Austria - Poland...Euro 08's Switzerland - Ukraine?

[Diamond]

Could this be the least anticipated match of the entire tournament? Will there be even a hint of attacking football? Still, nothing else to do so might as well watch it.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Well, both sides need to win, so you'd have thought they might put some effort into it.

 

[pastieburt]

Austria could of had 2 by now.

 

[pastieburt]

Goal against the run of play.

 

[Maggot]

I've got Austria in my work sweepstake, so I'm taking an interest.

(I put some more money in and got Greece )

 

[TrippyLondoner]

Never thought this would be a boring game tbh.

 

[T & P]

Penalty to Austria with 1 min. to go!

 

[pastieburt]

Injury time penalty. Goal.

 

[T & P]

And Austria are not out yet!

Is this the first penalty given in the tournament?

 

[pastieburt]

Oldest ever scorer in the championships.

 

[pastieburt]

And Austria are not out yet!

Is this the first penalty given in the tournament?

No. Croatia against austria was the first.

 

[TrippyLondoner]

Wow, an amazing finish to the match.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

What a twat. Austria were never going to score in a million years.

 

[Diamond]

Didn't really see the first half, second was alright. That Roger Guerreiro looks like a decent player. It nicely sets up the match with Germany though.

 

[TrippyLondoner]

Austria should've been 3-0 or 3-1 up at half time.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Just watched the highlights; what is up with the camera work

e2a: they've just canged the highlights (was the 2.5 mins version, now it's 10mins), but the main cameraman is still pretty fond of the zoom.

 

[E.J.]

Not a bad match - but the goals were controversial

Austria should've been 3-0 or 3-1 up at half time.

Austria should have converted those 3 first half chances in the first 30 mins of the match. Artur Boruc was outstanding for the away team as he made those crucial saves via Poor finishing from Martin Harnik twice & Christoph Leitgeb. In that stage of the game it was a very hesitant & disorganised Polish defence with Umit Korkmaz (looks a good player btw) causing havoc with is paceon the left wing.

Then very much against the run of play Roger Guerreiro (Poland's best outfield player) scores the opening goal, even though he looked about a yard off side from Marek Saganowski's low cross. Then the Poles took quite a grip of the game and they controlled for most of the second half as the Austrian's looked well flat after their efforts in the 1st half.

But then Howard Webb took a very brave decision & some would say a controversial decision to give or gift Austria a penalty+. It was a life line for the co-hosts as Ivica Vastic*, who kept his cool & slammed home the spot kick to become the oldest player to score in Euro finals history. It was good & open first 45 mins, the second 45 mins was poor. This result all but ended Poland's chances of getting to the quarter finals, whilst Austria will battle it out against Germany for the runners up spot in the group.

*Vastic gets a lifelong supply of beer from a Vienna based brewery since he scored his country's first goal.
+ Penaly incident was when an Austrain free kick was floated towards the penalty area The Polish defender Mariusz Lewandowski imo stupidly pulled down Sebastien Proedel's via his shirt, thus Webb in his view had no option but to award a penalty. I know that Uefa have told the referees to to clamp down on the shirt pulling in the box to be clamped down. Maybe Webb wanted to prove that he's strong enough to make that kind of decision.

 

[TrippyLondoner]

Really, it should be webb who gets that beer...

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Don't suppose anybody here reads Polish and can tell us whether the Polish press are

(a) blaming Webb ;

(b) calling their defender the biggest dickhead in the world?

 

[TrippyLondoner]

I think i can guess that one pretty well.