Wiggi's alternative take on sports: The Knockout Stage Begins

Welcome back, the dust has settled on what has been a frenetic group stage, the tournament has been surprisingly good to date, and we shall start with a short summary to get us ready for the knockout games.

In simple terms, the traditional powerhouses of European football have been, apart from the exception of the Matadors, underwhelming to say the least, the Froggies, Shermans, Orange boys, Spaghetti munchers and the team which is Christiano Ronaldo and 10 others to mention a few.

The next grade is downright poor, this group includes the Northern Gallic tribes of Belgium who eat chips (French fries for our readers across the pond) with mayonnaise, is it any wonder they have been heavy? The Pils swilling Czechs from the republic, and the Croats from Kings landing country to name just some.

Then, there is EnGerLand, the words to describe their performances are not suitable to be published in this august blog, suffice to say you would not want to step on it as you walk along the pavement. Remarkably however, the dross fare EnGerLand have served up has been enough for them to win their group.

They are in a remarkably strong position to advance deep into the tournament if they can remember that they are supposed to be footballers and not a bunch of crabs who move sideways very slowly.

On the positive side, we have been treated to fine performances from the minnows (small fish) of European football who mainly hail from the Eastern half of the continent. Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Georgia have all progressed along with Turkey and Austria, with Romania and Austria, actually winning their groups to turn the draw for the next round upside down and make the tournament more intriguing than ever.

To end the summation of the first stage, we cannot finish without a special mention for Wee Bonnie Scotland. The Jocks do melancholy in such a special way, they build up the anticipation only to be left floundering and crying with their deep disappointment, but still maintaining the love of all around them, with the ridicule of the EnGerLand fans ringing in their ears. From the 5-1 demolition they suffered at the hands of the Shermans in the opening game, to conceding a 100th minute goal in their last game, to finally be eliminated, they brought joy to all for so many different reasons. There is nothing a football fan loves more than another team’s despair.

We start off with two games featuring four of the more established sides, the usual suspects so to speak, in what could be termed “derby” games. A Derby is a game involving two local rivals usually from the same city, for example the Merseyside derby between the Scousers and the toffees or the Milan derby between Inter and AC or the Subway Series in New York between the Mets and the Yankees, just to show it is not exclusive to football.

However, the term can also apply to teams from the same area geographically, such as Yorkshire derbies between Leeds and any other team in Yorkshire.

Just a line on a map

A mountainous divide

As you can see from the maps there is not much separating Schleswig Holstein form their Danish Neighbours. The famous Holstein cows surely don’t know when they are eating Sherman or Danish grass.

The same can be said for the barber shop boys of Northern Italy to the yodelers of Southern Switzerland, same neighborhood, just a different way of singing.

The cowbell ringers were very close to beating the Shermans in their group game with only a injury time equalizer from the superbly named Sherman striker Fullkrug saving the Shermans blushes. The fondue lovers will feel they have a fantastic opportunity to knock out the reigning champions of Europe, who as mentioned above have been underwhelming so far.

The Gondoliers needed a 98th minute punt to avoid being eliminated by the Croats. Do not be surprised if the Swiss Cheese ends up on top of the Italian Ice cream in this one.

Two to watch out for

Xhaka, the Albanian born Swiss captain

Chiesa, hoping the Swiss won't fill the holes

The second game on Saturday will see, as I said, the Shermans against the Vikings, The Shermans have home field advantage, the Vikings have managed three draws so far scoring only two goals, not very scintillating as I’m sure you would all agree.

The Shermans are heavy favourites for this one, but as we have seen in the past, you never know in a knockout game what could happen. In 1992, the Vikings only played in the tournament due to the expulsion of the imploding Republic of Yugoslavia and they went on to win it against all the odds. The fact that Die Mannschaft have not been running as smoothly as we would expect from a Sherman engineered machine, means anything is possible.

Two to watch out for