the deserved winners.
A word for Antonio Conte who is to be the Chelsea manager next season. He never
stops issuing instructions to his players from the technical area and one of
the highlights of the tournament for me was when one have his own players mis-controlled
a pass and the ball rolled to him in the technical area, and he just went and
wellied it down the touchline. Class. His celebrations for the second goal,
when he basically went batshit mental, will live long in the memory as well. The Italians are basically everything England
are not – defensively sound, know their system, know their style of play, round
pegs in round holes and with a dynamic inspirational manager.
So, seven games down, one more to go and it’s England against Iceland.
League 1 Minus 10 
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