By Myles Palmer
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HOW CRAZY CAN FOOTBALL BE ?
The two semis were all decided by corners.
Deco corner, Ronaldo header 1-0.
Ronaldo short corner, Maniche shot, 2-0.
Van Bronckhorst cross, Andrade own goal 2-1.
Extra time corner, Dellas header 1-0.
In the 105th minutes Dellas met Tsiartas’s corner at the near post -and it may have gone in off his shoulder.
Nedved went off injured, the Greeks had two more days rest, and Dellas scored the silver goal from a corner.
After 60, I reckoned Bruckner should push Rosicky up nearer Kohler, as they play together for Dortmund.
Rosicky needed to be getting the ball on the edge of the box, not on the halfway line
Baros was looking raw, daft, immature.
After 80, Rosicky at last broke forward and played a one- two with Kohler and then played the ball back to him, creating a good chance, but the big man shot wide.
OPEN PLAY is what happens between set-pieces.
The whole of Portugal was on a high on Thursday and all of Friday – until that silver goal by Dellas.
What’s Portuguese for deja vu?
Greece are the Porto of Euro 2004.
They play a game of attrition, of grinding, of percentages.
The game reminded me of Arsenal 1 Parma 0.
Parma had the flair, Arsenal had the organisation, the discipline, the tenacity to nullify technically superior opponents – and then grab a single goal and win the trophy.
If Greece win on Sunday it’s the biggest fairytale since Denmark came off the holiday beaches to lift the trophy in 1992.
In a million years, who would have guessed that the final would be a repeat of the first game?
A 31-game tournament over 22 days ends with Game 31 repeating Game 1.
We have all made plenty of predictions. But nobody made that one.
July 1st 2004