Euro 2008 Roundup: Italy, and Russia Go Through
June 19, 2008 by CLDsport
Well, after some technical difficulties prevented us writing for the last 48 hours, here is a roundup of the action we missed.
Tuesday saw the match between France and Italy - with a place in the last eight the prize for the winner. France’s night started awfully, and got worse…….
After just 7 minutes the French lost the influential Franck Ribery with a serious injury, and less than 20 minutes later they were reduced to 10 men after Abidal was sent off for bringing down Luca Toni - preventing a scoring opportunity. The resulting penalty was duly converted by Pirlo to make it 1-0.
The French never looked like scoring, but the Italians were not much better. Just after the hour, however, they doubled their lead with a 30-yard free-kick from De Rossi, that took a wicked deflection off Thierry Henry.
Italy go through, to face Spain on Sunday.
Meanwhile, group winners Netherlands beat Romania 2-0 to ensure they finish the group on maximum points, and oozing confidence. By all accounts the Dutch will be hard to beat, and must be strong favourites to win now. Huntelaar and van Persie scored the goals for them on this occasion.
On Wednesday evening it was time to wrap up Group D. Russia and Sweden met each other - and once again, the winner would qualify for the quarter-finals.
Andrei Arshavin appeared for the first time in the tournament following his suspension - and he looked a class act all night. After being involved in the build-up that led to a close range effort from Pavluchenko to open the scoring, he then started and finished a move in the 50th minute that sealed the Swede’s fate.
Arshavin was easily the man-of-the-match and inspired a superb attacking performance from the Russians - who almost looked a different team. Russia now meet the Netherlands in Basel on Saturday evening.
The other match saw Spain beat the worst team in the tournament - Greece - 2-1. Greece took the lead in Salzburg against a second-string Spanish line-up, when Charisteas headed home just before the half-time break.
Just after the hour though, De la Red smashed home an equaliser that went in off the underside of the bar, and Daniel Guiza headed home a late winner with just 2 minutes remaining.
It completed a miserable tournament for Greece, finishing with no points. Some might say it’s an example of how NOT to play negative football. Positive attacking football has won the day.
Next up, the quarter-finals. 90 minutes, no draws, pure nail-biting knock-out football. Can’t wait!
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