Nick United
Commentary for Soccer, Futbol, or whatever you call it!
Spain and Italy, eh, well I saw Spain, but Italy? Well, the Euro 2012 ended somewhat unexpectedly. Well, let's dive right in, shall we?
To start from the top of the Euro 2012 Elimination Stage Bracket, an all-Iberian Semifinal was expected, hands down. Obviously, Portugal was going to beat the Czech Republic and Spain was going to beat an in-a-slump France. That was pretty straight forward. Now the battle of the Iberians was somewhat of a different story. Of course Spain, was going to win, but no one thought it would be so close. But in the end, Spain advanced on PK's 4-2, and the Portugese manager came under fire after the match when Paulo Bento put Cristiano Ronaldo last in the PK order, but the PK's ended before Portugal got a chance to take a fifth shot. Some people even blamed Ronaldo for not cutting line and helping his team, which is somewhat preposterous in my opinion.
Things get slightly more interesting as you look at the bottom of the elimination tree. Germany completely wiped out Greece 4-2, more-or-less expected. However, I personally did not see Italy coming out over England. England, I think, has one of their better sides since Beckham's era. However, Italy dominated the entire game despite the score being even at zero goals a piece. England pulled ahead on PK's 2-1, and I thought the Brits were going to have it, (for once a English PK win!) but Italy rallied back and won the match 4-2 on PK's.
It was an Italy-Germany semifinal, I think there was a boatload of upset gamblers at the end of this match. Ballotelli had a brace (two goals in one match) and Germany didn't score their single goal until the last couple minutes of the match.
I could have sworn that the finals would be a lot more entertaining, for sure, but not so much I guess. Italy came along way to get to Spain, and then Spain completely walked over "the Blues". Four-no was the final score; Silva, Alba, Torres, and Mata all scored in that order. It was exciting for some but boring for other to watch such a one-sided.
Well, besides MLS, soccer/association football will have a break until Premier League action starts up this fall. Untill then I will blog about other thing, particularly the Olympics in London.
Corrections:
- My last Football Friday (now known as Nick United) post, said, "...Ronaldo and Spain...", it was supposed to say Torres and Spain, I do not know how I managed that error.
