Group C

Romania 1-1 Italy

This was an amazing and enthralling match that hung in the balance right through to the final whistle. And in the end Italy and Romania remain in contention for a place in the last eight come the final round of group play next Tuesday.

Italy has Gianluigi Buffon to thank for their first point of the tournament and making sure that they maintained a fragile grip on continued participation. Panucci was got caught red-handed trying to hog tie Niculae for little apparent reason and with ten minutes left Romania got a chance to almost certainly send Italy home.

But the Italian keeper guessed right on a well struck but poorly directed penalty kick from Adrian Mutu. Buffon got his right hand to the shot which then deflected onto his trailing leg and clear.

Earlier in the second half Mutu turned opportunist has he anticipated a header from Zambrotta back to Buffon. By the time the Italy right back had realized what he had done Mutu had struck a rising shot behind Buffon and high into the net. It was however a very short-lived lead as Italy equalized with their next attack.

Giorgio Chiellini intelligently opted to direct a header down and across the Romanian goal rather than go for glory and Panucci snuck in at the back post to tie the game up.

It was almost inconceivable that this match could reach half time scoreless. Italy set off at a cracking pace and keyed on the right side of the Romanian defense early. Contra came in for special attention as Grosso moved forward to support the Italian attack and Petre instead of playing in midfield found himself augmenting Contra at right back.

It took fifteen minutes for Romania to find any attacking intent but once they settled chances were created in quick succession. Tamas and Mutu had shots well saved by Buffon while Rat went narrowly wide from a long range effort and a deflected Chivu free kick came back of the post with the keeper helpless.

The series of close encounters reinvigorated Italy and the first half finished with Lobent making a couple of fantastic saves before being beaten by a Toni header. Fortunately for Romania the assistant referee’s flag went up for offside; replays showed that Toni was not offside.

The best game of the tournament so far in my book and the Group of Death, for once, has lived up to the pre-billing.

France 1-4 Netherlands

It was the sort of day that you want to bottle and preserve only to be opened when you need reminding of how compelling, beautiful and thrilling this sport can be. While Italy and Romania produced an opening act that threatened to one up the main attraction, the Netherlands and France rose to the challenge and produced a display for the ages.

A look at the final score might lead you to conclude that this was a terrible performance by the French. But rather this was a case of an astonishing performance from the Dutch. Think the World Cup Final of 1970 when Brazil beat Italy 4-1. Was Italy that bad? The truth is it didn’t matter because on that day Brazil was just so brilliant it did not matter who wore the other jerseys.  

And so it was today as the Dutch put on a master class of passing, movement, shooting and finishing that was quite breathtaking. While 4-2-4 made way for 4-3-3, then 4-4-2 and now 4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1 the basic premise of attacking and defending has remained stunningly simple. When you attack you want to create space, when you defend you want to shrink the space.  A simple concept yes, but something that is exceedingly difficult to pull-off - especially when the opposition is constantly trying to counter.

It was concept that the Dutch executed  today to perfection as they sliced open a French midfield with a display of passing that was devastating. No ten yard square passes to slow the tempo ala Makelele. The Dutch bypassed the French midfield with passes that changed defence to attack in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile, the French midfield with two anchors (Makelele and Toulalan), that should in theory have been the perfect foil to the Dutch counter attack was left gasping and chasing shadows.

Netherlands back to back wins against the World Cup winners and runners up from only two years and by a clear three goals each time is unprecedented in my memory. The question for the Dutch is what do they do for an encore?
France and Italy both remain alive with the winner of Tuesday match also needing the Dutch to maintain their undefeated streak when they face Romania in order to move on.

 What a day.

Man of the match - Rafael van der Vaart. Amongst a number of very honourable mentions Ruud van Nistelrooy. Can't play as a lone striker? Hmmm.

Comment of the Day