Euro 2016 Round of 16 – Day One

Switzerland 1, Poland 1; Poland wins penalty shootout, 5-4
Goals: Jakub Błaszczykowski (POL) 39’, Xherdan Shaqiri (SUI) 82’

General Thoughts:

• This game was in Saint-Étienne, located in central France. The last time this stadium hosted a knockout stage game in a major tournament was in the Round of 16 in the 1998 World Cup.  That game between England and Argentina turned out to be one of the most memorable games of my life.[1]
• Great turnout of supporters from both teams, but the overwhelming majority of the fans came from Switzerland. It stands to reason, since the game was only an hour’s drive from the Swiss border.
• The game opened with several great scoring chances. That is good.  Scoring chances = exciting games = happy fans.
• The first half was back and forth. Case in point: in the 38th minute, Switzerland had a nice scoring chance that Poland stopped.  Immediately, the Poles attacked the Swiss goal, and that counterattack ended with a goal by Jakub Błaszczykowski[2] in the 39th minute.[3]
• Did Fabian Schär clobber Polish superstar forward Robert Lewandowski in the 56th minute or what? He clearly deserved that yellow card.[4]
• The foul by Schär brings up something that soccer does far better than basketball. The Polish players had just watched their best player be on the business end of a hard foul, and he was still down.  They were justifiably upset.  Can anyone honestly blame them for jawing at Schär and getting in his face?  The referee cautioned Schär and then calmed the Polish players down.  That is exactly how a situation like that should be handled.  How would basketball – and especially the NBA – have handled that?  Every Pole who even looked at Schär in an angry fashion would have been given a technical foul, and anyone who got in his face would have been suspended.[5]
• I loved hearing Jon Champion announce the other two matches from the day. Due to his accent, he pronounces “Croatia” as “Croh-AY-shur.”  I don’t know why that made me laugh so much.
• Xherdan Shaqiri’s goal for Switzerland in the 82nd minute gets my vote for most spectacular of the tournament so far. The bicycle kick from the edge of the box made me jump out of my seat and go “OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
• Shaqiri’s goal completely changed the attitude of the Polish team. They seemed to have lost all fight afterwards.  I’m not saying that they gave up, but I’m saying that the goal took the wind out of their sails.
• As the game got closer to the end of extra time, it got chippier, more tense, and even more exciting than it already was.
• Swiss goalkeeper Yann Sommer did a great job, making several key – and a few acrobatic – saves. He has been great all tournament.
• Polish goalkeeper Łukasz Fabiański was simply amazing. There should be a national holiday in Poland in his honor.
• Lewandowski’s tournament has been so rough that when Poland won the coin toss, Jon Champion said “at last Lewandowski’s done something right.”
• This was Poland’s first-ever penalty shootout in a competitive match.
• This is the farthest Poland has ever advanced in a Euro, and the farthest they’ve advanced in a major tournament since making the semifinals of the 1982 World Cup in Spain.
• Switzerland looked like the better team, and it’s a shame that they lost, but such is the nature of penalty shootouts.

June 28, 2016, 12:55 pm MST

Wales 2, Northern Ireland 1
Goals: Gareth McAuley (NIR) (OG) 74’

General Thoughts:

• Games like this one, where the teams know each other so well, tend to hinge on which team can settle down first.
• However, they settled down too much. There were hardly any scoring chances in the first half, and neither team looked good.  Games that go like that first half did are a big part of what makes certain people hate soccer.  Steve McManaman put it well when asked to describe the first half in one word: “unimpressive.”
• It took until the 53rd minute for there to be a realistic scoring chance that wasn’t offside, and it was by Wales. Northern Ireland’s strategy was looking like Argentina’s strategy during the entire knockout phase of the 1990 World Cup, where they tried to finish every game 0-0 and then win the penalty shootout.[6]
• Poor Gareth McAuley. He did all he could by sliding to defend Gareth Bale’s nasty ground cross and ended up poking the ball into his own net in the 74th minute.  Taylor Twellman was right – that goal was more about Bale’s cross than it was about McAuley’s play.  I hope he doesn’t become a national goat.
• After the own goal, the look on Northern Ireland head coach Michael O’Neill’s face was priceless. He looked like he had just caught his teenage daughter smooching with the town hoodlum.
• The bright side of the own goal was that Northern Ireland actually tried to score afterwards.
• There were a few somewhat exciting moments near the end, but overall, this was a pretty lousy game. Congratulations to Wales, though.  Lousy game or not, they deserved to win.

June 28, 2016, 3:10 pm MST

Portugal 1, Croatia 0
Goals: Ricardo Quaresma (POR) 117’

General Thoughts:

• This matchup featured one of the strongest teams of the first round against an underachieving team that was rather lucky to advance. Sometimes when this happens, the better team wins in a blowout; other times the underachieving team squeaks one out.
• That first half was terrible. Both teams just played Keepaway and didn’t really try to score.  They both looked like Argentina during the knockout phase of the 1990 World Cup.  Alejandro Moreno said that the best part of the first half was “halftime,” and then his comment going into the second half summed everything up perfectly: “That was a SNOOZEFEST.”
• In the second half, both teams started to try to score, but it was still horrendous. The offenses were completely inept.  The second half ended as a goalless tie with no shots on goal from both teams   Idea: if this situation ever happens again in the knockout phase of a soccer tournament, both teams should be sent home.[7]  Would anyone be opposed to this?
• During ESPN’s studio analysis before extra time began, host Bob Ley asked Michael Ballack what the teams were trying to do. Ballack chuckled, hesitated, and then said, “I don’t know.”
• In the 96th minute, Croatian forward Nikola Kalinić busted loose on a promising attack. He got into the Portuguese penalty area, where I thought that he would certainly get the first shot on target of the game.  No…no.  He blasted a shot that was wide right by a good 15 feet.
• When Portugal took a corner kick in the 102nd minute, I thought that would result in the game’s first shot on target.   Croatia easily headed it clear.
• Croatia had a corner kick in the 113th minute that should have resulted in a goal. Portuguese goalkeeper Rui Patrício came forward to catch the ball but collided with a defender.  Croatian defender Domagoj Vida had a header toward a completely undefended net…and he headed it wide.  I felt so bad for him.
• The first shot on target of the entire game did not happen until the 117th minute. After a promising Croatian attack where Perišić hit the inside of the post but didn’t score, Portugal speedily countered and had a two-on-one.  Cristiano Ronaldo took a shot that was saved, but Ricardo Quaresma was there for the rebound and subsequent uncontested goal.
• Croatia then had another promising attack, but it ended with defender Domagoj Vida heading the ball over the bar.
• The game mercifully ended soon thereafter.
• I felt like the team who deserved to win ended up losing. At any rate, this was the worst soccer game I’ve ever seen.  The Polish squad – Portugal’s next opponent – is probably licking its collective chops in anticipation.

June 28, 2016, 11:46 pm MST

[1] That game had 18-year-old Michael Owen’s Wondergoal, David Beckham’s infamous red card, and one of England’s six losses to have occurred in a penalty shootout.  It’s on YouTube.

[2] ESPN’s play-by-play commentator – Jon Champion – said that Błaszczykowski’s last name would earn a triple word score in Scrabble.  I wonder how many points the letter Ł is worth…

[3] This was Poland’s first-ever goal in the knockout stage of a Euro tournament.

[4] The Poles felt, of course, that Schär deserved a red, but a yellow was the fair decision.

[5] Just look at how they handled the Suns’ reaction to Robert Horry’s board check (with the scorer’s table playing the role of the board) of Steve Nash in Game 4 of the Western Conference Semifinals, and then try to tell me with a straight face that I’m wrong.

[6] The 1990 World Cup is widely considered to be the worst World Cup ever.  There were lots of draws due to the fact that so many teams were afraid to attack.  They were afraid of giving up a counterattacking goal.  Teams also would often kick the ball back to their goalies – or throw the ball to the goalies on a throw-in – and then the goalies would scoop the ball up, bounce it, and then boot it upfield.  Yawn.  After the Cup ended, FIFA made a win worth three points instead of two (to encourage teams to go for the win), and they also made it illegal for keepers to handle a ball that a teammate directly kicks to them.  Here’s a thought: if a certain style of play causes TWO different rule changes…then avoid it!

[7] What about the team that is supposed to play the winner, you ask?  Congratulations to them – they get a bye during the next round.