Oh how much I am looking forward to this! The Group of Death, packed with footballing royalty boasting numerous Premier League superstars, how can it fail to be anything but a glorious celebration of the beautiful game, packed with spectacular action and goals??
No, I was never any good at disguising sarcasm, must try harder next time. Why on earth is everyone getting their knickers in a twist about a group which has paired two sides who can always be relied upon to drag the great name of football through the mud?
First we have the French. Now I don’t mind so much that they are widely tipped to win the tournament. I don’t agree, but I can see that there’s clear evidence to suggest that they can spawn enough 1-0 wins to get them through a short competition. What does irritate me is that some idiots still expect France to be in some way entertaining, and the TV directors delight in bombarding us with meaningless slow-motion montages of Thierry Henry et al flicking the ball over some defenders head. In short, France are the Brazil of Europe, geniuses in a bygone age, now nothing but moody, shoulder-shrugging, ultra-cynical, ultra-defensive killjoys who could no more take the game to the opposition than they could take an Orange Sauce prepared by an Englishman.
Ah yes, Orange, which brings us onto the next mob in this group. Compared to the Dutch of course, the French are footballing saints. If expecting beauty from France is naive and ill-informed, expecting it from Holland is the act of the deluded and insane. Anyone who has watched the Dutch play since the 1990 World Cup will know that they have become the standard-bearers for all that is filthy and loathsome about the modern game. Yes, yes they’re mostly supremely gifted footballers, only a fool would argue otherwise, but what use is that when you are also the biggest bunch of petty, snivelling, whining, cheating, disloyal, hold-out-for-an-extra-5-grand-a-week-when-you’re-already-on-80-grand creeps to be found anywhere in the footballing world. But because they once had a player and a team that represented the exact opposite, no one ever sees fit to point it out.
So I think by now you should know where my allegiance lies in this group.
France – There is no denying the French back ten is going to be difficult to breach, nor that Franck Ribery has been one of the outstanding players in Europe, and is an exciting prospect even in a team as negative as this. Their tactical cowardice has the potential to bring them down though, as it did 4 years ago, and in the 2002 World Cup. Having scraped through to the World Cup Final in Germany on the back of one good performance, faith has been kept in their certifiable manager Raymond Domenech, who picks players based on their star sign. His philosophy includes the view that “I could never pick a Leo in defence because I just know he’s going to show-off and cost us”. Which perhaps explains why not too many French supporters rate their chances that highly. We also know that Thierry Henry rarely turns up in these events, and in fact has barely had an impact at international level since Euro 2000.
Italy – The world champs are notoriously slow starters, and that looks like being a worse idea than usual in this group, but I still make them favourites to come through. Many of the games will be tight, and no one is better at controlling a tight game than Italy. The difference between Italy and the rest is that if they wish to put up the shutters, their defenders are capable of doing so without the help of the rest of the team, which gives them far more options than others who have to pull the entire team back to achieve the same effect. In short, Italy know how to defend properly, which is different to being negative. They practice the art of defending, which almost everyone else has lost. To knock them out, someone is going to have to work out how to score against them, something nobody managed from open play in the World Cup.
Holland – You might say that I’m biased, and you would be right, but even objectively I think that the Dutch are sitting ducks in this group. They were behind Romania in qualifying, most of their squad is injured or woefully out of form, and their dressing room atmosphere will be frostier than the Arctic Circle. For their manager Marco Van Basten, a genius, it must be soul destroying presiding over Dirk Kuyt, knowing that he can’t pull the boots on himself. Their first match is against Italy, and if they get it wrong the Dutch will be in their least favourite position – under pressure.
Romania – Everyone’s idea of the outsiders, but the only thing they have to fear is fear itself. If they go in with the attitude that their only chance against such lofty opposition is to park the bus on the goalline and hope for the best, they will probably lose every game 1-0. The Romanians are the equals of even this company when it comes to technique, and considering that they probably have the most vulnerable defence in the group, the most sensible policy would be for them to show courage and try and scare the pants off some of these overrated chancers. I don’t hold out much hope for this though, and I can see them being condemned to a series of narrow defeats. They are certainly not without their chances though, and having finished clear of Holland in qualifying, beating them in the process, they ought to go into that fixture with expectation rather than mere hope.
I will be happy to eat my words if proved wrong, but I will be amazed if this group throws up anything other than tedium. Just await the first TV pundit making an outdated crack about Italy being boring, then see if he takes it back when the Azzurri turn out to be the entertainers of Group C.
Match To Watch – Italy v Romania
Match To Miss – France v Holland
