Ah here, knock-out football is mighty. Well, apart, maybe, from Denmark v Wales, the Magic Dragons proving Puffless, but other than that, it’s been a blast.
Possibly the only people on planet earth and beyond (don’t scoff - New York Times: “US Has No Explanation for Unidentified Objects and Stops Short of Ruling Out Aliens”) who didn’t want the Czech Republic v the Netherlands to go to extra time were the people of the Czech Republic, because that would have meant surrendering a two goal lead in the last 10 minutes, and Damien Duff. “I want it to finish in 90 minutes because I’m rushing off to meet me Da for a pint.”
So, when Patrik Schick - or “Chick” as Ally McCoist so excellently calls him - got the Czechs’ second, thereby making the need for extra time highly unlikely, the cheer in Montrose was probably as deafening as the collective one emanating from Prague, Duffer by then fairly certain his Da wouldn’t be left on his own sitting outside a Dublin pub two metres from everyone else.
At half-time, he reckoned the game would be decided by either a moment of excellence or an error of catastrophic proportions. “And you don’t want to be the dope to give away the mistake,” he said. Full-time? “Well, we found the dope - Matthijs de Ligt,” he said of the poor lad whose red card prompted the demise of the Dutch and heralded a thousand ‘Oranje Crushed’ headlines.
“He looked like he was going to expose himself,” said Gary Neville over on ITV of the Juventus defender, as if his evening hadn’t been bad enough without allegations of that nature.
Dumfries
Not a whole lot long after de Ligt was exposed, Tomas Holes headed home the opening goal, the assist going to Ally for instructing him to “go on, just nut that in”. The highlight, though, of Ally’s performance was the way he lovingly pronounced [Denzel]”Dumfries” with that rolly tongue thing Scottish folk do when there’s a ‘free’ sound in any name, ensuring that if they wear dentures they’d end up flying across the room, ending up embedded in the far wall.
Mark Pougatch, meanwhile, only had eyes for England’s side of the draw come full-time, now that the Czechs had bounced the Dutch out of the tournament.
“If you’re watching at home and you’re English, which you probably are [HELLO?], I think your eyes are probably widening,” he said, England’s route to the final now only hindered by minnows Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Ukraine and the Czech lads, while the other half is populated by all the giants of world football apart from Brazil and Argentina because they’re not - checks map - European. (We’re doffing our cap here to Kevin Keegan: “Argentina won’t be at Euro 2000 because they’re from South America”).
Gary’s eyes, though, narrowed as Pougatch whipped his English viewers in to a frenzy, in a ‘it’s coming home’ sort of way, having heard that class of talk several times before, almost as bored by it as talk of Jadon Sancho joining Manchester United.
Two teams they won’t be facing, after they inevitably beat Germany, are Wales and Austria, Denmark and Italy sending their players on their summer hols.
Unkind folk suggested that if Wales displayed as much defiance as Gareth Bale did in his post-match interview, they might have given Denmark a game, but it wasn’t to be. BBC commentator Steve Wilson was on an alliteration binge in the closing stages …. “Wales are dispirited, disheartened, disillusioned and close to being dismissed from Euro 2020” ….. “Wales have been unpicked, unravelled, undone” ….. while Robbie Savage was just staggered, shattered and stunned by the mauling.
Kicking and screaming
Bale insisted that Wales had gone out “kicking and screaming”, a notion that wasn’t entirely dismissed by Gabby Logan and her BBC panel, but left Kevin Doyle, Lisa Fallon and Richie Sadlier going, ‘you what?’
“They went out with a whimper,” said Lisa, the only kicking and screaming occurring when Harry Wilson was red-carded for kicking the screaming Joakim Maehle. Mind you, you’d see worse tackles in the rush for the last 8kg dumbbell in Aldi’s centre aisle.
Wales, then, didn’t exit all that graciously, but Italy advanced with a touch of panache, and we’re thinking here largely of Federico Chiesa’s quite splendid goal. Hands up how many of you said to yourselves, ‘God, that Chiesa lad is playing for Italy a long time now’, only to be informed that Federico is the son of the Chiesa you were thinking of, Enrico? Cripes.
“Apologies to anyone waiting for the news,” said Gary Lineker as the game moved in to extra time, “although it’s not like anything happened today.” “Ha, ha,” Matt Hancock might have replied from his couch at home, while Dominic Cummings lit a cigar on his.
On to the weekend’s biggie, Belgium v Portugal. As front threes go, Eden Hazard, Romelu Lukaku and Kevin De Bruyne - ah yeah, you’d settle for it.
It was another Hazard, though, the lesser known Thorgan, who settled the game in the 42nd minute, the absence of an equaliser and extra-time ensuring that all of Belgium could meet their Da’s for a pint. Cristiano Ronaldo, presumably, settled for a pint of water to quench his pain.
