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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.