Soccer Tournaments

Quarter final - Euro 2008 round up.

So Holland vs Italy and Germany vs Croatia? This is why I shouldn’t gamble. What a funny game football can be sometimes, but no doubt this is the reason we watch and love it.

The Dutch crumbled under the Russian pressure, the beautiful flowing football that we had seen from Van Basten’s side in the group stages of one of the most topsy turvy soccer tournaments ever vanished as soon as a game that really mattered came along. Arshavin showing the form that took Zenit St Petersburg to Uefa cup glory and Hiddink teaching the Russians how to play total football. We think that England have problems with mental strength, how must the Dutch feel? At least they were there…

The Italians? Never really got going. The abuse from Hansen, Shearer and Lawrenson was a surprising, I mean did they really expect the Italians to go out and attack the Spanish from the off? There would of only been one winner there. (Of course they lost regardless but playing to their strengths got them through to penalties.) Nevertheless a couple of Donadoni’s tactics were slightly bizarre. Leaving Toni alone up front would be a struggle when he’s in a Bayern shirt let alone Azzurri blue, Cassano was meant to be up with him but appeared to be keeping a close eye on Sergio Ramos. Perrotta behind the two strikers? Very good midfielder for Roma, but fantastista?

Germany scraped through unconvincingly against a toothless Portuguese side who passed the ball around nicely but never really knew what to do in the final third. The extremely gifted Deco was at his best but couldn’t get the “stars” like Ronaldo or Simao into the game. Ronaldo, best player in the world? Mr Ferguson sell whilst the goings good.

So on to the Croatians, heartbreak for Bilic, Modric and co. Although maybe similar to the Netherlands in that they won all 3 group games and froze once they got the knockouts.

So the Semis will look like so

Germany vs Turkey

Spain vs Russia