Euro 2008:The Surprises Keep Coming!

We're now left with just 4 games of the showpiece event of the summer,Euro 2008 and we've had plenty of upsets worth mentioning.It all started from the league stage itself, when France,the World cup Finalists, had to lock horns with Italy,the World cup champions for the only available quarter final spot and both the sides knew that even a win against the other might not be enough to see them through.
However, Italy prevalied in the tight game and edged France by a 2-0 margin to sail through.Gigi Buffon deserves all the credit for Italy's progress.He was the man who saved a crucial penalty at the dying stages of Italy's second league game,against Romania,with the scores level at 1-1. Italy would well and truly have been dead had that gone in and that would have put an unexpected end to their Euro dreams. And again, Buffon was instrumental in making a few crucial saves against france. We must not forget the side which caused so much chaos, Netherlands! They scored 9 goals in the three league games and conceded just one, against France and were looking to be the hot favourites for the title. However, as I posted in my last post, the Dutch had started too well and as we've often seen in sports, fairytale starts often don't yield the right results at the end and that's what happened with Netherlands last night.

Holland were knocked out of Euro'08 last night by an inspired Russia and I suspect it has more to do with Guus Hiddink's mastermind than the Russian squad. This man always achieves the results least expected of him, be it in the wolrd cup with South Korea or with Australia and now, another underdog side, Russia! The game was locked at 1-1 after 90 minutes. Russia opened the scoring in the last 20 minutes or so and Holland pulled it back via the talismanic Van Nistelrooy. But it was the Russian Czars who prevailed at the end of the extra time, scoring two late goals to knock the Dutch out.

The earlier quarter final, between Croatia and Turkey was more dramatic. To start with, Turkey had started with 8 players on a yellow card and their first choice goalkeeper was serving a ban following his behaviour in the previous game. The Croats were the hot favourites and they showed it when they opened the scoring in the 119th minute(after the score was 0-0 at the end of 90). The turkish side showed their fighting spirit when they equalised in the 122nd minute to drag the game to penalties. That is where the Croats lost it, as they fired two of their penalties outside the post to hand the Turkish side a 3-1 victory on penalties and a semi final date with Germany, one of the clear favourites now even though the term itself loses its meaning once the knock out stage starts, as we've seen.

Tonight my favourite side, Spain will take on Italy and I back Spain to come out of this one as winners. It is a tough call as Italy are always a strong side but this spanish team can beat anyone. A Spain v Germany final would be a fitting end to this competition and I'd be happy if any of the two sides win.