WOW! What a game!! After the damp squid that France and Romania served up at the Euros yesterday, it was quite refreshing to take in the Holland-Italy game. A thrilling game by all standards - even if you are a Italy fan. The quality of football was clearly at a higher level than the excrutiating stuff France and Romania put out. Italy didn't score - and greatly struggled to get past a resolute Dutch backline. On the few occassions that they did, they found in Ed Van Der Sar a master shot stopper.
Okay, Holland got a lucky break with that first goal when Ruud van Nistelrooy was clearly offside, but there can be no arguments about the other two goals - poached in fine fashion after two classic counter-attacking raids.
I still think Italy will go through from this so-called group of death, even if they now have to overcome this three-goal deficit. I think France have let their team get just a little long in the tooth, and Romania will eventually break under some quality pressure. France continue to rely on Sagnol, Thuram, Makelele, Vieira and Henry and with the latter two missing against Romania, they just couldn't get it going. Makelele was competent as always, but when the defensive lynchpin is your best passer, there'll be trouble on the attacking end. Even with the undeniable ability of Frank Ribery, just as they did at the 2002 World Cup, France look lost without Zinedine Zidane.
As for the whole tournament, I doubt if we'll have another Greece surprise this year. My favorites would be Spain, Germany, Portugal, Italy and Holland. I've always had a soft spot for the Dutch so I'd be pretty pleased if they win it. But I think this might just be the year that Spain finally get their act together. They've got an embarrasment of riches in midfield and attack and it'll come down to how Aragones decides to deploy his troops.
We'll have to wait and see. I just hope that in the meantime we get to see more games like this Italy-Holland clash.
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