Good morning buddies.
One thing magical has occurred. The solar, the fantastic ball of fireside in area that has not been seen in Dublin for a lot of aeons now, has appeared this morning and the air is heat. So, I’m eager to take advantage of it, and as such at the moment’s weblog will comprise some brief snippets of stuff fairly than the in-depth evaluation to which you may have grown accustomed …
*cough*
… let’s begin with final evening’s 0-0 draw between France and the Netherlands. I assumed William Saliba was mainly impeccable, however then that’s nothing we haven’t seen earlier than, and probably the most fascinating a part of the sport was the disallowed purpose. Xavi Simons thought he’d scored, however there was a VAR verify. The title Stuart Atwell was talked about. Oh god. Couldn’t they’ve discovered somebody higher? Like Stuart Little? We waited. And waited. And waited.
The VAR within the Euros has been environment friendly, fast and that has, in no small half, seen selections accepted far more readily. Not this one. The difficulty was Denzel Dumfries standing in an offside place proper between the Mike Maignan and the place the ball went in. I don’t assume the French keeper would have been capable of get there even when he had been capable of dive, however the presence of Dumfries was definitely an obstacle.
My rule of thumb with issues like that is to place some Arsenal context on it. Would I be sad if we had a purpose dominated out for that? Completely, however then I’d be sad if we had a Maradona hand of god purpose dominated out after Ben White had picked the ball up like some sort of working again and charged 60 yards up the sector. So would I be sad if that purpose had been allowed to face towards us? In seriousness, sure. I don’t assume the problem was the choice, it was much more concerning the time it took.
Within the earlier sport, I completely loved the way in which Wojciech Szczesny conceded a penalty. You may virtually see the precise second he thought ‘Sod it, I’m simply gonna clatter this lad’, and so he did. His ‘Ahh nicely, what are you able to do?!’ afterwards to the be-clattered Marcel Sabitzer was fairly humorous too. Clearly not as amusing for Poland as they misplaced 3-1 and are actually out of the match, the primary aspect to be eradicated to this point.
And earlier once more, Ukraine got here from behind to beat Slovakia. Oleksandr Zinchenko was caught out for a cross which led to the opening purpose, however he offered an help for the equaliser and had an honest sport all advised. Roman Yaremchuk’s winner was a stunning strike, a deft contact and end, however I don’t assume Newcastle’s Martin Dubravka did nicely sufficient within the Slovakian purpose. Ukraine face Belgium of their closing sport on Wednesday, and Leandro Trossard’s males are in motion at the moment towards Romania. Turkey v Portugal could possibly be a tasty one in a while too.
In switch information, David Ornstein studies that Michael Olise has chosen to hitch Bayern Munich, which makes me somewhat unhappy as a result of he’s a participant I covet like a bastard. However, I’d a lot fairly he went there than Chelsea. No good can come of any respectable participant going to such an inherently noxious organisation, and I’m glad Olise has been nicely suggested on this matter.
Proper, that’s your lot. We can have a weekend version of our Euro 2024 podcast on Patreon a bit later, for now, take pleasure in your Saturday.
