David Marshall's Euro Diary Day 8 - That's Why no-one Ever Picks Italy (Patreon)

I am still alive and kicking, for the most part, but one team’s Euros dream would die today and you would think there was another death going by the face of poor Xavi Simons.

Day 8 started with Slovakia and Ukraine with the latter desperate for a win after the humbling they received in the first game against Romania. It was Slovakia who made the storming start peppering the Ukraine goal. Ivan Schranz gave his side a deserved lead on the 19th minute and it looked like the same inept Ukraine that we saw in the second half of their first match.

To Ukraine’s credit, they came roaring back in the second half and found an early equaliser from Mykola Shaparenko. The ball swept into the net rounding off a fine move. You would have to assume that Ukraine would be thinking that a draw wouldn’t be enough with Belgium still to come, whereas four points from two games suited the Slovakians quite nicely.

Ukraine went looking for the winner and it would come 10 minutes from time. Roman Yaremchuk got his toe to the ball first and managed to poke it by the goalie to keep Ukraine’s hopes of the Last 16 alive.

A good result for the neutral as it leaves group E wide open going into the final games.

Next up we had Poland vs Austria. A country of fighters against the country that would let you walk into their house, kick the dog, fornicate the wife and shite all over the curtains without as much as a raised voice.

Another entertaining match where the Austrians were on the front foot from the off. The magnificent baldy Gernot Trauner fired in a front post header and Austria were looking good value for the lead.

But the Poles, as they are known to do, fought back and got level again. The ball bounced around into the path of Krzysztof Piątek who provided the finish to set up an interesting second half.

Poland couldn’t keep it going and Austria retook control after the break. Christoph Baumgartner supplied a cool finish to put Austria back in front and the game was wrapped up thanks to Marko Arnautović converting a somewhat controversial penalty.

So Austria beat Poland in Berlin. Somewhere in hell, history’s most famous Austrian is very happy tonight.

To the main event of the evening and a true heavyweight bout as France and The Netherlands locked horns.

The Dutch started quickly looking to take advantage of a French team missing Kylian Mbappe. Jeremie Frimpong came agonisingly close in the opening exchanges but from there France took control of the game and passed up on several chances.

The most bizarre of which came when Adrien Rabiot decided to try and square the ball to Antoine Griezmann instead of just scoring from a few yards out. Why? Why would you do that?

The French once again had the better of the chances in the second half but it will be The Netherlands who will feel like they were robbed of the three points. Simons had the ball in the net but it was eventually ruled out as Denzel Dumfries was judged to be obstructing the goalkeeper from an offside position.

After seeing all the angles, I think it was the wrong decision but not necessarily an awful one. I can understand why the referee came to the decision he did on review but I don’t think the goalkeeper was ever getting to the shot from Simons. So the decision stood and everyone’s least favourite country survived to take a point.

We head into an exciting weekend as the groups start to wrap up and my job gets easier with only two games a day. Finally, thank you for all your lovely messages during my plague, confirmed tonight that is covid. Seriously, what kind of wet wipe gets covid for the first time in 2024? This wet wipe.