France 2 Romania 1
Giroud 58 Stancu 65(pen) Payet 89
After 74 minutes it was 1-1 and I was thinking,”Oh well, we’ll see much better games in two weeks time.”
Then Didier Deschamps took Pogba off and brought Martial on, a rather odd substitution.
Did the manager want to see if France played better without Pogba?
Quite soon their ensemble fluency improved and then came the late winner that startled Mrs Palmer.
Jan said,”Oh! What a goal! That’s an amazing goal!”
An incredible strike by Payet, who jerked the ball down with his right foot and smashed it into the postage stamp with his left from the edge of the box.
Seeing that astounding shot reminded me of a Brazilian I used to love and I said, “Zico, eat your heart out!”
Asking myself, “Have I seen anybody since Zico who could have scored the goal that Payet has just scored?”
As I’m thinking this, Deschamps takes Payet off after 90.47 and the little genius gets a standing ovation and leaves the pitch in tears.
It’s a very emotional moment for the whole of France.
This closely fought contest was 0-0 at half-time and then Payet crossed and Giroud went up with the flapping keeper Tatarusanu and headed in his 18th goal for his country
Then left back Evra produced a foolishly aggressive trip on Stranciu, the kind of thing he routinely does outside the box. But this was in the box and the ref gave a penalty and Stancu wrong-footed Hugo Lloris and beat him with a shot that was too close to the Spurs keeper.
I’d been wondering: Will everybody’s first game be as close as this?
Romania had defended well and competed intelligently, right from the kick-off.
We have no idea what Romania might do against Switzerland or Albania because we haven’t seen those teams yet.