Mesut Ozil (left) and Mario Gomez helped power the Germans to a second straight Euro 2012 victory in group play on Wednesday.
Overview: We said that we would keep you updated on the bad as well as the good. Just like we are suffering due to ‘bounty-gate’ it looks like Russia could be reeling from the penalty dished out by FIFA for all of the poor behavior exhibited by their fans.
For the next round of Euro tournament [four years from now], Russia may go into it six points down. That is, if any form of violence takes place involving Russia in the rest of the current tournament.
Obviously, now that most of you are familiar with our point system, one point can make a huge difference. Six points is devastating. Between the violence and the provocative ‘This is Russia’ banner in the game with Poland, they should be lucky that they were not banned from the next competition altogether.
It will be interesting to see how the Russian fans react. I applaud FIFA for slapping them with the penalty but let’s hope as the team now gives everything to win this Euro tournament, that the fans clean up their bad behavior. If not, who knows what FIFA will do next.
Portugal-Denmark
This game today put a wrench into everything. If Denmark would have won, it would have been settled today that they would advance to the quarterfinals. Now, it is all up in the air as I will explain at the end of this article.
Portugal, with its back against the wall, came out hungry and focused. It paid off in the 24th minute with …. taking a driven corner towards near post that Pepe put in a goal very similar to by one Shevchenko days earlier. Then, ten minutes later, a deflected shot was recollected by Portugal and passed to an open Nani on the right wing. Two Portugese players started making parallel overlapping runs to opposite posts at the top of the six-yard box and Nani played the ball square to Helder Postiga who was making the near post run and Postiga buried the ‘easy’ shot.
It looked like Denmark was over and done. But to count Denmark and their resolve out is a big mistake. Portugal found that out pretty quickly five minutes later. Denmark had the ball on the right side of the attacking third and whipped a cross to Michael Krohn-Dehli, on the left post, who got his head on it. The Portugese goalie Rui Patricio was there ready to stop the shot. Eveyone on the planet expected Krohn-Dehli to take the shot. Even the Portugese defenders that stopped running! Boy what a mistake that was for Nicklas Bendtner kept running towards the right post. Krohn-Dehli saw Bendtner and passed it to him.
Remember, the offsides rule deals with forward passes not square or back passes. Because the defenders were standing and ball watching, Nicklas scored easily keeping his streak of scoring every time he plays Portugal intact. So halftime came and went with the score 2-1 Portugal.
Denmark came out of the break determined to fight to the finish - or so it seemed. They kept pounding and pounding keeping the intensity high. So high in fact that Cristiano Ronaldo twice got clear for 1-on-1 chances against Danish keeper Stephan Andersen. On both occasions, Ronaldo attacked the goal and failed.
In the 48th minute Ronaldo played it directly to Andersen and then 30 minutes later he did the same thing. But this time, he played it outside of Andersen. This is one of the world’s best at 1-on-1 situations with the keeper; he missed both times. This is proof, at least to me, that playing for a country is far more pressure laden than playing for a club, even one of the world's biggest.
True, many people worldwide have watched ‘The Classico’ between Barcelona and Real Madrid, Ronaldo’s team, but there was not as much invested interest as national team fans have for their squads in major competitions. Imagine the eyes of your entire country are counting on you and that pressure has to be blocked out. For Ronaldo, he hasn’t found that ability. For Real Madrid, he seems to fly and do magical things with ease but for his country it is not the case....yet.
In any case, seeing Ronaldo shank not one but two shots must have been a sign to the Danes that today was their day. Two minutes after Cristiano’s second miss, Denmark’s Lars Jacobsen found himself with the ball heading down the right wing. When he got to the edge of the penalty box, he sent a cross to the opposite post where Bendtner was waiting. Youngsters reading this, please play attention: Make sure that you view it because it is a lesson how to offensively head a ball. Bendtner leaped and whipped his head forward with such velocity that it ricocheted off of Patricio’s outstretched hand towards the post and then went in! The Danish fans started to celebrate for a tie here would have been a far greater result than a loss.
Unfortunately for Denmark and all of their fans, their players seemed to be thinking the same thing. Not Portugal. They needed a win desperately to stay in the running for the quarter finals. If they don’t advance, they will be the first team from Portugal to fail to advance ever!
Coach Paulo Bento made a critical substitution by brining on Varela for Raul Meireless in the 84th minute. While the ball was bouncing outside the penalty box, Varela swung his foot trying to make contact and missed altogether. Instead of falling down to hide his embarrassment, he spun around again and drove the ball past Andersen with full force to score the winning goal! Unbelievable!
What a shift of emotions. The entire bench cleared and I was afraid that Varela would be hurt at the bottom of that pile! Coach Bento made another sub to kill the clock and the game was over with Portugal winning 3-2. Denmark is now up against the same wall heading into their game with Germany. Oh boy!
Germany-Holland
I will attempt my best to help the novice soccer fan reading this understand the magnitude of such a game. I won’t bore you with the horrible war stories from WWII, but believe me, that story is gruesome. Their soccer and cultural history is so different.
Holland is foot-loose and fancy free compared to Germany. The Dutch are very creative on the soccer field as well. They coined the term ‘Total Football’ to explain what their attitude is towards the game. In the 90’s, this movement of masterful ball-handling skills coupled with freedom to move from boundary to boundary took the world by storm. New Orleans took part in that revolution and set up NOSA at UNO to teach ‘Total Football’ with the renowned Frans Von Baucom to teach it. Holland wears orange and it hails as the ‘happiest nation in the world’ if you could measure such things.
Germany is the exact opposite. I brought my teams once to Munich and once to Berlin and experienced that first hand. Their train schedule, for example, runs by the second, not the minute. So, let’s say you are catching the 8:20am bus on Canal street. If the Germans ran it, it would arrive at 8:19:30am and depart at 8:20:00 am! If you were there 20 seconds late, you were out of luck! In soccer it is the same way. They have discipline, strength and a united will as their style.
The world argues who has the better idea but Germany has three stars [World Cup victories] on their jerseys while Holland has zero. Holland wound up finalists again two years ago which has created a complex that they are still trying to work through.
I could go on forever on the differences but enough on that. I would like to know the ratings for this game because I am sure a large global audience watched it. Like them or not, to put both styles on the field is always entertaining to say the least.
This year’s Dutch team has a serious weakness... its central defense. Classic Dutch football has a 4-3-3 look so that players can adequately cover the field and use their creativity to get open. One hour before kickoff, the unthinkable was released by their desperate coach Bert van Marwijk that they would play with two center defenders instead! That is a normal coaching adjustment to make for a normal team. But this is Holland. The best analogy I can give is imagine if the Saints would not throw one pass for the first half because Drew Brees threw an interception. I am sure that Coach Peyton would be booed out of the Superdome! This is surely not ‘Total Football’ and that style is as sacred to a Dutchman as the Drew Brees passing attack is to the Who Dat Nation!
The game got underway and things didn’t look so bad for the Tangerine Dream. Robin van Persie recieved a long ball that he placed on goal in the 6th minute. Now, that woke up the Germans. Mesuit Ozil cracked a shot on target that Maarten Steklenburg had to use all of his goalie skills to save. That must have sent a message to the Germans that the goal was theirs for taking.
The Dutch were clearly not used to playing with this formation, and the Germans were given space to make magic in. In the 24th minute, Bastian Schweinsteiger recieved the ball with 15 yards of green space. He saw Mario Gomez making a run into that same area and gave him the perfect pass to score on a perfect shot. Germany led 1-0.
In the 38th minute, Schweinsteiger receives a pass again with tons of space between Holland’s fullbacks and halfbacks. He dribbled and split Holland's defense with a pass to Gomez. This time, Gomez was in a supposedly impossible place to score. He shot anyway. Steklenburg had to be surprised because he was not properly in position. Probably because he never dreamed that Gomez would take such a shot. Well, Mario did and it hit the backside of the net. Before Steklenburg could adjust, it was already too late. Total domination of Total Football thusfar.
Everyone knew that Coach van Marjwijk would have give up on his first half tactics. He did so and also put in Klass-Jan Huntelaar in the game. As we mentioned in previous articles, Huntelaar is known in the Bundesligua as a great forward. Another eye-opener is that he took out captain Mark Van Bommel for Rafael Van der Vaart who took over the captain duties as well. You can be sure that move will be talked about in Holland for years.
It took awhile for Holland to get in rhythm but finally in the 57th minute, Arjen Robben had a shot on goal that did not score, but breathed hope into the orange cause. In the 70th minute, Wesley Sneijder ripped a shot that hit Jerome Boateng so hard in the ribs that he stayed down for a minute. Then the next minute Van Persie took a ball he was dribbling on the left side of the box and started to dribble to the middle. He is well known for being left-footed and Manuel Neuer had to be thinking about that as he protected the goal for a left shot.
Van Persie is a complete player, however, and shocked everyone with a hard-driven shot with his right foot. Now things are looking better for the Dutch. Germany took that as a wake-up call. German substitute Miroslav Klose ran down a poorly played ball by Stekelenburg that nearly went in.
Then, van Marwijk made a substitution that will also be discussed for years. He took out Robben who looked disgusted with the move. He actually went out on the opposite side of the field, took off his shirt, and sat next to Van Bommel on the ground near the bench. I would love to have been a bird to hear that conversation. Anyway, the game ended with a 2-1 victory for Germany.
What all of this means is the following:
|
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
+/- |
Pts |
 Germany |
2 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
6 |
| Portugal |
1 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
3 |
0 |
3 |
| Denmark |
1 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
3 |
0 |
3 |
| Netherlands |
0 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
-2 |
0 |
Here’s the skinny. The final group games pit Germany against Denmark while Portugal battles the Netherlands.
If Germany wins, they are in. If Germany loses, they can be eliminated if Portugal wins and ends up with the goal differential.
Denmark advances if they win and Holland wins.
Portugal advances if they win. If Portugal loses, they can still go forward if Germany wins and if Portugal has a better goal differential. Also, if Portugal loses, that goal Holland managed today looms large; if the Dutch indeed do beat Portugal, it will come down to goal differential. Isn’t math fun? That’s the craziness of tournaments.
Italy v. Croatia tomorrow! God Bless You!
