Another fun match today. Russia were totally gassed in the last 20 minutes and I thought Poland might snatch a win. Strike by Kuba is right now the goal of the tournament. Russia was very poor in the attacking third, losing the ball inside the box repeatedly. Props to the Poland team.
Wow, I thought Denmark were dead and buried but they found a way to get a real nice goal from Bendtner. Dutch team could take a page from that book and be less selfish as Krohn-Dehli showed. I guess a Portugal victory or a draw are the best result for us.
Looking at that Bendtner goal, why was no one covering his run? Basic defending principles not followed.
Portugal leaves it until very late in the match but snatches the win. It's clear that they are a flawed team with no creative midfielder to help set things up. Ronaldo never tracked back and Jacobsen ran rampant down the right side as a result (he also seems to have taken shooting lessons from the same person that is helping van Persie). This was probably the best result for us but we need to take care of business tonight.
Probably the best scenario for the Dutch, indeed. Priority one is now to avoid defeat, though obviously win would be awesome. A Draw is allowing us on life-support. We can still qualify with a 2-margin goal win against Portugal, and hope Germany does us favor....
Prandelli sends his team out again playing a 3-5-2 and they respond. 11 shots on goal and not terribly threatened by Croatia. Of course they have two great Juventus defenders to go along with de Rossi who looks to be playing a sweeper role in the middle. I don't think the Dutch can do this because of lack of quality (note: Ajax did play this formation on at least two occasions during the last season). Great free kick by Pirlo for the goal. I think this is a good example of how a manager adopts to his material and designs appropriate tactics to take advantage of them.
Second half of Italy/Croatia was the inverse of the first. Croatia makes the necessary adjustments and Italy really doesn't create as much and concede a goal when Chiellini loses his man on a cross.
This is not surprising as Croatia have some good players and have done well in recent competitions. Italy just played foolishly in the 2nd half and the draw was deserved as they missed so many chances in the 1st half to put the match away. Had they kept up with the offensive pressure in the 2nd half they probably would have gotten the 2nd goal.
They reached the quarter finals in 08'.. that's about it in recent times. They couldn't survive the group stage in 06', 04', and 02', and did not qualify for 10'. They got some good players but are always overrated. I think it's that 98' legacy.. Back to NL, we are out of the tournament I think, everyone's talking as if we can easily get a 2-0 against Portugal. Well I'm not too confident about that one!
It does not matter even incase of a 2-0 or a 3-1 win if Denmark draw/win. I see Denmark very likely to atleast draw with Germany,maybe even beat an over-confident Germany B team.
First of all, some credit to Croatia please. They're 8th in the world, you know. So they're not exactly a weak team. In yesterday's match, they knew that Pirlo was their only creative outlet and shut him down completely in 2nd half. They started off with 2 strikers (Jelavic, Mandzukic) but that left Italy with a spare man in center (3-5-2 vs 4-4-2) in a 3 vs 2 battle: Motta-Pirlo-Marchisio vs Vukojevic-Modric. But then the wide areas could have been exploited by Croatia as they had 2 vs 1 advantage: Srna-Rakitic vs Giaccherini and Strinic-Perisic vs Maggio. For some inexplicable reason, they didn't exploit this. But in 2nd half, Bilic (who is the 3rd longest serving coach in current Euro after Olsen for Denmark and Low for Germany) changed it to a 4-2-3-1 system with Modric directly occupying Pirlo while Rakitic moved alongside Vukojevic in defensive role. Mandzukic and Perisic were on either side of Modric. Taking Motta off for Montolivo didn't help Italy as he wasn't as effective. Also, playing only Jelavic ahead meant that out of Bonucci-De Rossi-Chiellini, 2 were marking Jelavic but third defender had nothing to do and was wasted. In this scenario, not only had the Croatians continued having 2 vs 1 advantage in wide areas (Srna-Mandzukic vs Giaccherini and Strinic-Perisic vs Maggio) but they were also able to control their creative fulcrum - Pirlo. As we've seen in the 2nd half, Croatia bombarded Italian defense with several crosses from the wide areas where they enjoyed an advantage, and one of them eventually found Manduzkic. When I notice other teams trying to make tactical substitutions to adapt to opposition, I see Van Marwijk playing the same system and shake my head. Stupidity is trying to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.
Wow, Dutch match official Bjorn Kuipers has called the teams off the pitch in Donetsk. Horrendous thunder storms and torrential rain. Probably a good decision to wait for it to quiet down.
1988: Russia in Group with Oranje. Oranje wins tournament. 1996: Russia in Group with Germany. Duitsland wins tournament. 2004: Russia in Group with Greece. Greece wins tournament. 2008: Russia in Group with Spain. Spain wins tournament. 2012. Greece or Czech Republic to win tournament?
Well human goal line technology doesn't work. Ukraine just denied a clear goal by the assistant match official who was standing right on the goal line.
England top the group without ever looking convincing in any match. Similar to Greece 2004? France's long unbeaten streak comes to an end. Quarter finals: 1. Czech vs Portugal 2. Germany vs Greece 3. Spain vs France 4. England vs Italy 1 vs 3 and 2 vs 4 in semis.