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2021 (2020, really) Euros

Halfway through the Round of 16 ...

Denmark dispatched Wales 4-0 to continue their quest to honor their fallen hero. Italy beat Austria 2-1 in a wild finish to a boring, frustrating game. The Czechs did the honors for the Netherlands this time, 2-0 ... as the Dutch once again crash in the knockouts after a decent effort in the group. And Belgium beat Portugal 1-0 but lost KDB and the better Hazard to injury. Hazard looks to have a hamstring issue, and DeBruyne an ankle. Either way, not good news for what were shaping up to the strong favorites.
 
The French went down to Switzerland early, stormed back with 3 straight goals to take a 3-1 lead and then surrendered 2 in the final 9 minutes to go to extra time. And then to penalties when Kylian Mbappe stepped up on the 5th kick to keep France in it and his attempt was saved. So the World Cup champs crash out and Switzerland advances to their first ever quarterfinal.

Spain had to go to extra time to eliminate Croatia after the Croats scored 2 after the 85th minute to erase a 3-1 Spain lead. Spain scored twice in the first extra time session to put it away.
 
Tell you what. The endings of the Spain/Croatia and Italy/Austria games were ... a lot. This Swiss side is quite good across the board. No fluke there.
 
Harry Kane breaks his European duck (thanks, Sir Ian) and England beat Germany for the first time in a tour since their World Cup win in 1966 in Jurgi Low’s last match in charge of Die Mannschaft. Sterling opened the scoring for his 3rd goal in 4 matches after only scoring 1 in his last 16 at Man City. Muller missed a chance to equalize minutes after Sterling scored but dragged his shot wide, with only Pickford to beat.
 
Watching Sweden-Ukraine. This is terrific stuff. Two posts, a crossbar, and a ten bell save in the last 10-15 minutes.
 
England still don't know how to set up this team to both defend and to attack, so Southgate seems content to set up defensively from the start before bringing the creativity off the bench. It's boring and frustrating, but it's working ... I guess. That German side was all over the place and I think they tuned Low out before they even started.
 
andyt said:
2,000 Covid cases in Scotland linked to Euro attendees, 2/3 had gone to London.

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Some reporting out of Scotland indicates that the NHS thinks the exposure to the Delta variant was the issue here as much as anything else. Delta is far more present in London thus far than it has been in Scotland's population centers. And there hasn't been all that much open travel with all the various bans and shutdowns imposed by the UK government.

Of course, drunkenly moving through the city in large, tightly packed clusters of people certainly didn't help matters.
 
Quarterfinals are set ...

Switzerland/Spain
Belgium/Italy
Czech Rep./Denmark
England/Ukraine

From a distance you'd assume that England and the Czechs caught a break with the brackets, but England always struggle with the Ukraine and the Czechs has quietly been terrific in this tournament. Given the results of the Round of 16, I'm happy I'm not a betting man.
 
First of the Quarters are in the books. Spain advanced past Switzerland with a dreadful shootout following a pretty well played contest. Then Italy just gutted Belgium 2-1. This Italian team is actually fun to watch. They still defend well, but attack down the flanks with vigor and have the finishing they've lack in years past. Belgium? Golden generation ... meh.
 
England and Denmark book their slots in the Semis as the English come back to Wembley still having yet to concede a goal in the tournament after a 4-0 laugher over a listless Ukraine side this afternoon. Denmark swamped the Czechs in the fist half and then held on for an impressive 2-1 win in the other match. Thus far England and Italy look like the class of the field, but you never know in the Euros.
 
Italy won the first Semi in PKs yesterday. Entertaining but cagey game, I thought, with two teams setting up pretty similarly when defending but Spain went with that dopey False 9 thing again and I'm not sure it ever really works for them anymore.

England/Denmark will be much more of a clash of styles today unless the English play it very cautiously. I think that would be a mistake. You've got the home field and some scoring momentum ... roll with it and bring a little swagger.
 
That was a pretty indifferent PK take by Morata at the end. As Jon Champion pointed out, he had missed a penalty earlier in the tournament and that had to weigh on him a little.
 
England scrape through on a PK rebound finish from Harry Kane in the first extra 15 after a tightly contested game with Denmark. Not much in the call, but probably JUST enough to survive on VAR. Schmeichel deserved better. He was a stud in net today. Better team won, so I'm not complaining though. Italy/England final.
 
jeffbear said:
England scrape through on a PK rebound finish from Harry Kane in the first extra 15 after a tightly contested game with Denmark. Not much in the call, but probably JUST enough to survive on VAR. Schmeichel deserved better. He was a stud in net today. Better team won, so I'm not complaining though. Italy/England final.
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Schmeichel is gonna rue not holding the rebound on the PK forever.
 
andyt said:
Schmeichel is gonna rue not holding the rebound on the PK forever.
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I mean, yes ... but he did his job. That thing hit him JUST right to pop back out, but his only job there is to stop the initial shot and he did. If he gets too mopey about it, his Dad will slap him out of it.
 
jeffbear said:
I mean, yes ... but he did his job. That thing hit him JUST right to pop back out, but his only job there is to stop the initial shot and he did. If he gets too mopey about it, his Dad will slap him out of it.
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He almost overshot it, it looked like it hit his chest and he couldn’t absorb the impact or guide it to a safe place.

Dad can hit him over the head with his 1992 Champions Medal if sonny gets mopey. Of course there were only 8 teams in the 1992 tournament.
 
Congrats to Roberto Mancini and Italy for grabbing the Euro Championship with a win in penalties over England. That hybrid formation they've been tinkering with for the last couple of years has them absolutely rolling, as they've been absolutely shredding opponents pretty much since they failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. England came out aggressive and grabbed a VERY early lead on a Luke Shaw volley, but once Italy found their feet in the middle of the first the run of play was almost exclusively theirs. And while Southgate clung to Sterling and Kane to the bitter bloody end, Mancini swapped out his entire front three before the end of regulation. When a guy grew stale, got hurt or ran out of gas ... boom. He's out. For me, you can talk tactics all day, but that's the difference right there. Commitment to the job at hand over who's doing the job.

And even then ... it came down to penalties. And England did what they normally do in Penos. They got it all wrong and will spend the next month blaming all the wrong people. Donnarumma is the new Italian icon in goal, that's for sure. And England are still on the right trajectory to actually compete in 2022 ... so long as they can take this setback in stride and not overreact by doing something stupid. Odds are even that they mess that up too.
 
Why put the youngest player in the squad in the 5 hole in a penalty shootout? And neither Rashford or Sancho had any time in the run of play to get their feet under them. Not Henderson, Sterling or Grealish?
 
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