Ordinary Gweilo

It’s started already. Shaky has one picture caption making fun of David Beckham, and someone has just seen me a few others, including this one.

That’s what you call nerve-wracking, not to mention desparately disappointing.

It was an absorbing game. In the first half I thought England looked reasonably comfortable defending their slender lead, but as the game went on it looked increasingly likely that Portugal would score, and after they did I really doubted England’s ability to get back into the game. I said after the Croatia game that England would do well if the midfield carried on playing with the same level of determination, but sadly that wasn’t the case against Portugal. Beckham was poor again, and Scholes didn’t have a good game either. Pumping long balls up to Owen and Vassell was not a good strategy, though if Rooney had stayed on things might have been different.

And yet… After Portugal went ahead in extra-time England did come back into the game, and Lampard deserved his goal. Before that, England were unlucky to have Campbell’s goal at the end of normal time disallowed. Referees usually protect goalkeepers, so it wasn’t a big surprise, but it looked like another poor decision by Urs Meier, who didn’t have a good game at all.

The less said about the penalties the better.

However, although England can curse their bad luck in losing Rooney early on and having a goal disallowed, the truth is that if the midfield had done its part it wouldn’t have mattered. On balance, Portugal probably deserved the win.

Who feels sorry for Italy, then?

I suppose I do (at least a little bit) – a win and two draws from three games ought to be good enough, and apparently no team had previously been eliminated without losing a game. The unfortunate thing for them was that if Sweden and Denmark managed a high-scoring draw it didn’t matter how many goals they scored against Bulgaria. The UEFA rules are quite complex, and because three teams finished level and the three games between them were all draws, it came down to the number of goals scored in those games.

I doubt that Sweden and Denmark arranged a convenient result, but it’s amazing how often games such as this do end with a result that suits both teams. No-one would have been surprised if a game like involving Germany or Italy had ended up with the ‘right’ result. A long time ago, the final group games weren’t played simultaneously (not that it mattered in this case) and there were a few predictable results – I’m sure I can remember a goalless draw between Austria and Germany in the World Cup that suited both countries.

I’m no expert on Swedish-Danish relations, but someone (a Dane, as it happens) told me that Denmark is the only country in the world where IKEA doesn’t use its normal blue and yellow colour scheme, as being so obviously Swedish isn’t good for business. The fact that they are neighbours doesn’t mean that they are friends (as hundreds of years of rivalry between English and Scotland demonstrate).

As for Italy, the simple fact is that they weren’t really good enough. Falling behind to Bulgaria and only going ahead in injury time is indicative of their problems, and I think that deep down their fans would be forced to admit that they should have beaten either Sweden or Denmark and made sure.