I've been a little remiss on my posting lately as HQ is currently slightly chaotic with some DIY happening. But I can assure you i have not been remiss in watchinng the Euros. So the early excitement of the group stages has now given way to the intensity and drama of the knockout stages. So I'm feeling the need to collect my thoughts so far.
So in the first group I predicted that Czech Rep and Russia would go through and I was half right. The Czech Rep managed to pull themselves together after the first game and they have some promising looking players like Vaclav Pilar whose pace is unbelieveable, Theodor gebre Selaissie and Petr Jirecek who looked excellent going forward and ran his heart out. We renamed him 'Martin' in HQ as for some reason that's what I wanted to keep calling him and decided suited him more. But unfortunately they really missed Tomas Rosicky in their quarter final as he's their really quality player who pulls all the strings. Also Milan Baros is unfortunately not the player he was and surprised us all by announcing his retirement after the quarter final defeat when we'd all assumed he'd retired already during the group stages. I also loved their decision to grow 'victory beards' for their cause and was totally gutted that it didn't work. I was very very surprised that Greece ousted Russia and went through as they'd been nothing short of terrible in the group stages and Russia had been very exciting. However Greece's adventure didn't last too much longer as they were completely overpowered by Germany in last night's quarter final. Which brings me to the 'group of death.' Germany have so far looked extremely impressive with their play slick, sweeping attacking moves and rock solid defence. My second prediction didn't pan out with Holland exiting without a point which was very surprising. I just don't know what's happened to them, they looked completely bewildered and devoid of ideas. I predicted Denmark's spirited challenge and they didn't disappoint, however I didn't see Portugal doing this well. They have looked tidy in their play but contrary to most commentators I do think they're limited and rely too heavily on Cristiano Ronaldo. I was bang on with my predictions in group C however. Spain and Italy did indeed progress with Croatia putting up an extremely impressive challenge. To be honest I was a little gutted that they didn't get through as i'm a big fan of Slaven Bilic and they played fantastically and I think they deserved better than going out on a contentious offside decision. Also they probably should have had a penalty with Sergio Busquets grabbing two handfuls of Vedran Corluka's shirt and hauling him over. I've been really bemused by Spain's experiments in playing without a forward. To me it just doesn't make sense and i think they've been very lucky to get away with it so far. Italy seem to be managing admirably to pull together and they've looked good in midfield and their strikers are demonstrating well the importance of the position. Which brings us finally to group D. Once again I think Ukraine were unlucky and their attacking play deserved better than going out on (yet another) bad decision. For the remaining quarters I think that both games will be close but I can see Spain once again edging through and I think in the end Italy will have too much for England. I'm sticking with Germany too overall, of all the games I've watched they've had the most quality. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it pans out... if you have any predictions, you know what to do....
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