I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. With the conclusion of today's matches, a large majority of our players who would normally be representing their countries in next year's Euro Championship, will now be getting the summer off. Like I've said prior, I don't give a rat's ass about international play, especially exhibition tournaments like the Euro and the World Cup. They're great for killing time or for an excuse to binge drink, but for the most part they aren't legitimate competitions anymore and have certainly ceased to matter. Too many questionable calls and duplicitous actions have tainted them far beyond any rational person's belief.
Anyhow, to get to today's matches, four teams, three featuring our players were given glints of hope before having them squashed by the all-mighty hand of reality. John Arne Riise and Norway crushed Malta, 4-1, but occurring at the same time Turkey was hosting Bosnia-Herzegovina in Instanbul. The Norwegians needed the Bosnians to at least manage a draw while they took care of business in Ta' Qali. After going up 2-0 in the first 28 minutes and Turkey appearing to have their problems scoring against Bosnia-Herzegovina, Norway probably started to believe they had luck on their side, but it wasn't meant to be. Villareal scoring machine, Nihat Kahveci, placed a shot in the far side of the net with two-minutes to go in the first half and Ay-Yıldızlılar managed to hold on, 1-0.
Sami Hyypiä and Finland were hoping to travel to Porto today and pull off one of the biggest upsets of qualifying by beating Portugal at the Estádio do Dragão. The only way for the Finns to advance was to win. They were lucky to come away with a 0-0 draw as Portugal unleashed an onslaught of attack on the Finnish side, but came away empty each time. The result eliminates the Huuhkajat from competition and with the summer months off, might allow Hyppiä to come back for one more season.
Then we have the Three Lions. After going down by a pair of comical goals by Croatia, England battled their way back to draw even, the latter goal a magnificent chest-catch and finish by Peter Crouch. It looked as if Gerrard and company might just get it done, but then Sol Campbell forgot he was supposed stop the ball from going towards the goal and conveniently got out of the way of a Mladen Petrić shot, which found itself in the back of the net. Carson hadn't a chance. Euro dreams for England were crushed and Steven Gerrard will finally have a couple of months off to recuperate. I can't say I'm not ecstatic.
Finally we have Spain with Pepe Reina the lone Spanish Red starting in goal. Thanks to a deflected shot from Xavi Hernandez, our Pepe got the win and the clean sheet. Other players who saw action include Andriy Voronin, who was the only goal scorer from our club, and the Dutch duo of Kuyt and Babel. The former came in at the half, while the latter played the full match and collected a yellow card to prove it. So Spain and Holland are the only two teams with our players that advance, which may mean up to six of our players, but it could have been worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment