Day 11 review France 0 Italy 2 (predicted: 0-2) Time restricted my analysis of this game but it panned out largely like I expected: Italy were the stronger team, deservedly won and France looked completely unmotivated. In the wake of the defeat Lilian Thuram (dropped for the game) and Claude Makelele retired (again), Raymond Domenech […]
Day 10 review Austria 0 Germany 1 (predicted: 0-3) The scoreline may not have reflected the German dominance but they were worthy winners against a brave effort from limited Austria. The 10,000 people who signed the petition calling for the nation not to compete and embarrass itself should be the ones left a little red-faced […]
Day 9 review Switzerland 2 Portugal 0 (prediction: 0-2) Luis Felipe Scolari made eight changes to his Portugal team who went down to the proud Swiss and their three-tournament goal striker, Hakan Yakin. Helder Postiga, Nani, Ricardo Quaresma, Bruno Alvez, Fernando Meira and Raul Meireles were amongst those brought in. With no Ronaldo, Deco, Petit […]
Def Leppard and Whitesnake come to Belfast next weekend for a mega co-headlining tour that hits seven cities across the UK. Both bands have released new albums in the last month or so. Do they still have the ability to rock out or is it just a tired collection of re-hashed staples? Not actual staples, […]
Day 8 review Sweden 1 Spain 2 (prediction: 2-1) I’m a prideful creature and I really don’t like being wrong. I put my neck on the block by predicting a Sweden win and, honestly, I thought they were the most likely winners until Zlatan Ibrahimovic went off injured (presumably) at half time. At that point […]
Day 7 review Italy 1 Romania 1 (predicted: 2-1) The group of death became the group of pigeons with a cat amongst them after a second Romanian stalemate left them ahead of the single-pointed Italy and France in Group C. Amongst my predictions yesterday were that we’d see a lot of Italian changes – and […]
Day 6 review Croatia 2 Germany 1 (predicted: 1-2) Yes, this took me by surprise. Unfortunately I had to make do with highlights and match reports for most of today’s games but it seems that Croatia turned things upside down in Group B. The Croatians were as good as they were lackluster in their first […]
Day 5 review Czech Republic 1 Portugal 3 (predicted: 0-2) Portugal guaranteed their passage to the quarter-finals on the same day that their manager, Luiz Felipe Scolari, was confirmed as the new Chelsea manager. Meanwhile, Cristiano Ronaldo stuck another two fingers up at Alex Ferguson with a fine display that he capped with a goal […]
Day 4 review Spain 4 Russia 1 (prediction: 1-0) It maybe wasn’t a huge stretch to suggest that Spain would overcome Russia but I did not see it being by such a wide margin in the end. David Villa struck a hat-trick and Cesc Fabregas grabbed a fourth in the dying minutes with the impressive […]
Day 3 review Romania 0 France 0 (predicted: 0-0) Tepid and fairly uninspiring, if this is what the group of death is to be like then I may just switch Group C off. Romania cannot be faulted for their workrate and organisation – the back four were very impressive and left-back Razvan Rat kept Franck […]
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