Day Ten

Portugal 2 Holland 1

Germany 2 Denmark 1

Ignoring goal difference there are 3 ways each game can go: win, lose or draw. With 6 games in each group, there are 729 possible outcomes for each group. This sounds a lot, but it actually reduces to a few standard patterns, and one of the most common ones is the 6:3:3:0 points distribution after the first 4 games. If there are no draws in those games, the group will always have this pattern, or 6:6:0:0, or 3:3:3:3.

The 6:3:3:0 distribution is the only one where a team can win their first two games and still go into the last game with no guarantee of progress. It's also the only one where a team can lose their first two games and still have some hope. That was the situation in Group B for Germany and Holland.

Germany needed a point to top the group, but if they lost could still be eliminated by a Portugal win over Holland. Holland knew they were out unless they beat Portugal and Germany beat Denmark.

This meant that in each game, both sides were hoping for the same news from the other one. Germany wanted Holland to beat Portugal and remove the chance of a three way split on six points, and Denmark wanted the same to give them the chance to progress with a draw. Portugal and Holland both wanted Germany to beat Denmark, for very similar reasons.

I decided to watch Portugal and Holland, and I think I made the right choice. Every time I flicked over to the other game to check what was happening it seemed flatter, somehow.

After 11 minutes, unexpectedly, Holland went ahead. It was van der Vaart of Spurs, doing what we'd seen him do a few times this season. Robben's run had carved the space for him, and his shot flew in from about 30 yards. Just for a little while everyone stopped talking about the disunited Dutch team.

Portugal, stung, launched a series of attacks. Ronaldo ran round Vlaar, and his shot hit the outside of the post. Just afterwards an ill-considered back pass from van der Wiel fell to Postiga, who had a free shot that went wide, then Meireles hit one into the side netting from a wide angle.

Soon after we heard that Germany had taken the lead against Denmark. Both sets of fans cheered. Well, I know the pretty ones did. As for the others, no evidence was provided.

That was Holland's highwater mark, by which I mean something more positive than a highwater mark would normally mean in Holland. Immediately afterwards, de Jong had a free header from a corner, in the Portuguese box. Unfortunately for him it was just too high for him to get over it, and it bounced harmlessly over. Had it gone in we might be looking at some very different headlines today.

A minute later Ronaldo had a header in the Dutch box. He hit it powerfully, but Stekelenburg saved well. It seemed like he'd never score a goal again.

Soon after we heard Denmark had equalised against Germany. They showed us the clip. Bendtner rose strongly to meet a header on the edge of the box, it passed over the German defenders and came down just the right height for Krohn-Dehli's head. He flicked it on and in it went.

Finally, after so many misses, Ronaldo scored. A quick darting run, a perfect through ball from Pereira, bang. It was now one all in both games, so we were back where we started. Two minutes later, Nani shot just wide. The game was shaping up to be a cracker.

The Portuguese kept bashing away. They had too many chances to recount, especially if you miss players names because you're trying to eat your dinner, but at half time it was still 1-1 in both stadiums. Yes it is, or at least it can be. Stadia is more commonly used as the plural of stadium when it means a measure of distance.

Holland were better after the break, but Willems was booked for a lunging tackle on Moutinho, and as a result would have missed the quarter final even if they got through. By this time it was starting to seem a remote possibility.

It could have been a bit nearer if Vlaar had scored when he had a free header in the box from a Dutch free kick. It flew high and wide. From his face, you could see he knew what a chance it was.

On the hour mark Postiga managed the getting-it-in-the-goal bit of scoring, getting on a Ronaldo shot that was going wide, but he was offside.

Soon after Meireles was brought down by de Jong and didn't immediately get up, but the Dutch played on. This meant that when Portugal took the ball off them they felt quite entitled to have an attack themselves. In the event Coentrao's shot was saved, but it would have been a talking point if it had gone in. Meireles was fine. Obviously.

The Dutch brought on Affelay for Willems. They'd left him out after Holland's previous failures, but now they needed all the striking power they could muster. Portugal brought Custodio on for Meireles.

Immediately after, Ronaldo played a perfect pass right across the 6-yard for Nani. He hit it firmly enough, but the keeper was in the right place.

A minute later, the roles were successfully reversed. A Dutch move broke down on the Portuguese box, and Moutinho broke out. He played it out right to Nani, who hit the perfect diagonal box to Ronaldo. Ronaldo, in a position to hit it first time, instead controlled the ball, cutting inside the defender, then he controlled it again, then he scored. After all his cockups up to this point it was, it must be said, a triumph of nerve and professionalism. He took the time he needed to ensure the score, and no more. Any fair minded person would have to admire him for it. I still think he's a twat.

I turned over. The tension was now in the Danish game. If Denmark scored, they would go through with Portugal and Germnay would be eliminated.

Instead it was Germany that found the winner. Lars Bender reached a cross pitch ball that had defeated everyone else and tucked it past the keeper, who'd suddenly found himself out of position when his defender Poulsen slipped and missed the ball.

Yes, I had noticed, I was drawing a veil. As @daraobriain pointed out, at least they don't have Kuntz any more

The Danes now needed three goals, at least one in both games. They did their best, but had no significant chances, and unlike the previous day the drama slowly dribbled out of both games. At full time, nothing had changed.

Which gives us our first two quarter finals. Portugal play the Czech Republic, then Germany play Greece.

We're now twenty games in, without a single goalless draw. There are 11 games left. Could this be the first tournament not to have one?

Day Six

We were back with the group of death, and I was back with the Hobgoblin. It's a beer, not an ex. I'm beginning to think that it's football night, so I'm allowed some beers may not be an especially practical rule right now.

Portugal 3 Denmark 2

This one was as marked a temperamental clash as you're likely to get in a European championship. Freezing winters against blistering summers.  Baltic herring against Atlantic sardines. Kierkegaard against transubstantiation. It gave us possibly the best game yet.

Pepe struck first, heading home at the near post from a Moutinho corner. Ronaldo nearly doubled the lead when his free kick clipped off the top of the wall, but it was deflected just over the bar.

Postiga succeeded where he had failed. Nani put the ball in, and he got across the Danish defender Kjaer and put it in at the post. Two nil.

The Portuguese were dominant at that point, but just when we thought they were going in two up at halftime Bendtner pulled one back. The cross came in, Krohn-Dehli, the keeper and the nearest defender all followed it, and Krohn-Dehli got there first. He headed it back over, and Bendtner headed it into an empty net.

There was a significant question mark over the goal, which was that Bendtner was offside from the original cross. He didn't touch the ball until it came back, so was there a second phase? The rules of the game say yes, so the officials were correct to allow the goal, but personally I think the rules should be changed. A second phase should only be considered to apply if the ball has actually touched a defender, or play has been slowed up sufficiently to allow the defense to reorganise. Otherwise you're legitimising goal hanging, which is precisely the behaviour the offside rule was designed to prevent.

For the surprisingly large section of my readership that doesn't really get football, none of that will mean anything. I know you normally just skip the technical bits anyway, hoping for jokes about Schrodinger and bottoms, but I ought to offer you something as part of my self-imposed public service remit. In the spirit of the big society, which is what old Etonians call it when they don't want to pay you, here is the offside rule for geeks, courtesy of the excellent (and very funny) @OctoberJones. Hope that helps.

Ronaldo carried on missing after the break. He got clear through in the 49th minute and shot from the edge of the box, but it was easily saved. Kvist and Bendtner also missed for Denmark, but in the 78th minute Ronaldo raised the bar for any misser for the rest of this tournament. He was literally five yards clear of the defence, it was just him and the keeper, he could have taken it in closer, even you or I would have known to do that, but he shot from an unnecessary distance, and it flew wide. Everyone who can't stand Ronaldo was thrilled.

We never celebrate these things properly. Just imagine, all of us in our separate houses, all laughing at Ronaldo in isolation. We should join together, in a conga line around the world.

It's true, the Atlantic would pose a problem. Perhaps we could chain together every boat belonging to someone who hates Ronaldo, moor them from Portugal to Brazil and lay wooden boards across the top of them for the conga line to move on. We'd have to arrange them in order of height, or you'd end up with skiffs next to ocean liners. That way, everyone in Europe that hates Ronaldo could conga across the Atlantic in time to boo him at the World Cup. What a joyous festival of unity and togetherness it would be.

Back to the football. You may recall that Ronaldo had just missed. Two minutes later, Bendtner's equaliser made him regret it. The ball come in from Jacobsen, he pulled off Pepe, as it were, and shot. The keeper got a hand to it, but could only push it onto the post and in.

It galvanised the Portuguese, and the last ten minutes were all theirs. Ronaldo missed twice more, then Varela showed him how it's done. Agger got caught with the ball, and it came back in from Coentrao, who seems to be a footballer not a liqueur. Varela missed with his left foot, controlled it and banged it home with his right.

Ronaldo still had time to pick up a yellow card for a cynical tackle, but when Schone blasted over soon after that was it. Life isn't actually a morality play, and there were no consequences for Ronaldo, but the simple fact that he'd been on the winning side can't have entirely compensated for the knowledge of how little he'd contributed to that win.

Holland 1 Germany 2

I nearly missed the start of this one, like I did the Greece v Czech Republic game the other day. In honour of Germany I'd dashed to Lidl, and you always find more cheap shit in there than you'd ever realised you needed. In the event, I sat down as the kickoff countdown hit 5.

Yes, the kickoff countdown. Instead of waiting for the referee to blow to start the game, the announcer counts down from 10 over the tannoy, usually with the help of the fans. In English, obviously. Polish or Ukrainian? Neither language seems to exist.

Van Persie had the early chances, but it was Germany that scored first. The ball came through to Gomez, and he made us all gasp by pirouetting on left foot as he controlled it with his right, then firing it under the diving keeper. It was beautiful control, and following on Ozil's shot against the post it reminded us all why Germany are so fancied for this tournament.

Badstuber nearly doubled their lead when he got a free header, absolutely unmarked in the 6 yard box. Unfortunately for him his header went straight at the keeper, but you wondered where the Dutch defense were. That's the kind of thing they're supposed to be good at. People have been slagging off England, but our defence never did anything that bad against France.

So it was no surprise when Gomez scored again. His welltimed shot followed a one two with Schweinsteiger in which he literally ran rings round Mathijson. Actually, no that's unfair. He metaphorically ran rings, but literally only ran one ring. Not that the Dutch will find that much of a comfort.

The keeper Stekelenbug was slightly at fault as well, having gone down perhaps slightly early, allowing Gomez to score over him. Just after the break he made spectacular amends, saving two German shots in a row. Three nil would have killed Holland, but now they rallied.

Van Persie and Sjneider both had decent efforts, then Robben got free in the box, with the ball (duh-uh), but volleyed when he had time to control and shot wide. His next effort laid out Jerome Boateng, the German Ghanaian whose brother Prinz plays for Ghana. The Boateng brothers played on opposing teams in the last World Cup, in a fraternal clash which has never happened before or since. Although it should be noted that Ronaldo and Beckham both have very similar faces, in the sense that you want to punch them about the same amount, and in my opinion may well be related.

After 72 minutes they brought Klose on for Gomez. While the commentators were busy chatting about German forwards, van Persie reminded everyone he was still there by finally scoring. He got the ball to him on left, turned Hummels to make the space and scored from 25 yards. I should probably explain that Hummels is a German defender, otherwise turning Hummels would sound like something you'd do in a Sopwith Camel.

The Dutch brought Kuyt on for Robben. It would be fair to say that Robben was a little miffed, and instead of running off across the pitch he exited on the far side, then slowly walked round the stadium scowling, thus giving the TV cameras ample opportunity to focus on his discontent.

Just before the end Boateng got a yellow card for timewasting, and now misses the next game against Denmark. Unless something remarkable happens, he and Germany will be there for the quarter finals.

It was a satisfying day for a blogger, all told. Lots of action, an offside controversy, Ronaldo looking a twat. It also meant that after twelve games there were no nil nils so far. There are normally some shit games in the knockout phase, but then there are normally some shit games in the group stages, and we haven't had any yet.

Day Two

This was the day everyone was waiting for. The Group of Death. The teams ranked 3rd, 4th, 9th and 10th in the world. Well, the day everyone else was waiting for. I'm just happy as long as someone's kicking a ball about in front of a camera somewhere.

Honestly, that's all it takes. Go in your back garden, kick a ball against the shed for a few minutes while someone films it on their phone, turn it into an animated gif and DM me. I'll be stuck in this chair for hours. So you can imagine how I am right now. If it wasn't for Asda Online I'd starve to death about the middle of next week.

The two ranking teams in the group are Holland and Germany. Denmark and Portugal are considered unlucky to have drawn them. All these teams have won it before except Portugal, and they've been in the final.

Holland 0 Denmark 1

Holland made all the running early on and van Persie and Robben both had decent chances, so it came as a shock when Denmark took the lead after 23 minutes.

Poulsen ran at the defence, who blocked him off perfectly well, but a ricochet came to Krohn-Dehli on the left. He ran past a defender and hit it through Stekelenburg's legs.

The Dutch kept at it. They had a shout for a penalty turned down when Agger handled in the box, then Vlaar didn't properly connect with a header from a corner. Robben hit the post after a terrible clearance from the keeper, but they couldn't do anything from the rebound. Affelaye waltzed past the Danish defence, and shot narrowly over, then van Persie miscued one after not really controlling it properly. You felt it would come, but at halftime it hadn't.

The second half carried on as the first had finished. Robben, van Persie, van Bommel, each in turn found new ways to miss. Van der Vaart and Huntelaar came on for Afellaye and de Jong, and carried on in the same vein.

With ten minutes left the Danes took Rommedahl off for Mikkelsen. You may remember Rommedahl from his Charlton days. He's back in Denmark now, at Brondby. Danish players often like to semi-retire to Denmark, I've noticed. Their Superliga is roughly the same standard as the Scottish Premier League, with a few big teams and the rest at about Championship standard. You can drop down a level as your legs get tired and put your kids back in a Danish speaking school at the same time.

He's fit for an old 'un though, Rommedahl. Apparently he can do the 100 metres in 11 seconds, even when the chip shop isn't about to close. He may have felt his fitness justified keeping him on for the end, as everyone struggled to get through the tired minutes, and wasn't best pleased to be taken off.

But it was the Dutch that needed their strikers. In desperation, they brought Kuyt on. Turning to Liverpool players in desperation may turn out to be one of the themes of this tournament.

It didn't help, although the Dutch did have another handball appeal, this one much better. The final whistle went, and somehow Denmark had won. Holland had 28 attempts on goal, but none of them went in.

This happens sometimes. Say on average one attempt in ten goes in (WARNING: stat pulled out of my arse), the odds on missing 28 in a row are low but not astronomically so.  No point in being upset. You pick yourself up, you make another 28 chances against Germany, you take 3 of them. I wouldn't rule it out.

But it was an unexpected setback, and there won't have been many fireworks around the Zuiderzee last night. Especially as it disappeared decades ago when they diked it off and turned into a freshwater lake instead. It's a good thing I check these things. The question now was whether Portugal could do to Germany what Denmark had done to the Dutch.

Germany 1 Portugal 0 (so no, then)

Now I think about it, putting the score in the subheading may slightly reduce the element of dramatic tension for those of you who aren't following events as determinedly as I am.

The early stages in this one were notable for the high pressing line both sides were keeping. Instead of letting the opposition play it out from the back, they forced them to kick it away. Of course, they then faced the same problem themselves. It was tactically correct, but made for a scrappy first half.

Podolski had a couple of decent chances in the first half hour, but miskicked one and skied the second. Germany were bossing the game, but their own sloppiness combined with Portuguese solidity to frustrate them.

In fact it was Portugal who nearly scored, just before the break. Pepe's shot hit the corner of the bar, landed on the goalline and bounced back into play. Cue much chat about Lampard's effort in the last World Cup, also against Germany just before halftime, but this one clearly didn't cross the line.

The second half started much more openly. Portugal seemed to have decided it was time to give it a go. For one dizzying moment Ronaldo seemed to be clear, but Boateng got back at him.

72 minutes in, Gomez scored. The cross took a little nick off a defender, and looped invitingly onto his head. He put it comfortably beyond the keeper, and Germany were a goal up.

Yes, Germany. Mario Gomez has a Spanish father and a German mother, and grew up in Germany. He's good enough for either squad, but chose Germany as a youth team player nine years ago. This is a decision that may have looked better in 2003 than it did in 2010, but perhaps this is his (and their) year.

His goal tonight bought him another few minutes on the pitch. Klose was about to come on for him, but after he scored Löw waved Klose back on the bench. He brought him on anyway in the eightieth minute. Klose's getting on a bit for a whole game, but he's still Germany's senior striker.

Portugal brought on Varela for Meireles, and pushed forward. Ronaldo's shot forced Neuer to concede a corner, and Nani's cross bounced off the bar. Then it came to Varela, on his own in the box, but Neuer smothered his shot.

Nani's shot in the last minute of injury time was deflected for a corner, which Alves headed over, and that was it.

It never quite comes off for Portugal in tournaments, does it? They knock England out on penalties every now and again, but they tend not to get any further than that. They did get to the finals in Euro 2004, when they hosted it, but they lost to Greece.

Today couldn't have gone much worse for them. Not only have they lost to Germany, Denmark are now three points ahead. If they don't beat them next, they're probably going home.

For Germany, the expected good start. There's a Stephen Hendry quality about them, a certain resilience, which we came to anticipate as a matter of course from 1970 to about 1990. It disappeared for a decade or so, but recently they've looked like the Germany of old. You never beat them by much, they always seem to come back, and the moment when you think they've lost their mojo is the precise moment when they find that maximum break.

Tomorrow it's Ireland, or as I like to call them, Tony Meo.