PARIS—The match of the day, of the weekend, of the tournament, of recent footballing memory!
Yes, the Swiss defeated the Portuguese B-team last night in what will go down in popular lore as a—no, wait, it was that other game, the Turks versus the Czechs, that had commentators on British TV reportedly saying, near the end, that they would not be surprised if a spaceship from Mars landed in the centre circle, so shocking were the events unfolding on the pitch in Geneva.
We—the Mlle., her brother and I—caught the game at the complicatedly named Cafe Italian Bar in Paris’s 11ème, and with the last round of group-stage games demanding coincident start times, I had to argue with a drunk regular who thought the meaningless Porto-Swiss game would be the better of the evening’s entertainment options. I narrowly defeated said drunk Frenchman in this epic battle of wits, and we tuned into the elimination game. He asked me who I thought would win, and I said “b’en, les Czechs sont meilleurs, ils devraient gagner. Mais on ne sait jamais.” Truer words were never spoken.
By the end of the game, a slow-starting affair that gained steam throughout its ninety-five-plus minutes of insanity, the old men in this local watering hole were grasping at adjectives to describe what they’d just seen: the Czechs building a 2-0 lead off two fine finished crosses, only to see the Turks—who’d been left for dead by pretty much everyone with twenty minutes remaining and the rain coming down—score in the seventy-fifth, eight-seventh, and eighty-ninth minutes to steal a place in the knockout round.
Didn’t the Czechs read my post about the astronomical rates of success that come with scoring the first goal AND the second? And while we’re on the subject of me, full credit to this guy for resisting the urge to title this post “Turkish Delight.” Would have been a little too bang-on sickly sweet, no?
In the process of thoroughly blowing my mind, Petr Cech was officially stripped of his “best goalie in the world” title after atrociously mishandling the cross that became the second Turkish goal; we faced the possibility of spot kicks to decide the winner for a total of two minutes, before the Turks took the 3-2 lead; the Turkish goalie was red carded in injury time after shoving a Czech forward post-whistle; Czech forward Milan Baros was yellow carded (even though Baros hadn’t played the entire game and was on the bench at the moment of the booking, though it was a real mistake not to bring him on in the second half for the clearly wiped FrankenKoller); and the Turks finished the game with midfielder Tuncay Sanli in goal, having used all three of their substitutions before Volkan Demirel was sent off.
The only thing that could have made the finish more insane, apart from the aforementioned Martian UFO landing, would have been Tuncay (who, let’s not forget, at one point had to run from touch line to touch line to fetch a new flag for the linesman, who’d busted his first flag on a particularly vigorous line call when the game was 2-0) being forced to make a save, likely the first one of his career. But mercifully, the whistle blew without the Czechs managing a shot on the midfielder in black warm-up top, and we viewers, like the Czechs themselves, were left grappling for le mot juste to describe the events that had passed before our eyes.
Credit the British for at least one contribution to this tournament: Guardian writer Paul Doyle hit it bang-on. “A brilliantly bonkers finale.” A ha! Brilliant, Paul, quite brilliant. I couldn’t have put it better myself. Though next time, let’s play it a little cooler on the “Turkish delight,” shall we?
Weekend recap
Saturday’s results: Spain 2-1 Sweden, Russia 1-0 Greece
Saturday’s top player: I’m telling you, buy low on this Russian team. While shutting out the Greeks is no great feat, if they can continue to shore up the defence to complement the fine striking of Roman Pavlyuchenko, who was masterful as the point man against Hellas and moves very well for a big fellow, the Swedes could be in deep on Wednesday and the Dutch could have themselves a real match in the quarters, for once.
Saturday’s best goal: Spain, schmain. Was there ever a doubt that the Russia-Greece match would produce the day’s best goal? With the ball trickling into touch to the left of the Greek net, and goalie and defender in pursuit, Sergei Semak executed a marvelous bicycle-kick pass between the two Greeks to Konstantin Zyryanov standing unmarked in front of the net.
In-game beverages: None. For shame, Sportstrotter, for shame.
Sunday’s results: Turkey 3-2 Czech Republic, Switzerland 2-0 Portugal
Sunday’s top player: Whenever you score two goals in the final three minutes of elimination time to reverse a one-goal deficit and knock out one of the pre-tournament favourites, you’re going to be my player of the day. Félicitations, Nihat Kahveci.
Sunday’s best goal: For sheer dramatic performance, Nihat’s second goal gets the nod. Springing free from a Czech defensive breakdown, the Villarreal striker produced a perfect finish, using his right foot to curl the ball beyond the outstretched left arm of Petr Cech and into the top right corner, bouncing it in off the crossbar. In hockey, the same off-wing style of finish is known as a Messier.
In-game beverages: We drank demis of Pelforth throughout the match. The verdict? “Not horrible,” said Max. That’s about the best you can say about French beer. At least it was cheap.
Monday match preview
More than any other game in the last round of pool matches, Germany-Austria (in Vienna) has been this week’s hot topic of discussion. When the schedule was announced, this looked the top candidate for “dud-of-the-tourney,” ostensibly with an already qualified Germany fielding a B-side against the tournament’s feeblest 11. Now, the Germans need a result to advance and the Austrians need an outright victory to advance themselves AND shock the hated Germans into an early exit.
Look, the Germans are probably going to have an easy time finishing off the Austrians, but therein lies the rub: the Austrians have shown just enough spark in their first two matches to raise the possibility that maybe, MAYBE they could clip the Germans. This is a classic example of a game where we know what’s probably going to happen (and if the Germans score the first goal of the game, fuggetabout’it), but unlike the Czech-Turkey or Russia-Sweden elimination matches, there is the knowledge that if the stars align perfectly for the Austrians, the only possible way this scenario plays out is in “brilliantly bonkers” mode. High risk, high reward.
The stage is set for what will likely be a wash, but be sure to tune in, because all the ingredients are in place for a classic.
Predictions: Germany 0-0 Austria, Poland 1-1 Croatia
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