Day Four

I'm going to let you in on a secret. I never enjoy England games.

There, I've said it. It's the tension, you see.  If you're behind, you're miserable. If you're ahead you're terrified. If it's nil nil you're frustrated. You're only actually happy if you're way ahead. The last time I really enjoyed an England game at a major tournament was the Denmark game in 2002. The last time before that was Holland in 1996.

Most games are like going on a first date with indigestion. The hope that things might go well mingles awkwardly with the memory of all the times it didn't, plus you can't finish your burger.  To be honest, I think I've gone a bit odd with it.

England 1 France 1

I can't see the point in a match report about a game you all watched, so instead here are some facts.

FACT ONE: Lloris, the French goalkeeper, is also their captain. He is not to be confused with a loris, which is a tiny, tiny monkey from the rainforests of south Asia.

One Lloris

Two lorises

A loris would never be accepted into the French national side as a goalkeeper, as they don't speak French so couldn't organise the defence at corners. Also, they are normally found in small groups of three or four, and would struggle to adapt to the squad system.

This separation of loris world and Lloris world cuts both ways.  A Lloris could never survive as an insectivore, and his inability to conceal himself with leaves and twigs would leave him vulnerable to predators.

You can tell how important the distinction between a loris and a Lloris is from the fact that I've imported two images to illustrate it. The last time my readers got even one image out of me it was an Abrams tank on its way to Baghdad.


FACT TWO: This fact came courtesy of @Pundamentalism on Twitter.

Fact: It's easier to hit Joleon Lescott's forehead than it is to get a shot on target

This may be why Peter Crouch hasn't been selected, as his forehead is both smaller and further away.

FACT THREE: 15 of the 22 starters play their club football in the Premiership. Both goal scorers play for Manchester City, as well as the goalkeeper who let in the French goal. For which he was unfairly blamed in my opinion. If your two defensive lines run into each other you've got one line not two, and one line can easily be shot through.

FACT FOUR: Scott Parker is the most English looking man in the world. More precisely, he's the most Londonish of all Londoners. If ever anyone lost their virginity on Clapham Common it was him. To Amy Winehouse, I expect, in the back of a Reliant Robin. I see from Wikipedia that he was born in Lambeth. He probably stood straight up and did the walk.

FACT FIVE: According to the rules of football, referees are supposed to make decisions by applying well-defined criteria consistently.

Amazing, but true. Of all my facts, the hardest to deduce purely from observation.

Sweden 1 Ukraine 2

By the time this one started most of us were too drained by the previous three hours to care, but it turned out to be an excellent game.

Ukraine play in yellow, so the stadium was mainly yellow as well. Sweden normally play in yellow  themselves, but it's customary to defer to your hosts in the matter of colours, so they played in bluey black instead. Their shirts still had a yellow stripe though, and their fans were in yellow.

Grass under floodlights is yellowy green. To summarise the colour balance, it was like watching a thousand canaries fly through a field of buttercups to the sound of Coldplay. After the emotional rigours of the England game it was quite soothing.

Sweden as a team depend very much on Zlatan Ibrahimovic. We were treated to a closeup of his boots, and learnt that they were sponsored. I'm not surprised by that, I'm no longer surprised by any absurdities of that kind, but I did notice they had Zlatan written on them. Now I can't claim to have lived a life entirely without bombast, none of us can, but I have to say I've never felt the remotest urge to put my name on my shoes. Either his mum did it so he wouldn't get them mixed up with someone else's, or he's a very vain young man indeed.

He's a genuinely good player though. He hit the post with a first half header he should have buried, but then scored soon after the restart. It was Yarmolenko's poor defensive header that gave him the chance. It went straight to Kallstrom, who knocked it back to Ibrahimovic on the six yard line. He'd been marked two seconds earlier, but now he had a free shot. One nil.

Ukraine were angry, because they'd had a man down at the time. The convention that play stops for injury seems to have almost entirely broken down in western Europe now. Maybe it survives in the Ukrainian league, where most of the national team play, maybe it's just annoying to give up a goal.

It didn't matter, as Ibrahimovic's act turned out to be the warmup for the Shevchenko show. He'd missed a chance in the first half as well, but three minutes after Sweden scored he equalised. The commentators had just been talking about substituting him for being a bit old, but he looked young enough when he got ahead of Mellberg to get his head on Gusev's cross. It was a relief for Gusev after some earlier errors, and it certainly got the home crowd singing. Look at the stars, look how they shine for you ...

A few minutes later, he scored again. This time it was a corner. He peeled off his unheeding marker with no apparent trouble and fired a sharp header between Lustig and the post. On reflection Sweden may have felt it was a mistake to have Ibrahimovic marking him, but it does give us a rather neat narrative arc.

The goals drove the managers into a touchline frenzy. Watching them flail about in adjacent technical areas they seemed the perfect odd couple for a sitcom. A Swedish schoolteacher forced by circumstances to share a flat with a Ukrainian truck driver. Gene Wilder and James Gandolfini would be perfect.

Sweden had several good chances before the end. Ibrahimovic was unlucky, as his shot bounced back off the keeper before he'd had time to move. Elmander and Mellberg both missed in injury time.

It finished 2-1 though. It was the result the tournament needed, to give the home fans hope. Now we have to hope England can take it all away.