Dobrý den, přátelé, and welcome to the quarter-final preview via the round of 16 review. Oh does it feel good? Does anything taste better than the tears of despair and the cries of elation from the two-teams-enter-one-team-leaves thunderdome of knockout football? No. It doesn’t. Don’t come at me with your Michelin starred chefs and Grandma’s secret herbs and spices. Give me bread, water and the sudden death of a penalty shoot-out. Let’s look ahead to our upcoming quarter finals by looking back at how these teams got here.
Belgium v Italy
Italy 2 – 1 Austria AET
It’s inevitable that a side who cruises through the group stage will be forced to scrap and tussle when the knock-outs arrive. Austria came at Italy aggressively and were resolute in defence – their mountainous centre-back pairing of Aleksander Dragović and Martin Hinteregger kept the Italian legions at bay for the regular 90 minutes.
But as is often the case when the going gets rough, the quality rose to the top. Federico Chiesa, son of former Italian national team player Enrico, controlled a bouncing ball off his forehead, delicately whisked it out of the path of a frantic Austrian lunge and spanked it off the bounce into the goal. Italy rose like Lazarus, and when Francesco Acerbi fell, he was still able to dig the ball out from under his body for Matteo Pesce-na to turn into loaves and fishes.
Austria pulled one back from Sasa Kalajdzic’s ground level header but they couldn’t make it more than a consolation. Das Team have had a good tournament and they ran the Azzuri close here, but much like the lead-up to the Risorgimento, Austria could not get to grips with the Italians.
Belgium 1 – 0 Portugal
We love to see some just desserts. Portugal are almost drowning in attacking talents but set their stall out here to defend, frustrate and frankly kick the Belgian stars out of the game. They succeeded in their depressingly unambitious aims for 40-odd minutes until the lesser-spotted Hazard, Thorgan, picked up the ball 25 yards our and unleashed a wickedly swerving drive past Rui Patrício. The media obviously tripped over themselves with “Thor’s Hammer” puns but I already deployed a Mjölnir reference last round so am honourbound to instead get meta about it.
Portugal didn’t let up their approach and managed to foul Kevin De Bruyne and Eden Hazard off the pitch with injuries in a display of brutality that would not have been out of place in a 1970s rugby match. Nothing could stop Romelu Lukaku though: he didn’t get his goal, but he kept taking the ball and releasing pressure from his besieged defenders.
Belgium’s Euro hopes now rest on Lukaku’s mighty shoulders while Portugal are out, and frankly good riddance. Hopefully the next time they arrive at a big tournament, they’ll actually play some football.
This match
Belgium got through their previous match with real ‘at any cost’ energy – they’ll be fielding a lot of their back-up players here but with Romelu Lukaku up front, they are a threat to anyone. Italy will at least have an extra day to recover from their 120 minute battle and probably get the favourites tag for this one but only by the slimmest of margins.
Denmark v Czech Republic
Denmark 4 – 0 Wales
Two fairytales enter, one fairytale lea- hang on. I did that one at the top of this post didn’t I. Uh. Fairytale face-off? Is that anything? To hell with it – everyone likes both these teams but only one of them would get to progress. Wales had their turn back in 2016 so it seems fitting that it’s the Dane Train that rolls onward.
For the first stanza Wales were on top with Gareth Bale finding nasty little gaps in the spaces between the Danish backline but they could not make their dominance count. Denmark wrestled the ascendancy back their way and very quickly did, Kasper Dolberg arrowing in a shot from the edge of the box. Their second took a while to arrive and it was a real sickener for the Welsh. First, they lost the ball to a… robust… tackle on Kiefer Moore which 9 out of 10 dentists would probably blow up for a foul. Denmark took their stolen ball up the other end and hammered in a cross. Neco Williams intercepted it and promptly panicked, his underhit clearance landing at the feet of Dolberg who needed no further invitation to make it 2-0.
Wales lost first their shape, leaving Joakim Mæhle in over the recommended two metres social distancing to stride through and score a third, then their heads. Harry Wilson saw red while putting in a very petulant challenge and saw redder in the card he was shown by the referee. Martin Braithwaite polished off the second match in a row where Denmark have scored four goals and suddenly it’s very worth asking: could they go all the way?
Netherlands 0 – 2 Czech Republic
Admit it – the group stages lulled you in a false sense of complacency. The four best third place teams go through, no jeopardy, nothing to worry about. The favourites will all be fine. No more! This is why we love tournament football – the Netherlands had breezed through their group with minimal difficulties while the Czech Republic scraped through theirs in third. In 25 horrible, no-good, very bad minutes, the Dutch imploded like a red giant that just ran out of helium.
The instigating moment was Donyell Malen running free on the Czech goal but fluffing his lines and allowing Tomáš Vaclík to snatch the ball off his toes. The Czechs went up the other end and Matthijs de Ligt tried to salvage his slip by grabbing the ball as he fell. The red card came out and Holland were up against it. 13 minutes later it was the Czech attackers who wanted it more and Tomáš Holeš headed in. He turned provider shortly after, red-hot Patrik Schick scoring his fourth of the tournament. The Netherlands head home in relative disgrace while the Czech Republic are off to a quarter final!
This match
Denmark are riding a wave of emotion and have the talent and plan to back it up. The Czech Republic are harder to get a read on but if Schick can keep banging in all sorts of goals, they’re in with a shout. Expect Denmark to dominate the play but as the Dutch found, that’s no guarantee against the Czechs.
Switzerland v Spain
Croatia 3 – 5 Spain AET
The football watching world were treated to quite the show on Monday: 240 minutes plus penalties of unadulterated sickos dot jaypeg.
How to describe the lunch course? As concisely as possible, i.e. basically a novella: Spanish goalie Unai Simón was distracted by either a passing bird or a cloud shaped like the Virgin Mary and let a backpass roll straight over his foot and into his goal. Spain clawed back to equality after multiple waves of furious attack breached the Croatian goal – Pablo Sarabia pouncing on a rebound to slam home. They kept up the pressure after the break with César Azpilicueta heading in a cross for the lead. It looked like it was all over when the game restarted after a drink break with the Croatian left-back gone AWOL leaving Ferran Torres to stroll unopposed into the box to make it 1-3.
As English fans will tell you though, Croatia do not give up easily. Luka Modrić inspired a bout of joyfully chaotic penalty-box pinball which Miroslav Oršić just about forced home (2-3). Oršić was also involved on 90+2 minutes, whipping in a cross for Mario Pašalić to complete the comeback.
Extra time arrived and redemption was the word of the day. Simon kept it 3-3 with a remarkable reaction save from six yards before the much-maligned Álvaro Morata put Spain back on top – one touch with the right foot to drag the ball forward, a second with the left to lash the ball into the roof of the net from a tight angle. Mikel Oyarzabel rolled in the fifth (!) and that was that – an instant classic and Spain seem to have caught fire with 10 goals in the last two games.
France 3 (4) – 3 (5) Switzerland
Tournament football! France rolled up to this one like a maths undergrad to a philosophy exam – overconfident and underprepared, and Switzerland were all over them for 55 minutes. Haris Seferović bullied Clément Lenglet to head in the opener, then the Swiss could have had gone 2-0 up from the penalty spot. Instead it launched an astonishing four-minute turnaround.
Hugo Lloris palming away the weak penalty was like a bucket of water to hungover man – two minutes later Kylian Mbappé’s through-ball was behind Karim Benzema who dragged it forward with a jaw-dropping touch and dinked Yann Sommer to draw level. Two more minutes and the ball went on a swift journey via Kingsley Coman > Antoine Griezmann > delicate Mbappé backheel > Griezmann chip > Benzema forehead > net. Pure liquid silver and Paul Pogba capped it with a curling, dipping, whirling strike from 30 yards to make it 3-1 France. 20 minutes of football and France were unplayable, the best team in the world again, irresistible, incroyable.
Then… they switched off, leaving the question on its knees, pleading and crying: were they not watching the Spain-Croatia game? Two goals up with ten minutes to go, did they really think it was a done deal? The conclusion damns them all – they really thought “we’re France, this can’t happen to us.”
It did.
The Swiss threw caution to the wind and revved up into previously unexplored gears. Seferović was the spark, again overpowering the French defenders to head in his and Switzerland’s second. Then, time ticking away into the ether of the past, Granit Xhaka was given several geologic eras to pick a pass to Mario Gavranović. The French defence parted like a school of fish ahead of a hungry seal for Gavranović to pass the ball into the bottom corner.
France huffed and puffed through extra-time but could not blow the Swiss down. So, penalties. It felt right that the shoot-out arrived at 5-4 and sudden death with golden boy Mbappé on the spot to keep France in it. But instead, it was hot girl Sommer as the Swiss keeper took glory in both hands.
France are out! The world champions, a squad overflowing with talent, sent home from the Round of 16. Well done to Switzerland – none of us gave you a hope in hell and we were wonderfully wrong.
This match
Spain are good? Switzerland are also good? I don’t know anymore. Don’t ask me, I don’t know anything.
England v Ukraine
England 2 – 0 Germany
The so-called Anglo-Deutsch rivalry has resembled more of a Maria Sharapova-Serena Williams than a Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal over the past fifty years. England lose and Germany go on to win the whole shebang or at least finish third. So it’s understandable that it took the English players here about an hour to twig to the fact that the imposing, black-clad Teutons they were up against were actually… not as good as them?
When they did figure this out, the game turned fast. Raheem Sterling drove through midfield, laid the ball off, and got it back right in front of goal via Harry Kane, Jack Grealish and Luke Shaw, to tap in past the despairing dive of Manuel Neuer. Sterling almost turned villain right away – his errant pass let Thomas Müller through one-on-one with Jordan Pickford but the Munich man shot wide. An England player other than Sterling finally scored this tournament, and who else but Kane heading in another cut-back to seal the deal.
Germany became the third and final Group of Death graduate to be eliminated in three days while England have beaten Die Mannschaft in the knockout rounds of a major tournament. The last time they managed that? 1966.
Sweden 1 – 2 Ukraine AET
After the two utterly absurd matches on Monday and the cathartic release of England’s win against Germany, this one was always going to have a hard time standing out. And largely, it was a solid game in which two good but flawed teams played decent football. The exception to that ‘largely’ revolves around two very different incidents – one goal and one red card.
First, the goal. Mykola Shaparenko hit a glorious arcing pass across the width of the field to find Andriy Yarmelenko. Yarmalenko cruised into the box, feinted left then right and out of nowhere wafted a magnificent outside of the left boot cross over to the late run of Oleksandr Zinchenko. He let the ball bounce twice to sit up perfectly for his left foot to obliterate. It was the kind of hit where the ball curves upwards through the air – the keeper got the best part of a hand to it but he’d have needed a sandbag entrenchment, a concrete pillbox and a small armoured battalion to have any hope of keeping that howitzer out.
Sweden equalised through Emil Forsberg not long after and both teams hit the woodwork in the search for a winner but it wasn’t to come in normal time. Halfway through extra time, Marcus Danielson followed through high on Artem Besyedin and was sent off. It was a hard call – Danielson had been reaching for the ball and clearly got to it first, but when you end up studs first on someone’s knee, you have to go.
With 10 men, Sweden defended valiantly and we looked destined for penalties until injury time in extra time, the clock read 121 minutes but 130+ minutes of actual game time had already passed. Zinchenko stepped up with a pinpoint cross for the run of Artem Dovbyk. Ukraine had their first knockout win in ages but extra-time had created so many injuries, we’ll have to see whether they can actually field a team for their Roman date with England.
This match
England are going to win this one right? They should – Ukraine lost roughly two thirds of their squad to injury in their game against Sweden and even their full team couldn’t beat Austria in the group stage. Buuuuuut – you never know. Ukraine are playing with house money now while the weight of expectation will weigh ever harder on English nerves now. Don’t assume anything.
Conclusion
Good grief. Look out for this Friday and Saturday, if these games are any indication, we’re in for more treats. We’ve had red cards, penalties, upsets and England, bloody England, beating Germany in a knockout match. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but if you live in the UK it might be time to start stockpiling canned goods again – I have no idea whether this can resolve peacefully now.
The It’s-coming-home-ometer rating: 8 fist-pumping waistcoated middle-aged men out of 10