England Make Second European Exit in Five Days

Hoo!

You could say England voted with their feet this time.  As in did a poor job with them.  Not to take anything away from Iceland's performance in their 2-1 defeat of the Lions but England were bloody awful.  How much of it was players being in unfamiliar positions versus players simply not performing?  Seems like it was both.  Iceland hadn't even finished their group Viking chant (left) before Roy Hodgson had resigned.

Good on "Our Boys" for not collapsing after Rooney's PK gave England an early lead.  The response was nearly immediate, with Sigurosson leveling things a mere two minutes later.  Sigporsson's (um, my computer can't do the letters justice) well-placed, though not overpowering shot in the 18th minute turned out to be the game winner.  Check out this call from the Icelandic announcer.  Sure he was biased but ESPN's Ian Darke and Steve McManaman didn't even bother to pretend, making their disgust with England's performance evident throughout the broadcast.


Shaqiri's Bicycle

The Iceland-England contest was my favorite of the round but Switzerland-Poland was good too - a pretty open, flowing contest.  Switzerland, trailing 0-1 late, got a stunning goal from Shaqiri.  By itself, it was a thing of beauty.  But in the context of a team desperately trying to level the match, it was even better.  An easy choice for this week's YouTubeableMoment.  Too bad the Swiss ended up losing on kicks from the spot.

Belgium found their A game and pummeled Hungary 4-0.  Not especially thrilling but good to see this team play, well, as a team.  Italy's 2-0 upset of Spain probably has to go down as an upset but The Blues (sorry, Azzurri) have had a strong tournament so you can't really call it shocking.


The Quarters

When the dust settled, we ended up with the following quarterfinal match-ups.

Poland - Portugal
Wales - Belgium
Germany - Italy
France - Iceland

They'll go in that order, one a day, starting Thursday.  All matches are at 3 pm EDT.


Copa Conclusion

The USMNT made a credible showing in the consolation match but still fell 0-1 to Colombia.  Don't know what to say about the Argentina - Chile final.  The fouling began early.  The referee probably overreacted, showing a second yellow on what was a questionable foul and a straight red on what was a questionable yellow.  Sure looked like a make up call.  I had hoped that 10 v 10 might have made for a more interesting second half but not really.  Neither team managed to score in 120 minutes.  So it came down to kicks from the spot, and Chile was the winner.  Not the best ending to what was overall a pretty decent tournament despite its seamy origins.


Did They Really Listen?

More than once Dennis has questioned the fairness of a red card for denying an obvious goal scoring opportunity in the box.  "It's like a double penalty - the penalty kick plus the sending off."  Well now the rules only call for a PK and a yellow, provided it was a legitimate attempt to play the ball.  Similarly, I had suggested that when matches go into extra time, teams be allowed additional subs.  Copa America officials made a step in that direction, allowing each team one additional sub should the match be level after 90 minutes.   There, that wasn't that hard was it?


Uh, What About the Defense?

The Union haven't had much trouble scoring, even with Sapong out and Nogueira gone.  But now the defense has become susceptible to counter attacks and goals scored otherwise against the run of play.  The 2-3 loss to Vancouver was the third straight match in which the Union surrendered three goals.  It is a relatively young back four; maybe there are also transition issues as Alberg takes over for Nogueira.  Needs to be sorted out quickly as we have half the season to go.



On Your Own

Thursday I head out to Eugene for my other unpaid gig, following track and field.  Almost certainly won't be able to see the Euro quarters live and maybe not even on streaming replay.  Hope to see the semis and final live but that's not a sure thing.  So expect the posting to be light nonexistent for the next few weeks.