Kevin's Watch

The European Championship has just started. Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales are all involved (the Championship has been expanded from 16 to 24 teams).

Wales got off to a great start with a win over Slovakia. England managed to ruin a good display by coughing up a late equaliser to Russia (who were very ordinary). Northern Ireland were comfortably beaten by Poland (even though it was only 1-0).

Ireland kick off their campaign this evening against Sweden. If we are to do anything in the competition we'll need to get a minimum of a point from this game (and even that may not be good enough). Ideally though we need to win this game as we have Italy and Belgium in our other two matches, both of whom are potential winners of the Championship.

u.

Caught a bit of the Turkey - Croatia game. The Turks tried hard, but couldn't equalise with the Croats keeping the pressure on. Good defending to hold it to 1-0 for Croatia, but they were outclassed on the day.

--A

The Group stages are over now and all the teams for the knockout stage decided. Ireland left it late, just beating Italy with a late goal to qualify. We've had an up-and-down campaign so far. We were excellent against Sweden in our first game, but managed to throw away a 1-0 lead when we should have won comfortably. We were absolutely dire against Belgium, going down 3-0, one of the most comprehensive defeats of the Championship. The manager then made some significant changes to the team and we really performed against a second-string Italian team (they had already qualified). Still, it was a brilliant result and it means that we have qualified for the knockout stages of the European Championship for the first time ever. We play the hosts, France, on Sunday, and boy do we owe them one!

Other significant performances in the competitiion have been the qualification of Northern Ireland and Iceland. Northern Ireland stunned Ukraine by beating them 2-0 and Iceland did brilliantly to emerge from their group. The most disappointing performances have been those of Russia, Ukraine and Austria. Probably the best team not to make it to the playoffs are Turkey, who were excellent in their final game and unlucky to be in a group with two of the Championship contenders, Spain and Croatia.

The strongest teams left are all on one side of the draw, which means that only one of, Germany, Spain, Italy or France can be in the final. On the other side the two strongest teams look like Croatia and Belgium.

u.

I still remember when you reached the quarters in the 1990 World Cup. I was rooting for you for what it's worth.

--A

I've been following this. Definitely a few upsets - ICELAND!!!

Ireland were ahead for a time, but France finally broke them down. On to the quarter finals:

Poland v Portugal - who knows (or cares?)
Wales v Belgium - go Wales - but maybe Belgium will be too strong?
Germany v Italy - given my Italian heritage, I must go for Italy, but I've always liked Germany...
France v Iceland - gotta go for the underdogs!

Yeah, that was surely a nasty shock for the Brits.

--A