What a second half!…The Turks are through and although they played with never-say-die determination they were somewhat fortunate. They were 0-2 down with fifteen minutes to go when the Czechs hit the post for what would have been the final nail in the Turks coffin. Moments later, with the Czechs seeming to suddenly stop playing, it was 1-2 following a shot that I thought Cech should have done better with at his near post…With three minutes to go Cech made one of the biggest mistakes of his career when he let a harmless cross drop form his hands at the feet of the Turk captain, Niatt, who made no mistake and it was 2-2. Even so late in the game, with the Czechs reeling, a penalty kick shootout was far from certain and sure enough, with just seconds remaining, the excellent Tuncay slipped a pass thought the exhausted Czech defence and, although it looked offside to me, the flag stayed down as Niatt finished superbly for a 3-2 victory. The Czechs are out, Cech’s performance should be severely criticised, as should that of many of his teammates, and the Turks now face Croatia in the quarter-finals. Croatia will be rightly favored but clearly Turkey cannot be counted out…Thank god I’m not a Czech fan…
In the other game, it was “nice’ that the host team Switzerland prevailed over the disinterested Portuguese who had already won the group and now await the runner-up in Group B for their quarter-final opponent – probably Germany but…
As for the commentary team it really is very disappointing that ESPN did not see fit to raid their overflowing coffers to set up a studio in Switzerland/Austria to host the studio show and, more importantly, have their commentators actually at the games. With announcers Alex Rae and Adrian Healy along with color commentators Anyd Gray and Tommy “Onion” Smyth actually sitting comfortably in an L.A. studio and reporting on the games as if they were there, it really is quite insulting – nothing new there then from ESPN’s football/”soccer” coverage…Tommy Smyth cannot see what is going on when he is at the game so what chance does he have of saying something insightful when he is 6000-plus miles away watching a t.v screen?
