Day Three

It was a big day, an exciting day, and I really wish the BBC had got it. I admit it makes sense to give Adrian Chiles the Croatia game as he's half Croatian himself, but there's one huge reason to prefer the BBC to ITV. Salford.

Yes, Salford, which is where the BBC coverage is coming from. Because it's so ugly (evidence), they film inside. ITV, on the other hand, have flown their whole team out to Poland and rented space in every beautiful city square in the country. Having spent all that money they seem to feel obliged to do everything on a balcony, so they can film Gordon Strachan in front of that basilica which looks old but was actually rebuilt in 1946. Strachan himself, of course, is a genuine Baroque original.

I'm generally all in favour of an outside broadcast, but they haven't been able to solve the technical problems. Sometimes it's the wind fucking up the mikes, the rest of the time it's brass bands, which seem to be everywhere they go. Either amateur salsa nights are a big thing in Poland, or Chiles baiting is their latest national sport.

There are other problems with the ITV coverage beyond sound quality. I think for instance of the tweets and texts they insist on running under their talking heads. If you must do that it's important to make the font big enough to read, and therefore big enough to ignore. ITV's was only legible if you squinted, which of course meant you found yourself squinting.

And while I'm at it, Roy Keane. They wheeled him out specially for the Ireland game, which makes him quite literally a professional Irishman. I realise they've paid for him now, but couldn't they just stick him in a bar somewhere and tell him he's doing the local colour? It's not like he's teetotal or anything, is it?

Fourthly and most obviously, the adverts. It doesn't really matter what your pundits think if their analysis has to be squeezed between two commercial breaks in a halftime slot. Also, football attracts the shoutiest ads. Did you know that billionaire financier Joe Lewis owns a large slice of Ladbrokes? If you're in the Bahamas right now, why not hunt him down and belabour him repeatedly about the face and body with a baseball bat, all the while screaming LADBROKES! GAME ON! into his baffled face in a cod Italian accent.

Spain 1 Italy 1

The Spanish national anthem is my favourite. It has no words at all. It's an awful grating racket, obviously, but at least it isn't an awful grating racket with a bloodthirsty lyric like most of the others.

The Italian one is more typical of the genre. Apparently Victory has bound Scipio's helmet upon her head, so let us join in a cohort, we are ready to die. This, I feel, may account for their lack of military success in more recent times. I'm sure cohorts were a great help at the battle of Zama, but military technology has moved on since then. If the Austrians are gassing you in the Dolomites, you may not want to be moving any closer together.

They'd got their formations right for the game though. You felt they'd learnt from the way other teams played in Spain in the World Cup. Back then team after team clammed up against them, hoping to contain their midfield and stop the through ball, but got tired and gave up the crucial goal after an hour or so. Today, Italy came to play.

And it worked for them. They had to survive some scares, like everyone else who plays Spain, but they had their own moments as well. Their best chance of the first half came right at the end, as Motta had a header which Casillas saved athletically. It was just after Balotelli got booked. It wasn't an awful tackle, just a bit high, and he might have got away with it if he hadn't been mouthing off earlier. One to watch, we all felt.

Spain, meanwhile, looked just a little bit fallible at times. The odd loose pass, some slightly idiosyncratic goalkeeping, nothing that would shock you from Poland or Greece, but this was Spain.

They had their moments though. Of course they did. They started with none of the four players identified on the squad list as a striker, but if you can play midfielders like Fabregas, Silva and Iniesta you'll probably get some chances, and they did.

Five of their eleven starters play for Barcelona, four for Real Madrid. Just stop and think about that for a moment. Nine out of eleven from two clubs. At this level, that's a hell of a thing. It gives you a cohesion no other national team could dream of. In this country it would mean nine from the Manchester clubs, and can you imagine them using that many English players? Or finishing first and second if they did?

The second half started dramatically. Fabregas and Iniesta shots were pushed wide. Balotelli got the ball off Ramos on the touchline, but then dithered long enough for him to get back and tackle. Almost immediately, del Bosque took him off for di Natale. Everyone makes mistakes, but Balotelli's always seem to be expressions of his personality. He'd got booked for petulance and recklessness, he'd fluffed his big chance - at this level that's enough.

An hour in, and against the normal run of things, Italy scored. Di Natale held his run just right, pushed through to get on the through ball and played it perfectly past a splayed Casillas. The contrast between di Natale's finishing and Balotelli's was obvious.

I'm not sure why the equaliser was such a surprise. Spain always score at about this point. Iniesta to Silva to Fabregas, it went. Barca to Barca, via Manchester. A small stepover from the Spaniard, a huge leap forward for Spain. Kind of what we expect.

Torres came on for Fabregas, and the rest of the game seemed to be about the chances he missed. First he got through on Casillas, who tackled him without going down and played it out for a throw in. Then he had a lob from outside the box which drifted agonisingly over. Shortly before, di Natale had stretched for a cross and just flicked it wide. But then he'd already scored.

It ended one all, a gripping match from two titans of the game. We'd had our main event, so the stage was set for the supporting feature. Who schedules these things?

Ireland 1 Croatia 3

They sang the Irish national anthem in Gaelic, but I looked up the translation. Out yonder lies the Saxon foe, it goes. Could they possibly mean us? Would they include Jackie Charlton? Soldiers are we ... mid cannon's roar and rifles' peal ... For love of the Gael, towards death or life ... oh for Christ's sake. How far we've come, and yet sometimes I don't think we've got anywhere at all. If people don't think war is glorious any more, why do they sing songs like that?

I do feel a certain warmth towards the Gaelic language, the only Gaelic speaker I've ever met having helped us push the car out of the Irish mud, but it must have been a challenge for the players. Nine of the eleven starters were actually born in Ireland, by the way, before anyone starts, but they're mainly east coasters, who speak English.

The weather was vile. Bad news for the players, but good for the cameras, which got to do lots of those slo-mo close ups with players grimacing and spray flying around.

The Irish played in shirts 1 to 11. It wasn't any kind of objection to the squad numbering system, they just selected numbers 1 to 11 in the squad. I guess Trappatoni knew who he wanted to play early on. That's nice. I like a manager who knows his mind.

Although he may have had his doubts when Croatia scored in the third minute. As soft goals go, it was Andrex quality. A cross was deflected, and Mandzukic slipped on the edge of the box and looped in a gentle header towards Given's right corner post. It should have been stopped, but Given was moving the wrong way and couldn't quite get across to keep it out.

There was an element of bad fortune to it. Mandzukic's body language in the split second before he slipped suggested he would strike at the opposite corner. His header was actually an excellent moment of improvisation, but a keeper of Given's standard will feel he should have done better.

It was a shame. We all want the Irish to do well. Some of their fans went with a banner that said Angela Merkel thinks we're at work. You want fans like that to have something to cheer.

After 18 minutes, they did. They got a slightly questionable free kick forty yards out, Corluka let St Ledger get on the wrong side of him on it and St Ledger headed home. The Irish fans celebrated with a Poznan in Poznan.

There seemed to be a whistle in the crowd as the kick came over. It wasn't the first time, it had happened a few times to apparent Croatian advantage, but you had to wonder if it was a factor in the goal.

The game as a whole reminded me why I like Championship football so much. It's lovely to watch the Xabis and Iniestas of this world doing their thing, but sometimes you want to see a bunch of also rans slipping and sliding in the mud as the ball flies anywhere but where they meant it to go.

Like many Championship games, a few talents stood out above the white noise of the rest. Jelavic has injected an element of flair into Goodison Park, and it looks like he's done the same for Croatia. Ireland don't really do flair, but what they lack in that department they make up for with a certain kind of monosyllabic punchiness. Dunne to Doyle, Doyle knocks it down to Duff, Duff to Keane. It may not be pretty, but it does cut down on the typing.

It was flair that told though. Just as Ireland were looking to the halftime whistle there was a scramble on the edge of the box,Ward hit his clearance about 150 degrees the wrong way, Jelavic was way ahead of the rest and it was 2-1 at the break.

Shortly after the restart it was 3-1. Mandzukic had another header, and Given wasn't quite quick enough. It his the post, bounced back off Given's head and went in.

As time went by, what tension there was in the game dribbled away. Keane went off for Shane Long of West Brom. He used to play for Reading, and he's caused us a few problems at Ashton Gate, but it was hard to see him doing a lot against Croatia, and so it proved.

Andrews headed just wide in injury time, but it didn't really matter by then. Ireland were well beaten, by a Croatian team you wouldn't expect to challenge either. Now they have to play Italy and Spain. It's a very long way to Tipperary, but on this showing they'll be back there soon enough.