I could not believe my eyes last night. How on earth did Italy beat France? Good ol’ France who always put up a fight, no matter how badly the odds are stacked against them.
No seriously though, it was bound to happen wasn’t it. Zidane-less France just don’t look the same without that touch of class he graced them with, scoring only one goal in the tournament. Makelele’s and Thuram’s prompt retirement announcements were as inevitable as their age being chalked up as the main reason for France’s departure. But, with the youthful class of Karim Benzema and Samir Nasri in the team, the French are clutching at straws if they hope to get away with blaming their awful showing on age alone. You could say that they had it tough in the group of death, but Romania have come out of it with their heads held high, and probably feeling a bit gutted they didn’t get through after Mutu’s penalty miss.
I would have loved Romania to have gone through. Although they are essentially an ‘ugly’ team, in so far as that they don’t have many aspirations of playing Total Football, they play simple tidy football and work hard as a team. If you could have combined Romania’s work rate and France’s potential…well, then you would have the hardest working losers in the tournament. Work rate only gets you so far, you need to be a tightly knit team to win the Euros, e.g. Greece 2004, France 2000, Germany 1996, etc. So this beggars the question ‘Who is a tightly knit team that work hard and have the class to win?’
There are two potentials in my eyes at the moment; Holland and The Netherlands. So good they named them twice.
Van Basten’s team have to win. Spain’s defence is too shaky, Portugal rely too heavily on one man (ITV’s favourite footballer EVER), Germany can barely string a pass together, the Dutch whooped Italy and could probably do it again and again and Sweden/Russia just don’t have what it takes. Now you may notice a team missing from that quick guide to those remaining. I have a huge affection for Croatia, simply because they have the most honest and forthright manager in the world. Slaven Bilic never stood for any shit when he played for the Mighty Irons, and has taken those beliefs into managerial life. He tells things how they are, a fact demonstrated by how he said that England are rubbish when Croatia and Russia saved us from the embarrassment of crashing out of the Euros, simply by preventing us from going there.
Croatia are the only other team I would like to win the Euros other than Holland. If anyone else does it will be a grave injustice. Of course part of me will smile if Germany win because I chose to back them, but I will be annoyed that a team who played such crap football in the group stages could still win the most prestigious tournament outside of the World Cup and Champions League.
Tonight we have Sweden and Russia battling it out for the second spot in group D, and therefore a quarter final against the Clockwork Orange. The decider is a tough one to call I think, but I’m going to go for Sweden, just because our (West Ham’s) only player at the tournament is their leader, and he wears pants. I like Sweden as well. When have you ever heard anyone say ‘F***ing Swedes, bunch of c**ts’? Never. Even if you have it was probably some Scandinavian rivalry. You didn’t see Sweden bring the world a phone call away from all out nuclear war either did you?
So do the right thing tonight, support Sweden.
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