Euro 2008 Disaster

I’ve totally been avoiding writing about this because part of me still believes that it’s only a nightmare…But man, out of the eleven OL players in Euro 2008, only one will be showing his face in the quarterfinals.

I have nine other identical pictures just like this.

To recap:

SWEDEN: Final standing: 3rd, 3 points

Greece 0 – 2 Sweden
Sweden 1 – 2 Spain
Russia 2 – 0 Sweden

Kim Kallstrom: Inexplicably benched for Daniel Andersson of Malmo, Kallstrom played for 45 minutes…total. He came on towards the very end against Spain and early in the second half against Russia. Maybe that’s why Sweden, who only needed a draw against Russia to progress to the quarterfinals, lost in humiliating fashion and will be watching the rest of the tournament on television.

SWITZERLAND: Final standing: 4th, 3 points

Switzerland 0 – 1 Czech Republic
Switzerland 1 – 2 Turkey
Switzerland 2 – 0 Portugal

Patrick Muller: Muller played every single minute in all of Switzerland’s group stage matches. For the most part, he and the rest of his team performed above and beyond expectations as Switzerland were REALLY unlucky not to progress since they played better than most of their group. But several bad refereeing decisions and losing Alex Frei early in the tournament pretty much doomed them from the start.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Final standing: 3rd, 3 points

Switzerland 0 – 1 Czech Republic
Czech Republic 1 – 3 Portugal
Turkey 3 – 2 Czech Republic

Milan Baros: He only played in one of Czech Republic’s matches, and that was against Portugal, where he played for the entire game. I happened to be watching that game, and I’ve come to the conclusion that he only plays well for his national team. Baros played with more enthusiasm and energy in that one match against Portugal than he has in an entire year at Lyon. That being said, Czech Republic would have been in the quarterfinals if they hadn’t handed over a two goal lead to Turkey, who scored three goals in the last 15 minutes.

ITALY: Final standing: 2nd, 4 points

Netherlands 3 – 0 Italy
Italy 1 – 1 Romania
France 0 – 2 Italy

Fabio Grosso: The only OL player who is actually having a good tournament. Once again, Grosso is proving that he plays better in Azzurri blue than in Lyon white (see: Milan Baros). Appearing in all three games, he came on as a second half sub in Italy’s disastrous encounter against the Netherlands but started the two other matches. He’s played well in all his appearances so far and will probably be in the starting XI in Italy’s quarterfinal match up against Spain. From what I hear, Grosso has possibly been the best Italian player so far – and to think that no one in Italy wanted to sign him from Inter last summer.

FRANCE: Final standing: 4th, 1 point

Romania 0 – 0 France
Netherlands 4 – 1 France
France 0 – 2 Italy

It’s fair to say that every single French player had at best a mediocre tournament. No one stood out, not even Franck Ribery, who was unfortunate to pick up an injury in the early minutes in the game against Italy. It’s also fair to say that France are solely responsible for ending last in their group – they scored only one goal and gained only one point. They created nothing in the game against Romania, several collective errors saw them ass-raped by the Dutch, and both Italian goals were scored because of retardedness by French players – Abidal gave away a penalty and Thierry Henry deflected the other goal into his own net.

Gregory Coupet: He had a tournament to forget. Well, that’s a bit harsh. He didn’t have anything to do against Romania, and against Italy, he played really well. If it hadn’t been for Coupet, Italy would have beaten France by four or five goals. Unfortunately, most of us will remember his match against the Netherlands, where he conceded four goals. Two of those goals, he probably couldn’t do anything about, but the other two…very disappointing. He is a world class goalkeeper and rarely if ever makes errors, so I don’t know what that was about. But it was as if he had reverted to his form right after he returned from injury, back in January.

Francois Clerc: Benched for the first two games, after Willy Sagnol’s poor performances, he started against Italy. Like all other players in that game, it’s hard to gauge exactly how he did since the entire team was in chaos after Eric Abidal’s explusion, but I thought he did fairly well. Offensively, he didn’t contribute much, but with only ten players on the pitch, I’m pretty sure Domenech told Clerc to stay back. But defensively, he was really solid, except for his foul on Antonio Cassano (which indirectly led to the second goal).

Jean-Alain Boumsong: He was never intended to be anything except a bench player, which is why he didn’t play at all in the first two matches, and why Abidal was preferred to him when Domenech decided to bench Lilian Thuram. However, once Abidal was sent off, Domenech called up Boumsong, who I thought was actually more reassuring than William Gallas.

Sebastien Squillaci: Didn’t play for a single minute in the entire tournament. Was probably shocked to see Boumsong selected ahead of him when Abidal’s spot needed cover.

Jeremy Toulalan: Since Patrick Vieira failed to regain fitness, Toulalan played in every minute of France’s group stage matches. He did his job to perfection, which was keeping things tight in the midfield. Combative, he and Makelele were the reason that the other teams had to utilize the flanks to get past those two. However, Toulalan drew a lot of criticism for his lack of offensive activity – even his long passes were so-so.

Sidney Govou: He didn’t play against Romania, but started against Netherlands and Italy. And like always, his performances were all across the board. Against the Dutch, Govou was a significant attacking threat and looked closet to scoring, but like always, squandered those chances. Against Italy, he was not a threat and was substituted out early in the second half.

Karim Benzema: This wasn’t the tournament Benzema was hoping for – or expecting. He was supposed to pull a Wayne Rooney circa 2004, but unfortunately, Benzema will have to wait until World Cup 2010 to assert his international dominance. Against Romania, Benzema was played totally out of position and was forced to act more like an attacking midfielder than a striker. He didn’t play at all against the Netherlands – supposedly Domenech was unhappy at his arrogance and Makelele took Benzema to task after that loss in the locker rooms. It’s an unsubstantiated rumor, but one I can believe. Benzema was put back into the starting lineup against Italy, and though he had some good moments and was probably the biggest attacking threat, with one man down, Benzema was once again forced on the left to help compensate defensively.

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Category: Internationals, Player News and Rumors