Although it was a good game to watch, the Azzuri were far from impressive against Romania. Suddenly the possibility of failure is staring them in the face and they ain't handling it too well. I wonder if the ghost of Ahn Jung Hwan has returned to haunt Adrian Mutu. Ahn Jung Hwan was the South Korean who scored the golden goal to knock Italy out of the World Cup six years ago. Playing with Perugia at the time, he returned to Italy to find himself out of a job. How would Fiorentina and their fans have reacted to Mutu if he'd buried the penalty kick to knock their nation out of Euro2008? Methinks it might just be enough to drive Adrian back to the white powder.
Mutu was already walking a tightrope when he fired Romania into the lead but that age-old maxim about a team being at its most vulnerable in the immediate aftermath of scoring proved true when Christian Panucci levelled the scores just a minute later. At that point I expected Italy to romp all over them but it just didn't happen. Luca Toni looked like Boydie on a bad day and I always suspected that the Romanians might do a bit of damage on the break. Mind you, the penalty kick was a joke, with an Uncle Fester lookalike of a ref seeing something which nobody else did when Panucci challenged Daniel Nicolae. My lip-reading skills came into play when Gianluigi Buffon chased away all those protesting about the decision. "Never mind guys, I'll save this," he told them. He did, keeping Italy in the tournament and probably saving Adrian Mutu's job at the same time.
Seeing France get a proper humping a hour or so later might have made the Italians feel a wee bit better. Tuesday night's game in Berne promises to be a right cracker, a winner-takes-all rematch of the last World Cup Final. And with Italy and France also having gone head to head in the qualifiers, I can't help thinking that they must be sick of the sight of each other. I'll bet both are now wishing Scotland had qualified from their group.
Once more Holland served up a superb display of classic counterattacking football. The way they keep the ball, then get in behind teams is a joy to behold and again our good friend Giovanni Van We-Are-The-People Bronckhorst had an absolute stormer. Dirk Kuyt's early goal forced France to do all the chasing and it surprised me that it took until the 59th minute for Holland to add to their lead with a Van Persie break. Thierry Henry's goal (offside?) had the Dutch worrying for all of 60 seconds until Arjen Robben battered in their third goal.
Back in those long ago days when Rangers signed genuine top quality players (instead of Wolves, Septic and Derby County rejects), I remember sitting up late on Thursday nights to watch Dutch football on Channel 5 and being impressed by a teenage Wesley Sneijder strutting his stuff for Ajax. C'mon Minty, I thought, get your wallet out and bring that man to Ibrox. Dream on! Now Sneijder is a big star at Real Madrid and he showed exactly why when he crashed home goal number four in the dying seconds. But think about this for a second, if we'd shelled out maybe £5,000,000 a few years ago, it would be Rangers and not Ajax who pocketed megabucks from Real Madrid. If only we had a chairman with a football brain and a wee bit of ambition for our club.
So Group C has come down to a straight fight between Italy and France to see who joins Holland in the quarter-finals. My money is still on the Italians, unless the Dutch decide to down tools against Romania, maybe even giving him with the funny name a game, for fear of either of the big two coming back to bite their bum in the latter stages. I reckon Romania might be worth a wee punt on Tuesday night.
LITTLE BOY BLUE