Friday 8 July 2016 00:38, UK
Sky Sports' Voice of Football Martin Tyler is commentating for UEFA at Euro 2016 in France and he's sharing his experiences here on skysports.com. Today he reflects on France's semi-final win over Germany from Marseille…
Sixteen years before the turn of the century, France hosted the European Championships and won it.
Sixteen years after the turn of the century they are in the final again.
I thought the 2-0 victory over Germany was well deserved, although I feel Joachim Low's side have been unlucky at this tournament overall. Jerome Boateng's injury tonight came on the back of injuries for Mario Gomez and Sami Khedira, plus the suspension to Mats Hummels.
But you have to say Germany have struggled to score goals and paid for that. They only scored three times in the group stage and with Thomas Muller reluctant to feature down the middle they haven't played with much penetration.
France appeared to see that and say 'show us what you've got' in the first 25 minutes, when they sat very deep and tried to pick their moments on the break.
They found a moment with the last kick of the first half after what I felt was a clear handball in the area from Bastian Schweinsteiger. He clearly thought it was a penalty from the way he went down afterwards. I don't know if he's got away with it in the past, but it was a strange thing to do.
Great credit must go to Antoine Griezmann, who missed a penalty in the Champions League final, but stepped up with confidence in a European Championships semi-final. It was the 12th penalty of the competition and France's biggest kick of the tournament - just imagine the psychological damage if he had missed with the last kick of the half!
Didier Deschamps is a serial winner as player and manager and it was impressive to see him play the attacking 4-2-3-1 system again after scoring five against Iceland and facing so many questions about bringing back N'Golo Kante.
But he got a little fortunate because moments after bringing Kante off the bench to protect the 1-0 lead, France scored the second - insurance - goal.
It was strange defending from Germany, but Paul Pogba did well to set up the chance and while it might be seen as an easy finish, players don't arrive in those positions by luck. Griezmann read the situation and was very calm in putting it away with great aplomb.
I was here in 1984 and the semi-final in Marseille - when France beat Portugal 3-2 - was the game of the tournament. I wouldn't say the same of this game, but it was probably the result of the tournament, knocking out the world champions.
I must mention the other semi-final and endorse all of the tributes that have been paid to Wales. They have done their country proud, even in defeat in a semi-final that they truly tried to win.
Nobody could have tried harder than Gareth Bale to turn things around against Portugal and the shot of him and Cristiano Ronaldo at full-time reminded me of Andrew Flintoff and Brett Lee in 2005. It was very much in keeping with a tournament that has been played in a good spirit with only three red cards.
I finish this diary entry with just 70 hours to go until myself and the French players will be back in Paris for kick-off in the final - but they must learn their lessons from the last Euros when Italy beat Germany in the second semi-final.
They went on to lose 4-0 in the final - although I wouldn't compare Portugal of 2016 to Spain of 2014 just yet.
Being here, you feel the force is with France and the players and fans showed their joy with the Icelandic "volcano" celebration, which I think is a wonderful spectacle and a fine legacy of Iceland's contribution here.
It's great because it's one chant that everyone in the stadium can do - and it's visual, rather than just being a voice. As somebody who sat through the vuvuzelas at the 2010 World Cup, I am very happy with this addition!
I wonder which Premier League team will do it first? And will they all end up doing it next season?
