Day Twenty Four

Italy v Spain

Do you remember whenTomorrow's World had the first ever prototype push button phone? What's the point of that? we all thought. It saves about half a second a number. Is this really the future? It was, and that was the end of the line for the rotary dial.

Four decades later Spain have abolished the striker, and we can all instantly see the point. Instead, they have many, many shooting, dribbling and passing midfielders. Last night they fielded about thirty of them, all shooting, dribbling and passing at the same time, all of the time. How amazing are the laws of physics, that they can accommodate a team like Spain?

Which makes the Spanish gameplan sound complicated and hard to choreograph, but their first goal was simple enough. The ball came through to Fabregas, who outpaced the covering defender and got down the goal line. The keeper had to cover his run at the near post, so the cross effectively took him out of the game. Silva only had to head into an empty net, although his control and placing to put it past the covering defender were excellent.

Soon after that Italy had to take Chiellini off. They brought on Balzaretti, who I thought had done well against Germany. After he came on Italy started to look stronger, building some positive moves out of their back third solidity.

It was top quality stuff all round. Spain were always threatening, moving the ball about with their usual flair and going round players almost at will, but diligent and well-timed Italian tackles and interceptions kept them at bay for a while.

The gulf in class between either team and England was palpable.  As @ed_son tweeted, Looking at the teams, you can't help thinking how much more of a spectacle this game would be with Terry, Henderson and Milner involved. Ah, the English. When it comes to irony we're world class. In football - well let's just say games like this make me proud to be a European. If only there was a football Ryder Cup, we'd walk it.

Let's use the Spanish second goal to illustrate the gap between us and them. Imagine if you will a small rectangular savannah filled with mutually hostile gangs of primitive creatures, half ape half footballer. They call to each other in grunts and glottal stops, and one gang has crudely daubed three lions on their chests in charcoal.

The tallest of the these, let's call him Andy Carroll, is bashing a defender's skull in with a rock. We see him throw it triumphantly but aimlessly into the sky, and suddenly Xavi is launching it precisely into Jordi Alba's orbit to the tune of the Blue Danube. Alba's turbocharged shot fires it under the keeper, it docks seamlessly with the net and Spain are two up. My god, they're full of stars.

Italy had their chances in the first half as well. Montolivo, Balotelli and Cassano all had shots from distance. They might have troubled an English keeper, but Casillas wasn't really stretched.

At half time they treated us to the goals of the tournament, and Vialli compared Pirlo to Beethoven. I found this immensely reassuring. It shows it isn't just me, you see. If I choose to use a pointlessly elaborate metaphor to illustrate something I could quite easily just describe, I'm not being deliberately awkward, I'm being - European.

Italy brought di Natale on for Cassano, who'd been largely anonymous during the first half, and Spain replaced Silva with Pedro. Apparently wanting to win at substitutions if at nothing else, Prandelli took Montilivo off for Motta, who went down almost immediately with what appeared to be a hamstring problem. It was their third substitution, so Italy were down to ten men.

It was unfortunate really, as this extra blow seemed to drain all the drama from the game. With ten men Italy just couldn't get the ball back. Spain did all they needed to do, playing the ball around midfield for half an hour while Italy held the line.

With 15 minutes left Spain brought Torres on for Fabregas. It seemed a bit like going back to the dial phone, but it did lead to the first really good chance of the second half, as Pedro missed a sitter only to be given offside anyway. The game was starting to feel like the last day of term, with Spain killing time teasing the school pet.

Ten minutes from the end they showed us the possession stats, and it was exactly 50% either way. This was evidence if any was needed of the meaninglessness of simple stats, devoid of context. It doesn't prove that statistics is an empty science, it just shows that it's hard.

The commentators were wondering what Italy could possibly do, but then Spain went and did it instead. It was a straightforward ball through to Torres, who ran through Italy's wavering and irregular offside trap with the speed and timing of a European train and knocked it home in that nonchalant way that Henry used to. Of all the season's endings we'd imagined for Torres, I don't think anyone was anticipating nonchalance.

The goal gave him the Golden Boot. He had three goals and one assist, just like Gomez, but had played less minutes. Without wanting to be churlish, he scored two goals against Ireland and one against an already defeated team, so may not be the most deserving winner ever. Ronaldo, Balotelli, Mandzukic of Croatia and Dzagoev of Russia also scored three goals, and any of those five might be argued to have contributed more. Like I said earlier, statistics is hard.

They brought Mata of Chelsea on for Iniesta, purely as a charitable act. Llorente is now, I believe, the only Spanish outfield player not to get on. In any other squad he'd be in the first team, but Spain only play the most accomplished astrophysicists.

The fourth goal was just cruel. Bosquets played a long hard pass along the ground but through the Italian line to  Torres. He might have shot but instead passed to Mata, who had an open goal. Made in Chelsea, as the commentators inexplicably forgot to say. It made Spain the only team ever to win a major international tournament final by a four goal margin.

The referee put Italy through every second of the allocated three minutes of extra time, but no more. Balotelli stormed off the pitch in a sulk, which is very like him, but then recovered himself and came back out, which isn't. He's only twenty one, maybe he's getting a grip.

Alan Shearer summed the winners up. The Spanish team, they've had an unbelievable amount of sex. He corrected it to success half a second later, but if that kind of performance doesn't get you a shag there's no justice in the world.

Anyway, that was Spain beating Italy. Now when's the next game?

AAAAARRRGGHH!!

Day Twenty One

Germany 1 Italy 2

I'm tempted to summarise the semifinals with a musical analogy, but the national stereotypes refuse to line up. Spain and Portugal gave us a Wagnerian opera, technically accomplished but perhaps a little stodgy at times. Germany and Italy gave us Carmen - full of goalmouth action and tunes you could hum. It worked for Italy, whose national anthem sounds like a comic opera already, but Germany could only manage the tragic death at the end. Maybe they shouldn't go round fucking toreadors while their boyfriends aren't looking. Or something. That was my thirtieth metaphorical summary of the tournament, so I'm sure you can fill in the gaps yourselves just this once.

Italy are something of a hoodoo team for Germany. Before tonight they'd never beaten them in 7 tournament games. The assumption had been that that would change here, but now it's 8 games without a win instead.

Both teams had been having selection issues over their strikers all tournament. Germany had been chopping and changing between Gomez and Klose, starting with one then bringing on the other later. Italy had been through the same with Balotelli and di Natale. Gomez and Balotelli started this one, to dramatically different effect.

The commentators made a big deal out of Real Madrid having seven players starting the semifinals, which was a odd considering they actually had nine. Bayern Munich had seven, all in the German team. The Real players were split between Spain, Portugal and Germany.

Except for Balotelli, every Italian player in their starting eleven plays for an Italian club. I've noticed a pattern in national teams, where they build the defence and midfield from their home leagues, as far as possible choosing players that play together all the time, and then bring in the eccentric expats to score the goals. It's true of all the semifinalists except Portugal, whose domestic league just isn't big enough to support clubs of that stature.

Bouffon started poorly. Five minutes in he made a right mess of a corner, which bounced to Hummels, who seemed so suprised he wasn't able to get a decent shot in. Ten minutes in he flapped at a cross, and was very lucky to see it go out for a corner.

They were uncharacteristic errors from a top keeper, but he got away with them both. I was reminded of poor old Scott Carson, who made two equivalent errors against Croatia in 2007 and was penalised both times. If he'd had Bouffon's luck England would have won that game 2-1, as Italy did here, and he might still be an England regular.

Italy may have been lucky early on, but they were making plenty of chances of their own. After 17 minutes Montelivo had a shot, which he managed to pull back against the direction of his movement and down to Neuer's right. If the keeper was surprised, he didn't show it, saving comfortably. Cassano had another effort a minute later, but it was comfortable for Neuer.

He couldn't keep Balotelli's header out two minutes later. It was Cassano who made the space, spinning round Hummels, who followed him into the turn when he shouldn't have, and crossing perfectly beyond Badstuber. For the first time in the tournament, in fact the first time since Euro 2008 in the Euros (so including the qualifiers) Germany were behind.

Visibly stung by this, they dominated the next phase. They had a few shots, but a mixture of slips, deflections, keen Italian blocking and poor shooting kept the score unchanged.  When Bouffon saved well from Khedira then dealt convincingly with the corner, we all started to sniff an upset.

Especially when Balotelli scored again from the throw out. It was a great ball from Montelivo, doing what Pirlo would have done if he'd had the ball, and a spectacular shot from the striker, smacking it into the top right hand corner before Neuer had time to move. Sometimes strikers go for subtlety, trying to put the ball where the keeper isn't expecting it by disguising their shot and varying the flight of the ball, and sometimes they just hit it really hard in a straight line going to exactly the right place. Why Germany gave him that much space was unclear. Maybe they were trying to play offside.

A few minutes later a German cross eluded the Italian defence, and fell to Podolski. He could have shot or controlled the ball first, but his indecision was final (to borrow a phrase from Alan Hansen for the absolute first time ever), as his control let him down and the ball drifted out for a goal kick.

Germany brought on Reus and Klose for Gomez and Podolski, and came out for the second half knowing what they had to do. On 49 minutes Lahm should have scored, after some nice interplay just outside the box set him up with a clear shot which cleared the bar. On the hour mark Bonucci was booked for a clear foul on Kroos as he ran across the face of the box. The free kick honours fell to Reus, whose excellent free kick was just pushed over by Bouffon.

Montelivo went off for Motta. He'd done well, but the Italian bench wanted a more defensive minded midfielder. They were defending with the counterattack in mind, though, and nearly extended their lead when some neat passing triangles set Marchisio free in the 67th minute, but his shot flew wide right.

They took Balotelli off after he had a fall. On came di Natale instead. Germany brought on Muller for Boateng. It was a striker for a defender, as it needed to be.

Despite the extra German firepower Italy still looked more likely to score. With 15 minutes left Marchisio got into the box as Badstuber slipped. He had the chance to score from wide right, unchallenged, but put it wide. Then di Natale had a chance to finish it, which he blundered away, and Balzaretti actually had it in the net for Italy, but was given offside.

On full time Hummels had a chance, but it was half blocked by Bonucci and bounced kindly off Bouffon's chest. Two corners later they had a penalty, for handball in the box. Ozil scored to give Germany two minutes of hope, and there were some nice frantic last minute comedy moments as Neuer came up to head into the box from a midfield position, but the whistle went without the Italian goal being further threatened.

So that was the semifinals. The final is Spain v Italy, which is a replay of the first game in Group C. This means that the last five European trophy winners have been Greece, Italy, Spain, Spain and Spain/Italy. Maybe it really isn't the winning that counts.

Day Seventeen

England 0 Italy 0

Pens 2 - 4

It was a good run, but it had to come to an end eventually. Let's be honest, we all knew it had gone on longer than anyone expected already. And at least we got to see a traditional tournament favourite.

Yes, there had to be a 0-0. Twenty seven games without one, but then England had a knockout game and that was that.

And the defeat? I find I can't be bothered to write much about that performance, so here's something I wrote about England v Portugal 2006 instead.

It’s just vicious really. Like free range calves, they get to run around the field for a few weeks, but then out come the chainsaws. Discounting the third place playoff, a poor apology for a wooden spoon game which is now beyond our wildest dreams, all the last fifteen games exist entirely for the purpose of inflicting the dreary ennui of defeat on one nation after another.

Children cry themselves to sleep, grown men hide under blankets all day, flags droop sadly on the bonnets of cars. Everywhere around the world. Including qualification, every country in the entire world except one goes through this every four years, every two years if you count the continental cups.

At least England - finally - managed to give us some halfway decent football. With their backs to the wall, they leapt like gazelles and fought like Douglas Bader, as opposed to the other way round like they normally do.

If Ronaldo had deliberately wound Rooney up he may have ended up regretting it, because it just united the team and brought all the arguments about England’s formation to an end. Crouch, stuck with the lone striker role by force of circumstance, played it brilliantly, holding the ball up on his own and tempting the Portuguese defenders into giving away free kicks. He linked up well with Lennon, who was also on by necessity, replacing the injured Beckham. How surprising that England’s finest football should have been played without Beckham, Rooney or Owen. How surprising, and how memorable.

I’m not even going to talk about the penalties, except to point out that Portugal missed two themselves, so the opportunity was there, dammit.

So the Portuguese have a semifinal with France. Good luck, you both have a 25% chance of not ending up feeling like we do.

So that was then. What's changed?

First, there's no third place playoff in the Euros for us not to get into. Second, all that stuff about finally getting some decent football hardly applies. Third, Pirlo didn't have to wind our players up like Ronaldo did, he was just effortlessly better.

But most importantly, there's no great sense of upset. People only really sulk if they have genuine hope in the first place. When the last penalty went in there was almost a sense that it was for the best, that to have beaten Italy on penalties after being comprehensively played off the park would have been so embarrassing, it was actually better to slink off now before Germany got to administer the retribution the rest of Europe was craving.

Steven Gerrard, interviewed afterwards, seemed to feel that there was some kind of unfairness in England being out again on penalties, that they'd been robbed of their just desserts by a capricious fate. It's quite rare to see someone so comprehensively misjudge the national mood. Which is not so much don't come home too soon as come home now, we can't stand it any more,  even the Greeks are laughing at us and we don't know where to look.

So that's the end of England's tournament, and also the complete rout of Groups A and D, but there's still plenty to look forward to. Three more games, and tasty affairs they look as well. Germany v Italy, Pirlo's midfield genius v Gomez and Klose up front. Spain v Portugal, with Ronaldo's solipsistic genius against the ultimate collective. And Germany v Spain in the final. There, I said it. Actually, I said it at the beginning of the tournament. Predicting a final correctly - now that would be a step up from previous blogs.

Day Eleven

Croatia 0 Spain 1

Italy 2 Ireland 0

 

For some teams, the end of the group phase presents a challenging problem of stats and psychology. Croatia, for instance, had a tricky problem going into the Spain game.  They knew Italy would probably beat Ireland, so containing Spain was never going to be enough, as a 0-0 would see them eliminated. 1-1, on the other hand, would very likely see them through.

This meant that a single Spanish goal would effectively be irrelevant. A second Spanish goal, though, would actually count for something, as a 2-1 defeat would put Croatia out.

So they made a plan, to contain Spain in the first half and get at them in the second, by which time Spain were statistically less likely to have enough time to score twice. It's exactly what anyone else would have done in their position, but it meant the first half of Croatia v Spain was by some margin the dullest half so far. This is a sort of compliment to Croatia - to make Spain boring is really quite an achievement - but it's also 45 minutes of our lives we'll never get back.

There were two games, of course, and both were televised, but unfortuntely this was the one with the greatest number of permutations hanging on it, so your diligent reporter was kind of stuck with it. Both teams seemed afraid of losing. Spain had most of the possession, as you'd expect, but the knowledge that they would be through if they didn't concede may have hung heavily on them.

Here's my first half notes. After 26 minutes Mandzukic was tackled right on the edge of the box. It could easily have been a foul, and therefore could easily have been a penalty, but in the end it was given as a corner.

That was it. Nothing else of any note happened, except that after half an hour we heard that Italy were a goal up against Ireland. They showed us the goal, in a highlights box in the top left corner of the screen. It was a routine goal, but a goal nonetheless. As things stood, Italy were top, Spain were second and Croatia were out.

Oh yes, and David Villa. You may have wondered where he is. His tibia is all better now, nurse having adequately kissed it in the oxygen tent, but he was laid up with it so long he failed a pre-tournament fitness test. The commentator was clearly missing him, as he managed to say his name instead of David Silva several times. That commentating error was the other first half highlight. You may scoff, but it was all over Twitter.

The Barcelona player I was missing was Messi. Yes, he's Argentinian, but he seems Spanish, and you have to admit he'd be a good fit for their team. Frankly, if they can pick Catalans I don't see why they can't pick anyone.

Things picked up a bit in the second half, and in the 59th minute Croatia had their best chance of the game. A Spanish attack broke down, and Modric skipped past the covering midfielder to find himself in space. He held it up long enough for the surprised looking Croatian forward line to catch up with him, then crossed to Rakitic, whose header was just kept out by Casillas. He should have headed it down, but instead it came at a convenient height for the keeper.

Bosquet decided he needed to make a change. He took Torres off, and brought on Navas of Sevilla. Croatia, not to be outdone, brought on Jelavic. They were out if things stayed as they were, and according to their plan it was time to have a bit of a go.

Silva went off for Fabregas. Twitter folk with no grasp of statistics suggested that they should be bringing on a striker, but in the real world with all the atoms in it the laws of probability were swinging the balance of the game. Spain were through as long as they didn't concede, and given that nobody knew what order group D was going to finish in it didn't really matter who was first and who was second.

So every time Croatia broke, Spain were quickly back in numbers. Croatia, meanwhile, brought on Eduardo, who had a stonewall penalty turned down when Arbeloa pulled him down from a corner with a move accurately analysed by Alan Hansen as a judo throw. Arbeloa managed to do it at an angle where all the officials were unsighted, which I guess is a kind of footballing skill in itself.

Three minutes from time, Spain scored. Fabregas lobbed the ball over the Croatian back line to Iniesta, who wasn't offside, although Navas was. Both players were clear. Navas held back behind Iniesta, who passed across to him, and he tapped it into an empty net. It should be offside, but according to the actual rules it isn't.

What no-one in the stadium seemed to realise, neither commentators nor Croatian fans, was that it only mattered for Spain. Croatia were still in the same position. If they scored, they went through, if they didn't they were out.

Meanwhile we heard that Balotelli had scored to double Italy's lead. That didn't matter either. Croatia could still go through with a goal. They got a free kick, and even the keeper went up for it. The referee whistled for a Croatian infringement in the Spanish box, and that was it.

In the end, and after all the calculations, every country in the group ended up with a different points total. Spain had 7 points, Italy 5, Croatia 4 and Ireland 0.

It was harsh on Croatia, who had beaten Ireland, got a draw out of Italy and only just lost to Spain. It was only harsh on Ireland in the sense that the fans probably deserved a better team, but you can only select the players you have. Spain and Italy, meanwhile, lie in wait for the top two from England's group.

Day Seven

Poor, poor Ireland. The first team to have their fate decided. To be honest, their fate was decided as soon as they drew Spain, Italy and Croatia, but technically speaking it has to be confirmed on the pitch, and now it has been.

Roy Keane moaned about the Irish attitude, but as Gordon Strachan said, if you asked any Scottish fan they'd have swapped places with them in a heartbeat. Minnows are there as tasty snacks for the bigger fish, and most of them would rather be eaten by a shark than a tuna.

Italy 1 Croatia 1

This one was a slow burner, with Italy starting the stronger. Balotelli had a shot in the third minute after a defensive lapse, which went just wide. Soon after he had another effort blocked, and Marchisio fizzed the rebound just over.

Balotelli's next effort was punched away by the Croatian keeper, Pletikosa, who followed up with the best save of the game, stopping Marchisio not once but twice.

It didn't help. Pirlo had a free kick a minute later, which he curled over the wall and into the right corner. Pletikosa got a hand to it, but it wasn't enough. This happens to keepers a lot. They make a great save, then a minute later it's in anyway. As a fan, do you celebrate the skill, or mourn the lack of consequence?

Something similar was happening to Balotelli. His next shot, just over, was a quality effort. Nothing changed because of it. Just after, he was taken off for di Natale again. He'd done much better in this game than he had against Spain, but it didn't matter

At least it meant he wasn't responsible for the Croatian equaliser. Chiellini in the Italian goal got hopelessly underneath the cross, and Mandzukic found himself unmarked on the six yard line. He controlled it neatly, and scored off the post. The Croatian fans considered which element to celebrate with, and chose fire, expressed through the medium of flares.

Fortunately they threw them onto the pitch rather than at anyone, but it brought the game to a halt anyway. Mark Bright was horrified that the fans had been able to get them in, when the BBC staff had been rigorously searched. My sympathies lay with the minimum wage stewards asked to process a crowd numbering tens of thousands in time for kickoff. If I had to choose between looking in a few camera bags and patting down the chanting posses of vigorously tattooed Croatians I'd probably have made the same choice they apparently had.

I also thought he was rather underestimating the ability of experienced fans to smuggle objects into football grounds. People are ingenious in the matter of subterfuge, or they'd never have been able to build a glider in Colditz. Flares fit invisibly down a trouser leg or inside a bulky jacket. Are you going to strip search everyone?

Towards the end Croatia pushed forward, and it seemed like they'd snatch a winner if either side did, but it finished 1-1. It was a tight game, that set us up nicely for a loose one.

Spain 4 Ireland 0

Ireland went into this with high hopes, which lasted all of four minutes. Silva picked up a great pass, but Dunne tackled him on the edge of the box. He didn't regain his balance quickly enough, though, and Ward left it to him. Torres pounced, ran round Ward like a galactico running round a Wolves player, blasted it through Given and that was the end of realistic Irish hope.

Jim Beglie described it as the ultimate test of Irish character. You felt there might be some more tests of Irish character on the way in the next 86 minutes.

In the end Ireland managed to hold things together until halftime. There were a few scary moments, and one moment of high comedy when the ref ran straight into Keith Andrews at full tilt and flattened him, but they might have been encouraged going out for the second half only one down.

Then Silva scored. Given punched a shot straight to him, but he still had to get it through three Irish defenders. It went past two right knees, and between the third pair of legs. People say that kind of thing is luck, but players like Silva seem to be lucky a lot.

The only issue now was goal difference. Assuming Italy beat Ireland, a draw between Spain and Croatia would leave the three continental teams on 5 points each, and goals against Ireland would be the decider.

Knowing this, Spain turned it on. Given made amends for any responsibility he might have felt for the first two goals with a top class save from Xavi.

Ireland had some pressure themselves. No real proper chances, but some briefly hopeful dead ball situations as they took the game into the Spanish half. It was a terrible idea, leading to the inevitable result. A hopeful Celtic scrimmage on the halfway line, the Spanish come away with it, Ireland are all out of position, Torres gets the ball through, goal. You never want to have a good spell against Spain, it just makes them angry.

Del Bosquet took Torres off for Fabregas, to safeguard him for the Croatia game. They had the goals they needed. The substitution in itself told you everything you needed to know. Ireland were playing a team who can bring on Cesc Fabregas to give another player a rest. They brought Maclean on for Duff, as if to highlight the gulf between the teams. He's a promising player, is Maclean, but he'll never be Catalan.

Keane had a decent effort soon after, well saved by Casillas. Nobody cared. Neither did it affect anything except goal difference when Fabregas scored a few minutes afterwards. It was a corner, the tiring Irish defence didn't pick him up, he dinked round a defender and slotted it in between Given and another defender. I normally check the BBC clips if I've missed players' names, but it hardly seems worth it with this one.

Three huge cheers for the Irish fans, though, and the Spanish ones too. They were supposed to be segregated, but somehow or other the Irish and the Spanish ended up half mixed together. I don't know if they'd swapped tickets with each other or what, but the green, orange and white looked very nice mixed in with the red and black. Some of the morons who blight the game from Dartford to the Dnieper must have been watching, so let's hope somewhere in the back of their minds they felt a little bit shamed.

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.