At the Euros - Day 9 - French miss Mbappe's nose for goal. Polish off - polished off by Austrians.
Before we get onto yesterday’s games I was sifting through some of the fall-out from England’s clown show against Denmark.
My hero Mr Liew pointed something out I did not mention - the men in white did not use the left side of the pitch, with Trippier plus Foden not content being there. The result is they use only 70% of the field, restricting their options hugely, like trying to type successive sentences without using the first letter out of the 26, like these sentences. Not pretty.
Last night favourites France played out a 0-0 draw with Netherlands, the first goalless draw of the tournament and the first Euros game to finish goalless since England drew 0-0 with Scotland 50 games ago. (Yes we were all furious about that game at the time too, though some people (including solitary Reform MP Lee Anderson) were also reserving some outrage for England taking the knee.) After a high-scoring start the goals in Euro 24 have gradually been drying up. Mbappe’s nose was not risked, though he has been seen training in a bespoke tricolour nose-protecting mask. He has been warned that his mask offends UEFA regulations which stipulate that medical equipment must be of a single colour. Well done UEFA for covering off that one, we know you are busy. France have now failed to win any of the last 7 games in which Mbappe has not started.
All the games yesterday and the day before started with a tribute to some former UEFA bureaucrat with his snout in the trough for 20 years. It’s indicative of UEFA’s astonishing self-regard that they compel all the players and hundreds and thousands of spectators to applaud a man that they will certainly have never heard of and who has likely done nothing for football except possibly devise regulations about mask colours and relieve it of a large amount of cash.
France’s approach play was varied and impressive but they lacked Mbappe’s nose for goal. Rabiot, 3 yards out with a simple tap-in, decided inexplicably to fire a square pass at Griezmann from short range and he, understandably surprised, fell over and was unable to convert. Rabiot in the headlights. Then Griezmann missed the target from another close range effort. Thuram blazed wide. Dembele fired over. Griemann planted a tame header straight at the keeper. Griezmann failed to score again from 3 yards after a poor first touch. And so on. Tchouameni to list all of them. They were blunt without their masked maestro - 1.42 expected goals officially, though it seemed a lot higher watching, maybe they were applying a discount for it being Griezmann most of the time. Still no French player has actually scored yet in this tournament.
Occasionally the neat passing of the French broke down and the Netherlands surged forward but provided little threat, their move usually breaking down once Memphis dePay got involved in it. But with 20 minutes to go Simons thought he’d scored. The Premier League boys were on VAR and predictably they took three minutes to decide that he hadn’t. Stuart Atwell letting the French off the hook, continuing from where Harry left off at the World Cup. Was the decision correct? Denzil Dumfries, a large man, was standing adjacent to the keeper in an offside position and arguably obstructing him getting to the ball, though you could argue the keeper was never getting there, he didn’t even dive. All the ex-international footballer pundits in the studio thought it was the wrong decision, though I, a veteran of Brentwood School Under 13’s, Churchill College Firsts and Merton Borough Sevenths, thought differently.
Both sides wheeled out their trebuchets - Giroud for France, Weghorst for Netherlands, but couldn’t get them loaded up. Their appetite for destruction was waning - both sides seemed happy with a draw in the end.
Also in Group D Austria overwhelmed Poland 3-1. The Poles seemed shocked by Austria’s intensity and were even more shocked to be on the receiving end of a good header, a rare Euro 24 collector’s item. The Poles somehow smuggled an equaliser before half-time but Austria’s Red Bull-fuelled power and speed were ultimately too much for them. Szczesny performed heroics in goal but could not prevent Baumgartner scoring a fine goal after an Arnautovic dummy. Then Arnautovic, the 35 year old former “bad boy of Austrian football”, scored from a penalty, only the second penalty of the tournament after Porteous’s assault on Gundogan in the opening match.
Lewandowski came on with 30 minutes to go but made no impression. This may be a miserable final chapter to his international tournament career because Poland are now the first team to “crash out”. Just as a reminder for you, if teams finish level on points they are separated by their head to head record rather than goal difference. That means that Poland cannot now overtake Austria in third even if they win their last game against France 6-0. Exit Poles. Do widzenia.
The early match in Group E was the proverbial game of two halves. Slovakia are neat and tidy, press well as a team, but lack any recognised stars. So they are sort of an anti-England. Ukraine are more in the England mould, some good individuals but minimal cohesion. Slovakia bossed the first half and Schranz scored his second goal of the tournament (another good header - it was a strange day). But whatever happened at half time in the Slovakia dressing room was disastrous - perhaps they caught the highlights of the UK Leaders Special Question Time because they emerged for the second half with an air of despondency and hopelessness. Ukraine rallied and managed to equalise. Mudryk looked sharp without quite doing anything of value. Still Slovakia slumbered and Ukraine won it with a Bergkampesque finish by Yaremchuk, one of the top 3 goals so far in my view - I also liked the violence of Fullkrug’s finish against Scotland and the arcing artistry of Arda Guler’s goal against Georgia.
Today’s matches are on the dull side - Belgium (the only team who have not yet scored in Euro24) need to beat Romania after their shock first game defeat to Slovakia. Georgia and Czech Republic both need a win out of their match, and Turkey and Portugal meet in the evening and can afford to draw, though Portugal are hot favourites, Turkey having forfeited their traditional dark horse status after 20 years of dismal under-achievement.