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Hiddink: has done it again
Someone asked me if I, as an Englishman, felt better having seen Russia and Croatia go through and although I couldn't say yes, I am sure Mr McClaren will have answered it differently! Yes Sweden, as honest as they are, just ran out of legs and were the perfect opposition for Russia; but with Andrei Arshavin prominent, they put on a real footballing exhibition.
Matin Tyler
Tuesday night was all about Holland-Romania and what was a conspiracy theorists delight!
All the talk was of Marco van Basten doing his old AC Milan colleague Roberto Donadoni a favour but what struck me - and seemed to slip under most people's radar - was that Romania actually needed to win the game to make Italy-France irrelevant. How many times have we been able to say that down the years?
We were all waiting to see what side van Basten put out and in the end there were nine changes. There would have been 10 had Mario Melchiot been fit enough to start, but when you consider the Dutch still had Robin van Persie, Arjen Robben and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar it was not that bad, was it?
I did think it was a risk playing van Persie and Robben, but it was one that paid off. Van Persie played the full 90 minutes and proved he was still going strong with that late goal and although when Robben missed a glorious chance I am sure I heard one or two people mutter something about them not wanting to win.
In my commentary position my two monitors were trained on the game but the commentator in front of me had the France-Italy game on one of his and directly in my eye-line in fact, I was also able to watch the French unfold. I had prepared six different scenarios for what might happen given particular results and with their loss and Romania's it was at least a little easier to work out than it might have been!
And you've got to hand it to Raymond Domenech. Proposing to his girlfriend live on French TV has to go down as the best away of diverting attention from a tournament when his side simply didn't show up. I have never had anyone I have interviewed propose on air, although it does knock spots off Kevin Keegan's rant and Big Ron throwing down the headphones!
From Berne, it was a six-hour train ride back into Austria and Innsbruck for another of the shoot-out games, this time between Russia and Sweden.
I've got to say, after four games in five days - and having learned my lesson with the banned energy drink - the levels of vitality were not what they might have been. The same could have been said of Sweden of course, but I have to say, Russia's performance perked everybody up.
Warm-hearted
The Guus Hiddink factor was the talk of Innsbruck and having first met Guus well over 20 years ago, I have got to know him pretty well and was not at all surprised to see his qualification record continue. He works so well with his players, he is a warm-hearted guy and a great understander of people and reader of character. He gets the right people involved in terms of competitiveness and their ability to mix and the evidence was there for all to see.
Someone asked me if I, as an Englishman, felt better having seen Russia and Croatia go through and although I couldn't say yes, I am sure Mr McClaren will have answered it differently. Yes Sweden, as honest as they are just ran out of legs and were the perfect opposition for Russia; but with Andrei Arshavin prominent, they put on a real footballing exhibition.
I bumped into Pat Nevin on train earlier that day and saw him after the game and he summed it up perfectly when he said: "Six hours, I'd have travelled 26 hours to see that". Credit also to another familiar face I saw before the game, Ray Houghton, who predicted exactly what unfolded.
But my personal high point was still to come. This might only be relevant to readers of a certain age (or avid football fans and googlers among you), but I did get to meet one of my all-time footballing heroes that night as well. Ralf Edström was a huge star for Sweden in 1974 and one of the best headers of the ball there has ever been.
Ralf was honest enough about Sweden not being good enough but when he inquired whether I remembered him or not, I couldn't help but blurt out "Of course, you were one of my heroes!" As a much younger centre-forward - and indeed still a wannabe striker - I always wanted to emulate Ralf and to meet him, even after all my years in this business, did leave me a little star-struck!
Moustache
On Thursday morning I had another blast from the past when by sheer coincidence, the former Manchester City midfielder, Tony Henry got on my train to Basel.
Again, older readers will remember his long hair and moustache and City fans might recall that he was part of Malcolm Allison's side that famously lost to Halifax Town in the 1980 FA Cup. It was a huge shock back then and it was the first giant-killing of my commentating career, so the memories of the muddy pitch at The Shay and the winning goal from Paul Hendrie (Lee Hendrie's dad) are still so vivid.
So, completely ignoring the fact that City did in fact make it all the way to Wembley the next year, I took Tony down memory lane for a good while! His memories, understandably, were not as clear as mine, although he did say that the City squad had tried to get a night out to recover from it, only to walk into a bar full of their own disgruntled fans!
He is now working for Everton in what he describes as the "Frank Arnesen roll" and is really David Moyes' man at Euro 2008. It was great to catch up and was also on his way to watch Germany-Portugal, although I am sure he could find better topics of discussion to pass the time on a train!
The first of the quarter-finals was yet another entertaining game and my take on it was that Portugal simply made more mistakes than Germany.
Marvelling
It was a very Chelsea-orientated affair with Big Phil Scolari, Paulo Ferreira and Michael Ballack all heavily involved, although Ferreira clearly lost his battle with Bastian Schweinsteiger for the first, it does mean that the Blues new coach can start maybe earlier than planned.
All the talk was and still is, of Cristiano Ronaldo's future and whether or not he is off to Real Madrid. From my commentary position, I managed to get close to pitch-side in the hope that I could catch him as the players went off, but needless to stay he didn't stick around.
People out here have been marvelling at him as much as we do back home and while my relatively low position in the stand didn't exactly lend itself to the wider tactical picture it did give me a truer appreciation of his wonderful technique and speed at which he does things.
He was helped, I have to say, by a pitch that didn't look like much, but played very well indeed. Credit must go to Uefa who took a bit of a risk - which they are not known for - in laying a new one in Basel for just three games and were rewarded with a very good playing surface.
It might not have been enough to spare Portugal and it probably made Tony Henry feel even worse, but it showed that Uefa do get things right.
Comments (1)
Arun Sivasubramanian (Manchester United fan) says...
Martin Tyler is spot on when he said Russia put on a real exhibition with Andrei Arshavin's prominent presence. Arshavin is a class act, i love to see him in the premiership. I am a great fan of another one he is none other than Martin Tyler, he is a legend. I always loved his commentary and his articles. There is no doubt that he is the Best commentator in the world, when he says something footballing world should listen. Take a bow Martin Tyler.
Posted 15:56 22nd June 2008