Is it Coming home ?

In yesterday’s action, we witnessed two of most unbelievable games you will ever see. It started with one of the craziest own goals ever scored. Spain overcame that and took a lead only for Croatia to claw their way back from a two goal deficit with five minutes to go. Croatia then conceded two goals in extra time in the space of two minutes. Espana have now scored ten goal in their last two matches, having gone from a team that could not hit a barn door to one which can not miss.

Having barely had to time to recover, the cheesemakers took an early lead only to miss a penalty and then concede three in the space of twenty minutes. However, they showed a tenacity never seen by a Swiss team before and made holes of the Les Bleus rearguard to force the game into extra time and take the game to penalties.

This type of thing is great theatre and as the Froggie jewel in the crowd, Mbappe stepped forward to take his penalty, those with an understanding of how these things work, just knew he would not score.

I doubt the Frogs were singing that old favorite. Non, Je ne regrette rien, as in the half hour that they actually tried to play they were unstoppable. They should never have let the Fondue lovers back in.

There are two games today, but only one which really means anything, one which is steeped in footballing and national history. With all due respect to the flat pack merchants from Sweden and the Cossacks of the Ukrainian Steppe, no one outside of those two countries cares a fig what happens or may even bother to watch, after they will have finished watching the old rivalry between EnGerLand and Deutschland played out at Wembley stadium.

Forget the two world wars, (although of course the EnGerLand fans will not) the innumerable clashes between these nations over the past fifty-five years read like a list of battles on a regimental flag. It started in 1966 when EnGerLand defeated the Hun, four to two after extra time in the World Cup Final at Wembley, with a controversial goal given by a Soviet linesman. 

The ball bounced down off the crossbar onto the goal line and without the aid of goal line technology it was up to the linesman to make the call. The war was only 20 years past, this is pure conjecture but who knows what he was thinking about as he made the decision to award the goal.

Impossible to tell from this angle and in Black and White

Since that day in July 1966, the nations have met four more times in knock out matches in either the world cup or the Euros and Ze Shermans have won them all.
It started with Mexico 1970 where a mysterious outbreak of food poisoning in the EnGerLand camp led to a number of players including legendary goalkeeper Gordon Banks being unavailable. 

Fast forward, to Italia 1990, and a semi final defeat on penalties in the game famous for the tears of a clown as Paul Gascoigne received a yellow card which would have kept him out of the final if EnGerLand had won. 

Hop forward six year, Euros at Wembley, sound familiar, another penalty defeat shoot out with the losing penalty being missed by one Gareth Southgate the present EnGerLand manager. I wonder if he is suffering from PTSD like flashbacks at the moment.

The 1996 shoot out with musical accompaniment.

Cape Town 2010 and Ze Shermans get their goal line moment, when another shot, by Fat Frankie Lampard, bounced down off the crossbar and was not given for not having crossed the line, have a look and tell me what you think. 

Uruguayan Linesman did not see this as over the line

As a long suffering EnGerLand fan who was a five-month-old baby in July 1966, one can maybe understand my lack of faith in EnGerLand being able to come out victorious tonight.

A little mention of the war, even though Basil Fawlty implored us not to mention it. The English football association is worried that the EnGerLand fans might sing some songs to gee the players on, old family favourites, such as "ten German bombers in the air" to the tune of ten green bottles. Another favourite is Hitler only has one ball and the tunes to bridge over the river Kwai and the dam busters’ films. They have threatened to ban any fan who sing these ditty's which is sad as they are only a bit of banter. 

My heart obviously says EnGerLand but if they can not win it in the ninety or one hundred minutes available, then my head is telling me Ze Shermans.

In the later game, Sweden should see off Ukraine.

 

Spain V Croatia and France V Switzerland, the last eight is beginning to take shape.

In yesterday’s action, I was an unbelievable two for two.  As I predicted, the character of the Orangemen did not hold up under the pressure and one straight red and two yellow cards contributed to a very poor performance and an early return to the dikes and canals. Schick also delivered as predicted in the two to look out for section.

The second game which had promised so much was a turgid affair, won by the only piece of brilliance on show, but it was enough for the Brussels sprouts to carry on their quest for the Holy Grail, their first ever win at a major tournament.

It also has led to the exit of CR7, have we seen the last of him at International level or will he still be around for Qatar 22 next December?

The first game today pits two countries who have given us great pleasure on the football fields in recent years, but whose past is somewhat murky due to a flirtation with fascism. We have the toreadors from Espana against the country now known as a game of thrones destination, Croatia.

Croatia is a country I would like to visit, once the world returns to a semblance of normality, it has a long and beautiful coastline on the Adriatic sea and of course the old town of Dubrovnik, now better known as the location of Kings Landing, the capital of Westeros from Game of Thrones fame.

Unfortunately, the history of Croatia is tainted by the rule of the Ustase during world war two, a fascist, ultra nationalist, Catholic organization which embraced much of the Nazis racial theories and who murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Gypsies and Jews, something which they have really not shown much remorse for. 

One does not need to dwell too long on the rule of Generalissimo Franco in Spain from 1939 until 1974, that is not the remit of this blog, but the fascist leanings were very similar.

Football wise since gaining independence in 1991, Croatia has been rather successful especially for a country with a population of only four million people. Since 1994, they have finished third and most recently as runners up in the world cup and have twice reached the quarterfinals in five attempts at the Euros.

They started the tournament slowly with a loss to EnGerLand but have been improving game by game, culminating in this goal against the caber tossers.

Bend it like Luka

The matadors are a shadow of the imperious side which ruled world football from 2010 through 2012.  They also started slowly with two draws but became Toreadors as they galloped to a five nothing victory in their last game helped by this ridiculous piece of goalkeeping by the Slovakian goalkeeper.

 

Was ist das den ?, slapstick!

 

Interestingly enough the flamenco dancers were the first team to be affected by Covid with their captain Biscuits missing the first two games, he returned to bring much needed experience and solidity in their last game. Now the Croats have been impacted by a positive test to their main striker Perisic, who scored in the last match against the haggises, but will miss the game today.

Yesterday, I wrote that most people would be backing the Orangemen over the Skodas, but not this intrepid pundit. I have a similar feeling today. Despite their last score line, the castanets have found it difficult to score and as they come up against the hard men of the Knights Watch, I fear this could come back to haunt them. 

If the Croatians can nick a goal, I see them holding on to that lead. I actually have a feeling this one could go to penalties.

Two to watch out for are Luka Modric of Croatia and Alvaro Morata of Spain who is under a lot of pressure to find his shooting boots.

Modric , will he be the kings hand?

Morata, will be hoping to dance his way through.

A fashion collection is a term referring to a group of outfits put together for the coming season by different designers. This current collection of players representing Les Bleus is reminiscent of the top models, during Paris fashion week, effortlessly gliding down the catwalk wearing the latest haute culture from Givenchy or Chanel and stunning the audience with their elegance and gracefulness.

Think of Gisele, Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell strutting in their pomp and then replace them Pogba, Greizmann and the jewel in the crown Mbappe and you have Les Bleus as they swarm forward towards the opponents goal.

It is seemingly unstoppable, but as is well known behind the scenes of high fashion, there is always a lot of tension and prima donna egos flying around. This has always been the way with Les Marseilles as well.

Unfortunately their opponents, the bell ringers from Helvetia do not have enough to trouble them and thus give us a show of some shouted Mon Dieus, Zut alors or cause the throwing of some merde, which is a shame, as there is nothing as amusing as when Les Bleus throw their toys out of the Pram. The Froggies should find too many holes in the Swiss cheese.

Two to watch out for in this game are Xherdan Shaqiri, the Albanian Swiss play maker and Ngolo Kante the midfield dynamo of Les Bleus.  

Kante, the Duracell bunny

Shaqiri hoping to weave some magic


.

Tomorrow sees the final two games in the last sixteen namely Ikea against the Cossacks and EnGerLand against the Hun.

 

Before, we look forward, a mention of the action last night. The Vikings scythed through the Celtic shield wall with impunity scoring four times and drawing blood in the form of a red card for one of the Welsh. The Vikings await the winners of the first of today's games.

The gondoliers made hard work of beating the strudel loving denizens from the banks of the Danube with a hard fought two to one victory after extra time. and now await the winners of our late game today. 

Next up is the meeting of the windmills and the Skodas. I must start with a Mea Culpa, I ignored the historic footballing pedigree of the Czech nation and poo pooed their chances of advancing. That was wrong of me and an especially bad oversight on my part. They are not as good as previous incarnations, but this is a solid team with some good players.

These two teams have history in Euros past, in 1976, when it was still Czechoslovakia, they played the Orangemen in the semifinal and beat them three goals to one after extra time. The Czechs went on to beat Ze Shermans on penalties in the final, with the final penalty being score by a certain Antonin Panenka, whose successful attempt gave birth to the Panenka style penalty kick. You can see the highlights of the final and the first ever Panenka below.

 

Panenka, a virtuoso piece of skill from a Skoda driver

The clog clad Dutch had their revenge in Euro 2000 when they beat the now named Czech Republic, one nil with yet another penalty this time taken by Frankie De Boer, who just happens to be the manager of the current Netherlands team.

The Clogs have found their football boots and they were the highest scoring team in the group stages with eight goals. I feel however that while they looked good going forward they were very susceptible at the back, as shown in the two goals they conceded to Ukraine and the two posts hit by the minnows of North Macedonia before the Dutch scored. If those had gone in it would have been a real test of the Dutch character, something they have had not had a lot of in recent times.

Dutch courage is something found by drinking alcohol before going into battle and if ever a team is well placed to find it, then it has to be the Czechs with their strong Pilsner lager.

This is a very difficult game to call, so I will go out on a limb and say that the unfancied Czechs will just edge this one.

The two to watch in this one are Memphis Depay of the lowlanders and Patrick Schick of the brewers. Both have been in goal scoring form.

Depay likes to show off his ink

Have to show this rather than just a picture

The second game is probably the most anticipated game of the tournament so far (whatever the myopic EnGerLand fans think of their upcoming clash with Ze Shermans on Tuesday). 

It sees the reigning holders from the Atlantic coast of Europe, famous for its cork and these days for one Cristiano Ronaldo, aka CR7, a man who at the age of 37 is ridiculously fit and thus hated by most men of a similar age, (as I am well past the age of caring, it is not an issue for me) against the technocrats from Brussels, who also happen to be the number one ranked team in world football, and who are led by Kevin De Bruyne, arguably the best player on the planet at the moment.

Historically these two countries have a lot in common, they had huge empires and were quite brutal in the suppression of rebellion. Those empires have provided both teams with players from the descendants of immigrants who have added flair and talent to each team especially for Portugal with Brazil being their largest colony.

Portugal led the way in sending out expeditions from Europe, their fleets, to borrow a phrase from Star Trek, boldly going where no man had gone before. The Belgians, only really raped Africa, but they did a good job of it.

In football terms, Portugal bored their way to the title in 2016, they drew all their group games and then stifled Les Bleus stealing a winner in extra time. Their squad in this tournament is actually much more exciting but conversely they have played less effectively.

The problem for the navigators, is that they are still over reliant on the unnatural phenomenon that is CR7, who can sting faster than a Portuguese man of war jellyfish and just as painfully. 

The three to nothing win over Hungary flattered to deceive as they only went ahead in the eighty fourth minute through a lucky deflected goal, I posit that, the game would have finished scoreless otherwise. Ze Shermans gave them a good spanking and when they played the froggies, they were lucky to scrape a draw with that being all they needed in the end to go through.

In the group previews, I mentioned the injury sustained by the Belgian star De Bruyne in the champions league final and how his participation in the tournament was in doubt. This was due to an unprovoked attack by an opposing player who just happened to be a member of the NationalMannSchaft, aka Ze Shermans.

I mention this as the preemptive strike on Belgian resources, will be recognized by aficionados of military history as exactly the same tactic used by the German High command in 1914 and the OKW in 1940. 

They obviously are unimaginative and do not learn their lessons as we know that neither of those assaults achieved their long term aims and in our case De Bruyne as evidenced in his return against Denmark, has had a good rest and is ready to stamp his authority on this tournament.

The quality chocolate that we get from Belgium will overpower the port we enjoy from Portugal in what hopefully will be a festive spectacle. The two to watch for in this one are Rui Patricio the goalie who plays for Wolverhampton in the premier league and could be in for a busy night and Yuri Tielemans, the baby faced assassin who plays for Leicester and always looks like he is having a good fun. Check back tomorrow to see the previews of the fastest snails you have ever seen against the Yodelers and the the unsullied from Croatia against the Matadors.

Hopes he will not be fed to the Wolves

Hope to break some Portuguese hearts

Check back tomorrow to see the previews of the fastest snails you have ever seen against the yodelers from Switzerland and the the unsullied from Croatia against the Matadors from Spain.

Denmark V Wales and Italy V Austria the last 16 begins

 

Welcome back, we have reached the knock out stages of the Euros and the fun and tension are about to ratchet up a level or two. We had a glimpse of that in the last round of the group stages, when the possible opponents for EnGerLand in their last sixteen game changed over and over again and had four different teams filling that spot during a crazy evening of football. 

What has been served up so far has really been no more than an amuse bouche, something to tickle the palette, increase our appetite for what is to come in the last sixteen.

First up, we have a clash between two sides who play in red, the Vikings of Denmark against the choir boys from the valleys of Cymru, which is the proper way of spelling Wales at least in Welsh. Welsh is a language which is a complete mystery to anyone not born in Wales and probably to most of them as well. 

Who has not heard of Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch station? The longest railway station name in the world. It actually means, The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio’s of the red cave,”

It is a name which sums up the Welsh rather succinctly, and here I want to make it clear that I love the Welsh, we had a Welsh neighbour growing up and despite the fact that he was the deputy headmaster of my High school and a French teacher to boot (go figure) he was a lovely gentle man.  As Tom Jones sings, "it's not unusual to be loved by anyone"

However, they do come across as a bit slow and long winded, as would be expected from a people who prefer the company of sheep and are really much better at Rugby football than Association football to give them their formal names.

The Welsh are nevertheless a passionate and patriotic nation, the crowd signing the national anthem before a game is a very moving spectacle, one I enjoy immensely.  Here they are signing it before a game three years ago, notice how you can only hear the music for the introduction, the rest is done by the crowd.

Land of My Fathers

With the inclusion of twenty four teams in the tournament, it means we have some very small countries population wise. The population of Wales is only just over three million souls and Denmark has less than six million. The Welsh have had to be inventive to widen the pool of players available for selection and a grandparent is enough to qualify a player for selection.

Of course, the story that has dominated the Euros so far was the heart attack suffered by the Danish star Christian Eriksen during their first game which we mentioned in one of the group previews.

This type of incident can go two ways, and thankfully Eriksen is at home having managed to foil the plans of Hel the Norse god of death. He is recuperating after having had a pacemaker fitted and is backing his team mates from his bed.

The incident has galvanized and united the Vikings and they have a wind at their backs that could push them far, like one of their longboats on a raiding mission.

These are two teams and nations that are just really harmless and nice, and one would want both of them to succeed up to a point. In footballing terms, I did not pick the pitmen to go through and although they have shown strength of character in reaching this stage, I have to back the Vikings to advance to the next stage and bring a smile to the mermaid in Copenhagen harbour. On the other hand, one of my many brothers-in-law has Welsh blood so out of my loyalty to him, I hope the Taffs somehow find a way through.

Two to watch out for in this game are Aaron Ramsey, the boy from Caerphilly which is famous for its cheese and the famous comedian Tommy Cooper, who died live on stage, with people thinking that the heart attack he suffered was part of his act before realizing to late that it was real.  Why do I mention this, because there is a supposed curse connected to Ramsey, that every time he scores somebody famous is going to die.  

Kasper Schmeichel the Viking goalkeeper is the son of Peter, who was in goal in 1992 when they last won.

What can I plunder tonight ?

Who can I kill tonight ?

The second game of the day is the battle of the Brenner pass, between the lederhosen clad men of the Austrian alps with the gelato makers of the Italian alps.  

The Romans first developed the route through the lowest pass in the Alps as a way into Northern Europe, and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa used it on his numerous incursions into Italy. Hitler and Mussolini met there to celebrate the signing of their pact of steel in 1940, but unusually for neighbours there is not a lot of enmity between the two countries.

This Italian team is interesting, after failing to qualify for the World cup in 2016, they have completely rebuilt the squad in the image of their manager, Roberto Mancini who was a fist in a silk glove as a midfield player in his day. The team is full of verve and power as one would expect from the land of the Maserati and Lamborghini,

Mancini making cool look easy

Mancini hasn't lost his skills https://twitter.com/sportstoryguy/status/1406654241012260865?s=20

Italy has found yet another top class goalkeeper to follow in the footsteps of Zoff and Buffon, in Gianluigi Donnarumma who at the tender age of twenty two, which is very young for a goalkeeper, is already one of the world’s best.

Another very unusual point worthy of mention, especially in these days of the global game, is that twenty three out of the twenty-six players in the squad play in the Serie A, the Italian top division. You will be hard pressed to find any of the other leading nations with so many home based players. Two of the three exceptions are their Brazilian born players who both play at Chelski.

I think this a definite advantage as they all know each other’s way of playing intimately.

I have written before about the impact of religion on the way teams play football in Europe. Austria is a strange case. Historically the divide in Europe was that most of Southern Europe and France was predominantly Catholic and most of Northern Europe, Protestant. This always, strangely enough, came through in the way they played with the Catholic countries generally being more flamboyant than their dour Protestant counterparts.

Austria is the odd one out. Austria is a Catholic stronghold but that has been suppressed because of their Germanic nature. They are boring to watch, and in fact, this is the first time they have successfully negotiated the group stages in four attempts in the Euros. It is also  the first time since the World Cup in 1954 that they have advanced through to the knock out rounds.

The designer clad men, in their Armani suits, should be far too good for the bell ringers from Austria. The Austrians will be trying to take a leaf out of Michael Caine's book and perform an Italian job. 

Two to watch out for in this game are Domenico Berardi who has been lighting up the games for the gondoliers with his dazzling skills and David Alaba, the Viennese enforcer who will be trying to extinguish the aforementioned Berardi.

Domenico Berardi

David Alaba, will want to avoid a Freudian slip

Check back On Sunday for the previews of the windmills against the Skodas and the clash between the Brussel Sprouts and the navigators, a match up I thought would be the final, yet another wrong prediction.

 

 

Final Group Previews

Although we are still in the preview section with a look today at Groups E and F, the tournament has already started in a way that nobody could have wished for.

In the first half of the Denmark vs Finland game, the Danish star player, Christian Erikson suddenly collapsed to the turf and had to be resuscitated. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and we wish him a speedy recovery, the match was delayed for ninety minutes and then continued with the obviously distracted Vikings losing one nothing to the Reindeer riders.

I do not think any predictions for this game should count, the Vikings are going to have to really pull out of the stops to get over this difficult situation. Do you think the game should have been played out last night or should it have been put off until today? Please put your thoughts in the comments section.

Group E contains Spain, Sweden, Slovakia and Poland. The favourites in this group are obviously the flamenco dancing bull fighters. They won the tournament handsomely in 2012 beating the spaghetti munchers four nil in the final thus making them both World and European champions at the time.

The current squad is not as good but are still very entertaining on their day, they recently thrashed the Shermans six nil !!! 

Their preparations for the tournament were thrown into disarray when their captain Sergio Biscuits tested positive for Corona forcing the whole squad into isolation. Amazingly the players had not been vaccinated, another player soon tested positive although he has since tested negative, but they have had to set up an alternative camp site with different players including under 21 players.

Interestingly enough their first game is against flat pack IKEA on Monday and guess what, they also returned a positive test. The whole Swedish squad has not been vaccinated but for altruistic reasons. They claimed it would not be right for them to receive the vaccine before the old and infirm, noble indeed but bloody stupid. Perhaps the forty or so people involved in the squad not being vaccinated would help speed up the rate of vaccinations back home. Anyway, I said in the opening preview that this would be something to watch out for and here it is already.

From a footballing point of view, the Castanet playing artistes should have too much flair for the square rather boring Volvo drivers. As we said with the Swiss, if you want reliability a Volvo is as good a bet as a Swiss watch, but it is not very exciting to drive.

Poland are led by Robert Lewandowski, arguably one of the best attacking players of this generation, he has just broken the record for the number of goals scored in a season in the Sherman football league, forty one in total, a remarkable achievement, expect the Poles to do well.

The last team in this group is Slovakia, a small landlocked country surrounded by the aforementioned Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and Austria and of course the Czech Republic all fellow competitors in the tournament. Its population is only five and a half million, but as we mentioned with the Czech Republic they have a good footballing pedigree, however do not expect to see too much from them and they should be making an early exit.

We conclude the preview section with what most people before the tournament considered to be the group of death. I argued otherwise but after the Eriksen incident last night, my argument has lost its validity and this is definitely the hardest group in the tournament.

Firstly, we have the reigning world champions, les escargot, whose team is so strong in every position that on paper they should walk away with the cup without breaking much of a sweat.

Then we have the current holders of the European title, Portugal, who happened to beat Les Bleus in the final five years ago and who are once again led by CR7 and his gang and if anything are a much better team than they were then. Les Bleu will be looking for payback.

Next up is the Shermans, with their Nationalmannschaft, who just the mere mention of their name sends shivers down the spines of most football fans around the world. The Shermans have won three Euros and four world cups, you can never count them out. We will repeat the old dictum, Football is a simple game played for ninety minutes and at the end the Shermans always win.

Lastly, we have the Magyars of Hungary, a team that back in the 1950's changed the way football was played but has since fallen on hard times and in reality should be there to just make up the numbers in this group. The Magyars only hope is that the other three teams will take them lightly as they concentrate on each other and allow them to sneak in a result somewhere.

Forget whatever the two main leaders of the parties in the EU try to tell us, les frogs do not like the Le Boche, it is an enmity that goes back to the Germanic tribes raiding across the Rhine into Gaul more than two thousand years ago. To be honest the feeling is mutual. Sauerkraut does not go with snails so the matchup between the two this Tuesday will be a tasty affair.

I leave you with this old favourite from the 1982 world cup of German goalkeeper Harald Schumaker trying to decapitate Dominique Battiston to show the love between the two teams.

Group C & D featuring EnGerLand

 

Group C is an interesting group, we have the cosmopolitan Orangemen,” free” Ukraine, Osterreich and the curiosity that is North Macedonia. I have a soft spot for them so that is who we shall begin with.

North Macedonia was actually a part of the state of Yugoslavia which broke apart in 1991. Yugoslavia had qualified for Euro 1992 but as it did not really exist anymore they were replaced by the Vikings who despite getting in through the backdoor so to speak, something you would expect more from the Turks than the Vikings, they went on to remarkably win the tournament.

Why North Macedonia though, well Greece objected to its being called just Macedonia as they claimed that is part of Greece and in 2019, twenty eight years after it gained independence, an agreement was reached adding the North bit and making everybody happy.

From a footballing perspective they are definitely minnows, this is the first tournament they have qualified for under either name. Their star player, Goran Pandev, is thirty seven and they also have “Gjanni” Alioski, who plays for Leeds United and who is universally accepted as being completely mental, and also one of the most annoying players to play against, here he is being head butted by Pepe of Arsenal,

one to watch out for sure. They will finish bottom of this group but will be fun to watch.

Free Ukraine is the name I have given to the remaining part of that country sandwiched between Poland and the hungry Russian Bear who would like to gobble up the remaining parts. Through history, Ukraine has suffered terribly at the hands of the Russian Bear, Stalin starved five million of them in the 1930’s, however, one cannot show too much sympathy for them as they were enthusiastic collaborators with the Nazis in WWII. Their choice of shirt has poked the bear as it shows an outline of the complete Ukrainian borders. As I expect them to finish third in the group, they are probably in direct competition with the bear as to who will have a better record and go through from third place.

Ukrainian shirt showing complete borders that has upset the Bear

Ostertreich, which at least football wise is always in the shadow of their big brother, The Shermans. Although they will deny it today, most Austrians were delighted when the Anschluss took place and they finally became part of the greater Reich, one must never forget that Adolf was an Austrian. An extremely dull and uninspiring team but efficient which should be enough in this relatively lightweight group.

That leaves us with the Orangemen, not those who march through the streets of Belfast every July in their bowler hats, celebrating good king Billy’s victory in the battle of the Boyne, but the original lot whom those Paddys have named themselves after.

The inventors of total football, in the days of Cruyff and Neeskens, are perennial under achievers, with only one Euro and no world cup successes, after appearances in four finals  over all, to show for all their beautiful football. They are technically very gifted but their biggest problem has always been their mental attitude, still, as I said, this is an easy group and the Orangemen should top it with ease.

Group D, there is not much to say about the Czech Republic, when they were the Czechs and the Slovaks they were pretty good, they are not so good now although they do have one or two useful players and to borrow a phrase from cricket will probably not do much to trouble the scorers,

Croatia were world cup runners up in 2018 beating EnGerLand in the semifinal, they are still a good team and will give EnGerLand a run for their money and will qualify for the next stage.

That leaves us with Bonnie Scotland and EnGerLand, this is a rivalry that goes back until the beginnings of time before even the countries existed, when the Northern hills were full of wild tribesmen who had a strange fetish for painting themselves blue (somethings don't change) and liked nothing better than to go South and plunder, pillage and the other thing you do on those days out, the civilized, peaceful hard working Southern tribes.

When the Romans arrived in Britannia, they decided it was just easier to build a wall slightly North of Newcastle from coast to coast to keep the Scots out, than try and civilize them. For fans of game of thrones this may sound familiar.

Once the nations had been formed there was more or less constant strife between the two until the act of Union in 1707 when Scotland was once and for all subjected to rule from London and even then it did not stop them having one more go in 1745 with Bonnie Prince Charlie who was finally defeated at the battle of Culloden in 1746 the last pitched battle ever fought on British soil. 

Even today, there is still a large body of Scots who want independence from the Auld Enemy so this match up carries added significance.

As I have posited elsewhere, one could argue that football has replaced battles and when you watch the clip below, (it is long but try and watch to the end)  you will see that the Scots have had some success for example in 1977 when they conquered Wembley with Ally Macleod Tartan's army. The joy was short lived and by 1978 had turned to tears after the Tartan army returned with their tail between their legs from a disastrous campaign in Argentina, but that is another story.

I was eleven at the time and lived in the neighbourhood next to Wembley, we were used to fans roaming the streets on FA cup final day, but we had never experienced anything like this, my parents did not let me leave the house that afternoon. Pay attention to the attire of the Scottish fans, if you have ever heard of the Bay City Rollers, they have got a lot to answer for.

In footballing terms, Scotland befitting the nation of Macbeth never cease to provide tragedy for their fans and thus enjoyment for opposing fans, because the thing football fans enjoy sometimes even more than their own team’s success is the misery of other fans.

 

The last meeting between the two in the Euros in 1996 was at Wembley and ended with an England victory and this iconic goal from Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne with which I shall leave you. There are so many moments of Scottish history in football but we will have to make do with this.

We will complete the previews with a look at groups E and F on Sunday, enjoy the football until then.

Preview number one Groups A and B

 

One of the first things that football fans look for when the draw for a tournament is made, is which group is going to be labelled as the so called “group of death”. The general consensus for this tournament was that it was group F consisting of Les Frogs, the bottle corks, the Shermans and the Magyars. We do not do consensus here, in my opinion Group A, which includes Italy, Turkey, Switzerland and Wales is the true “group of death” and I will now explain why.

First of all, they are all good teams, let’s start with the Cornettos, they have a long history of doing well in the big tournaments, they like to make offers other teams find difficult to refuse. They are three time finalists in the Euros and six times in the world cup, however they are notoriously slow starters and often just make it through by the skin of their teeth.

The yodeling Swiss are a solid outfit, what one would expect from a Swiss product, nothing flashy but efficient. The Welsh choir boys had a fantastic tournament last time round making it into the semi-finals and they cannot be discounted this time with the perhaps soon to be retiring and future professional golfer Gareth Bale looking to make this tournament his swansong.

This leaves us with the Turks, they are the youngest squad by average age and lack experience, but they qualified second behind France in their group including a win over France and had an excellent defensive record.

Remember this now, a good defense is what wins you titles, you can have all the attacking prowess in the world, but if you are weak at the back which is not something which is in the nature of Turks then you do not stand a chance. That highlighted phrase should be a mantra which is often repeated.

These countries all share beautiful mountain landscapes and I have been fortunate to visit them all. There seems to be a correlation between the mountains and a love of singing at least in three of the four and the Turks tend to sing for different reasons.

The Turks are probably under pressure from home where expectations will be high especially from their Ottoman style wanna be emperor Mr. Erdogan (the g is silent) who wants this team to restore former glories to a nation going through difficult times. Success in an international tournament is a wonderful panacea for internal woes.

So now you know why this group is so difficult, there is no team with a glaring weakness and they can all take points off each other.  As I have to make some form of prediction and of course be proved wrong, I will go out on a limb and say that Italy and Turkey will go through and that this might be one of the groups where two teams go out, if not then Switzerland over Wales. The boyos will be making an early return to the valleys and their long suffering sheep.

Group B is slightly easier to call in that Finland are some way weaker (watch then now qualify) than the other three teams in this group, namely Belgium one of the favourites for the tournament and also the current world number ranked team. Denmark and the Russian Bear close out this group.

Now Finland and the bear have quite a history, you may not know that in 1939 Soviet Russia invaded Finland and were given a bloody nose by the Finns despite the disparity in the size of their military forces.

It is also interesting to note that Finland will face Russia in St Petersburg, which in Soviet times was known as Leningrad due to the fact that Lenin arrived back in Russia in 1917 to launch the revolution at no other than the Finland railway station which is located in….. St Petersburg. Aficionados of cold war novels will no doubt have heard of it.

This time however, the Bear will be too strong for the plucky Finns. The Brussel sprouts will hope that this time they can keep the wind at their backs all the way to the final. In the world cup in 2018 they lost to Les Frogs in the semifinal despite being one of the most attractive teams to watch, remember the mantra from above.  They should canter to first place in this group, even with the injury sustained by their number one star Kevin De Bruyne, who suffered a broken nose and eye socket playing for his club in the recent champion’s league final. It was not pretty as you can see.

 

The last team in this group is the Viking Norsemen from “wonderful wonderful Copenhagen” as the song goes. The Danes have a great goalkeeper in Kasper (he is not a friendly ghost) Schmeichel son of the legendary Peter, and a very solid defensive unit consisting of rather large man mountains. They also have the delightfully named Thomas Delaney who plays in midfield ensuring the Paddy’s are represented at the tournament in some way despite both their teams not qualifying.

Belgium and Denmark to go through along with the Russian Bear in third place sweating on whether they will make it through or not,

Tomorrow we shall take a look at Groups C and D which of course include EnGerLand and Wee Bonnie Scotland.

Hello football, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again, an introduction to Euro 2020

It is back, a year late but nevertheless here we are, Euro 2020 is about to start in June 2021 and I am sure you are all as excited as I am. It has been three years since the last time we met and a lot has happened in that time. As ever, this first post is as an introduction, to explain the workings and to pass some comment on the goings on. After that we will get down and dirty with group previews and from the knock out stages, match by match previews and reviews.

As ever, this is supposed to be a humorous and not very politically correct view on the tournament, it will also be sprinkled with cultural and literary references and participation via the comments section is welcomed. I will respond to every comment, the more inane the better. 

So without further ado, it is time to "lead on Macduff" to paraphrase the bard.

The format is the same as last time but just in case you are unfamiliar or new to the game I will explain it here, especially for our followers in the US of A, a coming powerhouse in world football. 

The twenty four nations taking part have been divided up into six groups of four. So, in a group of four, each team will face the others once in a mini league format, with three points for a win and one for a draw. 

The top two from each group plus the four third placed teams with the best record will qualify for the last 16. The competition then follows the standard knock out format until we are left with two teams to battle it out for the title.

We don't use fancy titles, such as "Sweet 16" or "Elite 8" or "Final four", so as to avoid any confusion, those are known respectively as the last 16, quarter-finals and semi-finals.

However, there is one big difference in this instance of the Euros, instead of all the games be held in one host nation or even two as in 2012, the games are being played in twelve different locations, some of them not even in mainland Europe, such as Baku, (who can be the first, without cheating, to post in the comments where Baku is.)  not to mention, in this first tournament in a post Brexit Europe, Glasgow and London. The other nine being: Amsterdam, Bucharest, Budapest, Copenhagen, Munich, Rome, Saint Petersburg and Seville.

This, of course, brings up another issue in today’s world which is still in the grip of the pandemic and that is the movement of large groups of fans between countries who are all at different stages of their vaccination programs. It seems so long ago, but two super spreaders of Covid, at the beginning of the outbreak of the virus, were the champions league games between Atalanta (Italy) and Valencia (Spain) and Liverpool (England) and Atletico Madrid (Spain) in February 2020.  It will be interesting to see how this pans out, watch this space.

A paradox, which is even more accentuated, in, as I mentioned earlier, this first post Brexit tournament, is that the three nations which make up the mainland of Britain have all qualified, they being of course EnGerLand, Scotland and Wales.

An event such as the Euros, where national teams battle it out one against another only adds fuel to all the things that are supposedly not welcome in today's world such as nationalism, jingoism, racial stereotypes, etc.  A lot of average football fans who do not necessarily habit the world of social media actually revel in all the above mentioned and cannot wait to paint their faces in the national colours, get out their flags and revile against all foreigners.

The reality is that the tribal divisions, mistrusts and even hatreds that have riven the European continent for over two and a half thousand years are alive and well and simmer below a civilized veneer. We are lucky that today, they are settled by twenty two men kicking a ball around a field being watched from all over by the baying masses, Wembley instead of Waterloo if you like. It is these divisions and differences that we shall focus on as a background to the football. Football is just a means to an end, thankfully a peaceful one.

In my opinion, this only goes to prove that the idea of European unity is a hollow shell. A united trading block?  Perhaps, but not much more than that.

I don't live in Europe so I don't care either way, it is a mere observation.

Another point worth mentioning is that even those across Europe who are anti immigrants, do not seem to mind if they are good at football, then they are welcome to stay.

Take Switzerland for example, not a particularly warm and welcoming country to say the least, they were never that good at football, but that has changed in recent times with the influx of asylum seekers and migrants, their captain, Granit Xhaka is of Albanian heritage for example, in fact his brother still plays for the Albanian national team.  Colonial empires such as France, Holland and Belgium have many players whose antecedents were from their former colonies. 

It has been good for football but ironic nevertheless.

But enough of this serious stuff, that is not what my loyal followers want to read. As stated above this is not going to be very PC, so if you get offended by stereotypes, etc. I bid you Adieu.

Please feel free to spread the blog.

Tomorrow we will start previewing the groups.