Euro 2016 Draw

England and Wales were drawn in the same group for the European Championships in France next summer.

The draw, this evening in Paris, saw two of the home nations pitted together with Slovakia and Russia in Group B.  England will take on Wales in Lens on June 16 in what will be their second match of the tournament.

England’s opening game is in Marseille against Russia on June 11.  Marseille was the venue for England’s 2-0 win over Colombia in France ’98 when David Beckham scored a great free-kick.  England’s last group match will be against Slovakia in St. Etienne on June 20.  St. Etienne was another of England’s venues in ’98, where they lost on penalties to Argentina and Michael Owen scored ‘that goal’.

This tournament has been expanded to 24 teams and this has thrown up the romantic occurrence of several first-timers to Europe’s top party.  Wales and Northern Ireland will make their bow in June, as will Albania, Slovakia and Iceland.

England were one of the top seeds in the draw, along with France, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Belgium.  France were automatically drawn into Group A, although UEFA couldn’t avoid the futility of having to draw their name out anyway, presumably to make sure we hadn’t forgotten them.

They were drawn in with Romania, Albania and Switzerland.  France v Romania will be the opening match Euro 2016 at Stade de France on June 10.

England were drawn out next to go into Group B, along with Wales who meet Slovakia first up on day two of the tournament in Bordeaux.

Northern Ireland were drawn into Group C, which was headed up by World Champions, Germany.  Ukraine and Poland make up the group.  Northern Ireland’s first opponents will be Poland in Nice on June 12.  They take on Germany in Paris on June 21, after meeting Ukraine in Lyon on June 16.

Defending champions, Spain, were drawn into Group D and will meet Czech Republic in their opening game.  Turkey and Croatia were also drawn into this group.

Group E appears to be the toughest of them all and poor old Republic of Ireland were given the honour of trying to find their way out of this one.  Belgium, who top FIFA rankings, Italy and Sweden are to be their opponents.  June 13 sees both opening games in this group with the Republic coming up against Sweden in Stade de France.  They then take on Belgium in Bordeaux on June 18 finishing with Italy in Lille on June 22.

Group F, in contrast, appears the easiest of groups and Portugal can consider themselves very lucky to be drawn top seed in this one.  They’re up against Iceland, Hungary and Austria.

The top two in each group progress to the knock-out stage along with four of the best third-placed teams.  These will be determined by points first, goal difference next and then goals scored.  The knockout phase takes on a similar format as World Cups do, with a Second Round, consisting of sixteen teams leading to a Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals before the Final at Stade de France on July 10.

There are many matches to look forward to and I’ll be posting some previews in anticipation of an exciting tournament.

In addition, I will be posting pieces on each of the previous tournaments.

If you want to follow the tournament using an online wallchart then look no further than this website.  This guy puts together some wonderful spreadsheets which means all you have to do is enter each result and the document automatically updates.  You can try and predict the scores too and see who might meet who in the knock-out rounds.

http://www.soccerwallcharts.com/downloads.html

World Cup Stories - Play Acting

One of the features of every World Cup is the vast lengths players will go to convince a referee they’re hurt or almost mortally wounded in a challenge.  This is done simply to gain an advantage over the other side.  In a competition where you may only play five or six times, if that advantage means you win a match then it has huge implications for your team.

Two of the most infamous instances of conning a referee into believing they were injured occurred in 1998 and 2002.

In 2002 in South Korea, Brazil were up against Turkey in the opening game of Group C.  Brazil were 2-1 up, having been a goal down with Rivaldo’s penalty three minutes before the end looking to have settled the match.  Deep into injury time the Brazilians were ‘trying to run the clock down’ by wasting as much time as possible.  They had a corner on the right and Rivaldo was going to take it.  He stood next to the corner flag, with the ball just lying on the pitch a few yards from him.  Looking for all the world as if he was waiting for a little porter to come on and bring it to him.  Turkish midfielder, Hakan Ursan, was clearly frustrated with this blatant abuse of time, so he walked over and kicked the ball at the lauded Brazilian.  The ball hit Rivaldo on his legs and he was immediately castled, rolling around on the ground as if he’d been shot.  But the icing on the cake was the fact he was holding his face and for a brief moment it appeared Ursan had kicked the ball into Rivaldo’s face.  Our opinions were soon altered when the replay clearly showed Rivaldo being hit on his legs yet he was holding his face.

The referee, who only got one look at the incident, believed Rivaldo’s version and awarded a yellow card to the Turk, who’d been booked earlier in the game, and as a result meant he was sent-off and banned for two matches.  Rivaldo, one of the most revered player of his generation, had conned the referee and thought he’d conned the watching world.  FIFA eventually caught with the coverage and fined him £4,500. They didn’t recind poor Ursan’s red card, though.

Rewind four years to France ’98 and the Semi-Final stage at Stade de France.  France are up against Croatia and after conceding first they are 2-1 up, with about 15 minutes to go.  The French have a free-kick on the left level with the edge of the penalty area.  Both teams have about five players each in the box and as the kick comes over, Croatian defender goes down holding his face.  The ball is hit too long and goes out for a goal-kick, but the referee has blown for an infringement.  He walks up to Laurent Blanc, the ever reliable French central defender, and shows him the red card.  Evidently, Blanc had struck Bilic as they jostled for space in the area just before the ball was delivered.  Again the watching world thought this was a stupid attack from the Frenchman when a World Cup Final appearance beckoned.  But, as with the Rivaldo incident, replays soon gave us the real truth.

As Bilic grabbed hold of Blanc’s shirt the Frenchman turned away from the ball and in an attempt to free himself from the Croatian’s clutches, slapped Bilic in the throat with the palm of his hand.  Bilic, sensing an opportunity, went down holding his head as if Blanc had punched him.  Blanc had receive straight red card yet immediately received sympathy from the viewing public.  He’d been cheated out of an appearance in the Final, the pinnacle of any footballer’s career.  At 32 it was clearly going to be his only chance of a World Cup Final and in one act of skulduggery it had been taken from him.  Bilic, who was playing his football at Everton at the time, has struggled to shake off the ignominy of the incident especially when compared to his ‘nice guy’ image.  What was worse for Blanc was that his replacement was Chelsea’s Frank Leboeuf, who seemed hardly fit to lace Blanc’s boots but actually gave a good account of himself in the Final.

Again, FIFA may well have subsequently agreed a red card wasn’t deserved, they didn’t recind it, Blanc sat out the Final, Lebouef got a winner’s medal but the only saving grace is the invention of youtube has meant few will ever forget the antics of Rivaldo and Bilic.