Just as I suspected it would, Euro2008 proved to be one tournament too many for so many French football legends. Coach Raymond Domeneche will surely step down, Didier Deschamps is already being tipped to take over and, with impressive young talents like Ribery, Benzemi and Nasri sure to be around for a long time to come, the time is right for Les Bleus to rebuild. The next World Cup might come along too soon for the new team but four years from now they will be right in there as genuine contenders to win Euro2012.
Yet the French had started so well against Italy and it all might have panned out differently if Franck Ribery had not been carried off with a suspected leg break after only nine minutes. A straight swop of Samir Nasri for Ribery didn't appear to upset the shape of the team but 15 minutes later Eric Abidal found himself on the wrong side of Luca Toni, the big Italian went tumbling, it was a clear penalty kick and an equally clear goalscoring opportunity, so Abidal was off and Domeneche's knitting unravelled big time.
As Pirlo smashed home the pen, a face from the past returned to the limelight when Jean-Alain Boumsong came off the bench to bolster the defence, replacing sub Nasri who could barely have worked up a sweat in his short time on the pitch. And although France made light of being down to ten men, the Italians always looked like they were capable of stepping up a gear and putting their opponents out of their misery.
They had missed Rino Gattuso's presence when they faced Romania at the weekend but the wee man was back in his usual place in midfield, snarling at all those around him, winning the ball and moving it on quickly, picking up his seemingly mandatory yellow card in the process and he, like Andrea Pirlo, will be a big miss when suspension forces him to sit out the quarter-final clash with Spain. And Roberto Donadoni will be hoping Luca Toni at long last comes good up front. He had so many chances against the French, yet didn't seriously threaten to score, seemingly modelling his performance on that of Christian Vieri for Fiorentina against Rangers.
In the end a deflected 62nd minute free-kick from Daniele De Rossi gave the Italians the breathing space they needed and, with Holland ruling out any shock fightback from Romania, the Azzuri strolled through to the quarter-finals. And by the way, for anyone daft enough to rate the Polish Bigot as the best keeper of the tournament, might I suggest you check out a few clips of Gianluigi Buffon in action? Different class!
When I saw Marco Van Basten's starting line-up to face Romania, I wondered if there was some skullduggery afoot. With Group C already won, the Dutch may have feared either Italy or France coming back to haunt them in the semi-finals and could so easily have opted to lie down, enabling the Romanians to go through at the expense of the big two. But the Oranjemen's back-up team is a wee bit special too - hey, they were even able to give big Salt'n'Vinergar of Castlemilk a game for the last seven minutes! - and, after taking maybe 20 minutes to settle into the game, they were just too good for their opponents.
Second half strikes from Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Robin van Persie wrapped up a 2-0 win to maintain their 100% record in the tournament and Holland will now pay close attention to events in Group D where Russia and Sweden meet in Innsbruck to see who faces the Dutch in the last eight in Basel on Saturday. This one will be tight but I fancy the Russians, with such a heavy Zenit St Petersburg presence, to edge it, although I can't imagine Van Basten's team having too much trouble in seeing off either of them at the weekend.
All of which will leave us with four potentially rivetting quarter-finals. Thursday: Croatia v Turkey. Friday: Portugal v Germany. Saturday: Holland v Russia: Sunday: Spain v Italy. Bring it on!!!
LITTLE BOY BLUE