Euro Wrap, June 14th

It was the last day of the second round of group stage matches, and we have our four group winners. Spain joined Croatia, Holland and Portugal in the top tier of the quarterfinal round. The four teams that will join them, however, are still to be determined.

Greece knows their fate as well, but it is a much less pleasant one. They join Switzerland as the second side to know for sure after two games that this week is their final Euro 2008 game.

More on the matches after the bump.

GROUP D	June 14, 1800 CET, Innsbruck (Austria)
Spain 2 VS Sweden 1 Torres 14′ Villa 90+   Ibrahimovic 33′

Goals and highlights:

Well this has left me a bit confused. I had Spain, Portugal and Netherlands in my first tier of Euro 2008 teams. But Spain weren’t all that impressive today and I was all ready to officially downgrade them to tier two.

In the second half Spain looked short of ideas, and lacking in width. Lots of possession, but no balls out attacks to speak of.

But then David Villa latched on to a hopeful punt up the field, nutmegged Hansson and beat Isaksson to win it 2-1 in injury time. Job done. Not a great performance, but if you can beat a solid team like Sweden without playing all that well, then you’ve definitely got something about you.

Spain had take the lead after 14 minutes though Fernando Torres, El Nino’s first goal of the tourney coming from a well worked short corner straight from the training ground. But an injury to Puyol and a moment of magic from Zlatan made it 1-1 after 30 minutes.

Spain could easily have had a penalty at the end of the first half, when Elmander clattered Silva in the box. As Tito said in the comments of the LiveBlog:

“Anybody get the license plate on that hit-and-run in the box? That was brutal.”

No penalties for full on fouls in this tourney though. Euro 2008 refs are only awarding penalties for holding and pulling shirts, apparently.

Interesting decision by Lars Lagerback at halftime: seems he withdrew Zlatan to rest his knee and that the plan was always for the big man to play only 45. Had this finished 1-1 that would have been a nice plan. Right now it seems a bit daft.

GROUP D	June 14, 2045 CET, Salzburg (Austria)
Greece 0 VS Russia 1   Zyrianov 34′

Zyrianov:

The defending champions of Europe had to take something from this match to stay alive, while a Russian side that many believe to be the rising future stars of the continent didn’t technically need a win, but certainly would have been hardpressed without it. It has to be admitted that, for good reason or not, a lot of neutrals were on the side of the Russians after suffering through Greece vs. Sweden last week. Their strategy of defending and hoping for a set piece 1-0 fell through today, and it was the Russians that won by that very scoreline.

To the Greeks’ credit, they came into this match with a slightly more positive formation, starting Nikos Liberopoulos as the lone center forward and Ioannis Amanatidis on the left side of the attack. They knew that a win here would salvage some hope for their campaign, and they did more in the early parts of this match than they did against Sweden, but the goal always seemed to be to create a set piece opportunity.

The Russian defense, especially in the center, never looked particularly solid, and the Greeks had some real hope of stealing something in the style of their 2004 victories. But it was Russia and Zenit midfielder Konstantin Zyrianov who netted the lone goal of the match in the first half, taking advantage of a slipup from the Greek keeper, an implosion from the defense, and a lovely Malouda-esque bicycle kick assist from Sergei Semak.

After the goal, Russia pushed hard for another, but ran into the Greek wall. The Greeks had several good chances, as did the Russians, and no one seemed up to the task of finishing. In the end, that first goal was enough, and Russia moves even with Sweden before the two meet in a final-day winner-take-all matchup. The match between group winners Spain and group losers Greece is now completely meaningless, and Spain will have the choice that Croatia, Portugal and Holland have - to rest or keep rolling.

UEFA made Roman Pavyluchenko man of the match, continuing the long tradition of me completely disagreeing with UEFA. I give that honor to Yuri Zhirkov, who put lovely cross after lovely cross into the perfect spot in the Greek penalty box, only for his teammates to miss or waste his service.

Bracket Watch
Today, six points were awarded in our Euro 2008 Bracket Predictor, making a total of 20 points so far. Things are starting to settle out a bit, and there are only two perfect scores out of 1005 entries. Elena from Russia and Furio from San Diego are those two. Will one of them hold on for the group stage prize of the limited edition Nike boots, or will one of the many two points back (including local Timbers fan Barnacle Brian) jump into the top spot? Check out how you’ve done so far at bracket.worldcupblog.org.