Waking up!

Ok. I just woke up and came to realise that the first part of the nightmare has finished and Italy have qualified for the Euro championships quarter finals. They did it their way, with a lot of suffering.

A lot had been said about the possibility of the Dutch playing foul and letting Romania win but the Dutch are neither the Swedes nor the Danes who in 2004 ‘agreed’ to draw their match to keep Italy out.

Tonight we’ll know if it will be Russia or Sweden who will join Spain from Group D, to complete the list of the 8 teams in the next stage of the European Championships.

Portugal, Holland and Spain have produced the best football of the tournament so far. I have a feeling that it will be one of them who will eventually lift the trophy on June 29^th.

Van Basten’s team is my favourite to win it. The biggest surprise has been Turkey. Their match against the Czechs was the one I enjoyed most. The last 15 minutes were the essence of sport and football. The Czechs and Cech will not forget those minutes easily.

Croatia confirmed that they should be treated with respect. They didn’t only eliminate England in the qualifying phase. They also showed that they’re a force to be taken seriously.

Germany have not impressed me yet. Had they been in Group C, they would have ended up suffering a similar fate as France. The latter have proved to be the biggest let down of the tournament. Luck was not on their side either. In their match against Italy, they lost one of their key players, Franck Ribéry to injury. They also had to play the most of the match with 10 players, following the sending off of Abidal.

A lot can be said about Italy, much of which has been written already.

My initial comments are that yes Italy were blessed by having had their first match against Holland and had to suffer against Romania. If one had to compare and contrast the first Italian match and the one against France the biggest difference is the ‘team spirit’. This could be due to the pain they had to go through. One other key contributor was the fact that Roberto Donadoni (who has been criticised and will keep being criticised for ever given that in Italy there are over 58 million candidates for the role of Commissario Tecnico della Nazionale) utilised 19 from the 23 players’ contingent.

The Quarter Final stage will reserve some interesting matches and all football lovers will have plenty to enjoy. Portugal vs Germany, Croatia vs Turkey, Italy vs Spain and Holland vs (Sweden/Russia) all come with a promise of action, thrill and beautiful football.

May the best win.