Barry Glendenning has arrived in the liveblog bunker, full of the joys of Romania v Netherlands, so it’s time to wrap up this frankly underwhelming day’s work. We’re only as good as the news cycle spinning around us, you know that. Please join Barry for actual news and actual on-field action.
Thanks for your company and emails – and don’t bloody miss Austria v Turkey tonight. It’s going to be a corker.
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“Sweet of you to set the bar so high regarding Euros best-ofs,” says Ian Copestake. “Having read the room, I would suggest asking the baying horde for top five sh1ttest managers.”
All-time Euros XI
Well that was harder than I thought it would be. Here’s my hastily compiled XI, in 4-2-3-1 formation.
Peter Schmeichel Denmark 1992
Giourkas Seitaridis Greece 2004
Claudio Gentile Italy 1980
Leonardo Bonucci Italy 2021
Giacinto Facchetti Italy 1968
Gunter Netzer West Germany 1972
Sergio Busquets Spain 2012
Karel Poborsky Czech Republic 1996
Michel Platini France 1984
Zinedine Zidane France 2000
Marco van Basten Netherlands 1988
Omitting Xavi (2008) and Andres Iniesta (2012) made my soul weep, but Busquets provides better balance and I can’t leave Netzer out of anything. I’ll level with you, I don’t have much memory or knowledge of Gentile in 1980 and Facchetti in 1968, but Italy conceded only one goal each time and I have the same attitude to 20th century Italian defences that David Brent had to Mr Sidney Poitier.
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Okay, nobody was interested my team of the tournament so far, so how about an all-time Euros XI? Two rules. Players are picked on their performances at a single competition (ie Zinedine Zidane in 2000, not 1996), and you can only have one player per tournament.
I’m going to scrawl mine in the next 10 minutes or so; feel free to send yours in.
Premier League news
Chelsea have officially signed Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall from Leicester for a fee of around £30m. Dewsbury-Hall, 25, came through the ranks at Leicester and starred under Enzo Maresca last season.
Introducing Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to the Chelsea family! 👋 pic.twitter.com/u8Y4F386l0
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) July 2, 2024
Nick Ames on how Ralf Rangnick made Austria the talk of the town
As a team we’ve been together such a long time and everyone knows what we want, We know what the coach demands. Many of us have had a similar education and the other players have adapted very well. It feels very good, on and off the pitch.
Football Daily has landed
Watching Cristiano Ronaldo against Slovenia was like sitting through Good Will Hunting if Will wasn’t very good at maths. Or rather, watching a sequel, where 39-year-old Will used to be good at maths, but has forgotten how to be good at maths, so all that happens is that rather than focus on potentially more interesting characters that could lift the narrative, the cameras follow Will as he walks around, crying, with a sense of absurd entitlement.
On this day in 1982… Nothing to do with the Euros, but just look at these goals.
Tonight’s match is between two teams who will not die wondering. I’m really looking forward to Austria v Turkey, previewed here by Nick Ames.
“Just to corroborate your Italia 90 memories, I clearly remember Bobby Robson receiving all manner of tabloid-led stick both before and during the tournament (all of which tabloids would later shamelessly revert to treating him as a national treasure of course),” says David Hopkins. “I also seem to remember that switching to a sweeper system was to a degree a matter of necessity, due to a fear that the Dutch would tear England to shreds, and the loss of his main midfielder in Bryan Robson.
“It remains to be seen whether things will fall into place for Southgate in a similar way, but FWIW I think he’s suffering from having stayed on for one tournament too many, and needing to adjust his approach to fit in a newly undroppable talent (shades of Hodgson in 2016, who I always felt would far rather Kane and Rashford hadn’t emerged to ruin his attacking plans).”
That’s not quite true: Robson started the Netherlands game (and then went off injured). But the change was definitely driven by what Marco van Basten did to them at Euro 88. One thing I find interesting is whether it’s still possible or desirable to rip it up like Bobby Robson in 1986 and 1990. In those days attacking football in particular was much more off the cuff.
I agree that it might be one tournament too many – it reminds me a little bit of Mike Atherton staying on as captain for the West Indies series in 1997-98, when deep down he knew he was done. And yet the players seem to love him and are giving everything they have. It’s all very puzzling, and personally I don’t think it’s as simple as picking/dropping so-and-so.
Romania v Netherlands kicks off at 5pm, with Austria v Turkey – it’ll be the game of the round, mark ma words – to follow at 8pm. Here’s Paul MacInnes’ preview of the Netherlands game.
Both coaches kept their selections close to their chests but each seem likely to make changes. Ronald Koeman acknowledged he had yet to find the right balance in his midfield, and Edward Iordanescu must at least find a replacement for the suspended left-back Nicusor Bancu.
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“Without wishing to be unkind to the fellow, because he has an undeniably thankless task, Southgate comparing England’s displays of 1990 and 1996 with the current tournament overlooks his own (key) role in the poor performances,” says Ben N. “His colossal stubbornness, sticking with the same ‘tactics’, formation, and players, even though, despite progressing, most agree, it has been as far from optimal as you can get, and is due its comeuppance (likely in the extremely near term). Konsa will probably be the only change for the Swiss, the defence will continue to sit deep, pass sideways, and be unable to connect with the midfield. The left side will be non-functional etc., like a painful Southgate-orchestrated Groundhog Day.”
From memory Bobby Robson was criticised even more aggressively in 1990, certainly before he switched to a sweeper system. It’s easy for me to sympathise with Gareth Southgate as I’m a) largely neutral and b) soft, but I think England’s poor performances are down to so much more than his tactics. They look utterly shattered for a start. I don’t love the balance of the team and I would definitely play Anthony Gordon, but I also agree with Jamie Carragher when he says the players should take more responsibility.
It’ll be interesting to see how England’s tournament is remembered if, say, they reach the final and then lose to Spain. I guess it depends on performances. Football is no longer just a results business.
Germany and the Netherlands love each other now, it says here. I’ll only believe if if Ronald Koeman arrives for tonight’s game wearing a fragrant Olaf Thon shirt.
They should soon be doing their bouncy dance as well.
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Some very interesting names still in the hunt for the Golden Boot. It’ll make my heart sing if Niclas Füllkrug wins it without starting a game.
After months of being hampered by injury and only being able to train sporadically, Leroy Sané says he is finally pain-free and has backed himself to make an impact for Germany when they face Spain in Friday’s mouthwatering quarter-final. The Bayern Munich winger had raced against the clock to recover from a nagging pubic bone inflammation and started his first match for Germany in the last-16 win over Denmark. Here’s what he has just had to say:
I hope that this [tournament moment] will happen and it would help our team as well. That is my task that I want to fulfil and hopefully it will happen in the next game. I didn’t know how long the injury would last and if I would make the tournament. At the end of the day I am here and happy that it worked out and that I could recover and be here for the Euro. It is not yet completely gone but it is much, much better than before. I have no pain any longer and that is very good. Before when I had a game I needed five or six days for the pain to subside. I don’t have that any more.
Thanks Rob. I missed this last night (pardon the meta pun).
Did anyone actually spot "Misstiano Penaldo" on the BBC during the #Euro2024 game? Did this really happen?!
— Bobby Seagull (@Bobby_Seagull) July 1, 2024
An intern is either getting promoted or handed their P45 tomorrow... pic.twitter.com/O4tlaiMhuQ
Time for lunch, so I’ll hand over to Gregg Bakowski for a little while. Bye!
Spain v Germany will be the first quarter-final, a classic contest between the hosts and the best team in the tournament to date. Spain’s Mikel Oyarzabal has been talking about the excitement back home.
Obviously, you can’t ignore it. Messages come through. We are trying a bit to stay on the margin. We’re in an atmosphere that couldn’t be better, to be quiet, to prepare the game as well as possible.
Now people say we’re favourites, but three or four weeks ago, nobody was saying it. We know we are capable of competing against anyone. Not now because people believe we are more or less favourites, are we going to ease up ... We’re relaxed, working hard and trying to prepare as well as possible for Friday.
Germany are a great team, you don’t need me to tell you that. They’ve started the tournament really strong, it’s going to be a tough game. “There’ll be time to rest later. Hopefully it will be in two weeks when we are taking our holidays!
And here’s what’s his teammate Zan Karnicnik had to say
We will never experience something like this again. We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved. It’s sport, it gives you something once, it takes it away from you the next.
Benjamin Verbic, one of the three Slovenia players to miss a penalty last night, had this to say after the game.
When you’re out like that, you can only be proud. You saw the joy there was for the Portuguese at the end of the game. I think we’re all proud. It’s hard to choose the words to describe the game. We really gave everything on the pitch.
It’s a lottery, unfortunately it didn’t work out. We’re disappointed, but at the same time, proud of everything we’ve done. Everyone who went to take a penalty showed that they wanted to help.
Memory lane
David Squires on the Ronaldo Show
This is marvellous, especially his woebegone Bruno Fernandes and the description of Cristiano Ronaldo as “an influencer whose act now seems to mostly consist of howling at the sky”.
Life’s big questions with Kevin De Bruyne
This is how the great man reacted to the inevitable question after yesterday’s defeat to France.
What is a ‘golden generation’? You say that France and England and Spain and Germany is not a golden generation?
Me:
— Tancredi Palmeri (@tancredipalmeri) July 1, 2024
“Kevin, does it hurt that golden generation didn’t achieve a final once again?”@KevinDeBruyne : “What is a golden generation?”
Me: “Yours”.
DeBruyne: “And you say that France, England, Spain, Germany have no golden generation?… stupid”.
Well.
They DID ACHIEVE A FINAL pic.twitter.com/7LghJSTNQe
Any takers for a Team of the Tournament so far? This comes straight out of my off the top of my head, so I may have missed someone obvious. It’s also inevitably shaped by the games I’ve seen. Feel bad leaving out Granit Xhaka but it was him or Fabian Ruiz as the left-sided central midfielder.
Ma team (4-2-3-1) Mamardashvili; Kimmich, Akanji, Rudiger, Janza; Rodri, Fabian Ruiz; Yamal, Sabitzer, Williams; Mikautadze.
Coach Ralf Rangnick
Game mode 🔛#EURO2024 | #AUTTUR pic.twitter.com/I6fszX7LMI
— UEFA EURO 2024 (@EURO2024) July 2, 2024
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There’s plenty of live sport going on elsewhere.
Tanya Aldred is at Southport, where Jimmy Anderson is among the wickets.
And Tom Davies has his gaze fixed on Wimbledon, where Andy Murray has pulled out of the men’s singles.
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Quarter-final lineup
After tonight there are two rest days before the quarter-finals, which begin with a rare old humdinger.
Spain v Germany (Friday, 5pm)
Portugal v France (Friday, 8pm)
England v Switzerland (Saturday, 5pm)
Romania/Netherlands v Austria/Turkey (Saturday, 8pm)
On this day in 2021… Italy ended another Belgium dream.
Another plug for this fine piece by Sid Lowe on Rodri, an eloquent giant of modern football.
Spurs sign Archie Gray from Leeds
Archie Gray may well feature for England at a future European Championship, such is his talent. He’s joined Spurs from Leeds in a player-plus-cash deal, with Joe Rodon – who excelled on loan at Elland Road last season – making a permanent move in the opposite direction. Gray usually plays either in midfield or at right-back.
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Jonathan Liew on Bukayo Saka
Kieran Trippier is writhing in agony on the turf, Cole Palmer is on the touchline, ready to take over your position, and your mission – which you have absolutely no choice in accepting – is to relearn a role you haven’t played for more than three years, in the space of 26 minutes plus injury time. Oh, and England are losing 1-0 in the Euros, and if they go out, people will deluge you with abuse. Some of it will be racist. Good luck.
“I’m relieved the England team weren’t told Ed Sheeran planned to serenade them after the match,” says Kev Graham. “That would almost certainly have guaranteed England’s defeat.”
Honk! Maybe something like that should be written into contracts for when teams are relegated. A month of mandatory Pitbull concerts if you go down; that’d make a difference on the old GPS tracker.
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Here’s more from Tom Garry on Arsenal’s star signing
“Onana and De Bruyne played in the same positions as Mainoo and Rice yesterday,” begins Phil Grey, “the difference being that Belgium play 4-4-2 whereas England play, what, 4-2-1-3? Maybe Belgium’s formation is a bit too rigid, but everyone knows their role.
“I suppose it’s good that Foden is free to wander, but he wouldn’t have to if he started as the 1 in that formation. But nevermind. Without Grealish and Shaw England only have Gordon on the left. Saka, Palmer, Foden, Eze and Bowen are all better on the right, as are TAA and Trippier.”
I would play Gordon on Saturday, especially as Switzerland play wing-backs so you want to stretch their three central defenders. I’m still not sure there’s room in a well-functioning team for all three of Foden, Bellingham and Saka, certainly not when Kane is the centre-forward.
So anyway, who should play centre-back for England on Saturday? I think I’d go for Ezri Konsa. Switzerland have some rapid forwards and England will need his pace. My only slight concern is playing him as the left-sided centre-back, so maybe John Stones could move across.
Here’s more on Cristiano Ronaldo’s ascent from rock bottom. Imagine if he scored the winner in the final, against England.
Can he play wide left?
Here’s a bit more on England from the news wires.
England’s players were treated to a private performance by British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, a day after their dramatic come from behind victory over Slovakia in the Euro 2024 last 16.
Sheeran visited the players at their camp in Blankenhain following a light recovery session on Monday, with video of him performing “The A-Team” posted on social media platform X.
I can’t be the only person thinking of Nigel Kennedy right now.
A bit more news from the wider football world. Arsenal have signed the mighty Mariona Caldentey from Barcelona; helluva signing, that.
And so to England, who face Switzerland on Saturday. Gareth Southgate has made the reasonable point that Italia 90 and Euro 96 weren’t all milk and cookies either.
Everybody now looks back at 96 in a different way to how it was at the time,” Southgate said. “We were bang average against Switzerland [in the opening tie]; we were the same against Scotland. They missed a penalty at 1-0. Spain should have beaten us in the 0-0 draw … 1990 was similar. So you do go through these moments in tournaments. We know we should be better than we’ve been but I’m saying that …
Austria v Turkey (8pm)
Ralf Rangnick’s side hammered Turkey 6-1 in a friendly in March, which adds a meaty layer of context to tonight’s game. Here’s Nick Ames’ preview of what is going to be a cracking game. You have our word.
Roberto Martinez on Cristiano Ronaldo
I thanked him [afterwards] for being the way he is, for caring for the group. I was certain that he would be the first penalty taker and show us the way to take victory. I think we’re all very proud of our captain. Our dressing room was all delighted. I think he gave us all a lesson. Life and football gives you difficult moments and the way he reacted shows why we are so proud in Portuguese football.
Romania v Netherlands (5pm)
Netherlands coach Ronald Koeman was asked at his press conference what he thought Johan Cruyff would have made of their defeat to Austria. I can’t decide whether that’s an ingenious question or a bit snide; probably the former.
It’s a difficult question. I know he liked attacking football very much, but I was a part of his team a long time and we had worse matches than we did against Austria. Of course, we are a proud nation; we like to win, we like to play nice football, but it’s not always happened. We take the critics, no problem, and we’d like to turn it around and make people happy for the final result.
Randal Kolo Muani played a big part in France’s winning goal against Belgium. Here’s Barney Ronay on our old friends, sport and politics.
Most obviously the presence of successful and highly visible players such as Kolo Muani in this France team represents, in outline, something that is not National Rally, the immigration-fixated hard-right party that took the single largest share in the overnight parliamentary elections.
RN wants tougher controls on citizenship. RN wants to reduce access to certain jobs for people it sees as insufficiently French. Kolo Muani’s parents were born in Kinshasa. He holds dual nationality. He embodies, along with his teammates, a happy, functional tableau of people from a deep cut of French society.
On this day in 2000… more misery for Italy, who are seconds away from winning Euro 2000 when the ball drops to Sylvain Wiltord.
On this day in 2016… poor Simone Zaza launched a memorable penalty into orbit during Italy’s quarter-final defeat to Germany.
In other news, the Copa América hosts USA went out at the group stage after an extremely controversial defeat to Uruguay, whose winning goal looked offside to the naked eye. Team VAR thought otherwise.
It doesn't get much tighter than this... pic.twitter.com/ZiciIvCFaF
— Premier Sports (@PremSportsTV) July 2, 2024
France 1-0 Belgium
Here’s Sid Lowe’s report on another day of underwhelming success for France.
Deschamps suggested that this was all part of the plan, proud of a team he said had not fallen into the “traps” the Belgians laid for them. Getting here, he said, was something worth celebrating. After all, it is not so easy and they might not have done.
Ronaldo: I was at rock bottom
Here’s the great man’s reaction to last night’s melodrama.
Even the strongest people have their bad days. I was at rock bottom when the team needed me most. I was sad at first but now I’m happy. That’s what football is. Moments, inexplicable moments.
When I think of my family, I feel emotional because they are unique moments that I cannot express in words. They are people I love, the fans who are always with us and especially with me, and I am very happy about that.
I hadn’t missed a penalty kick all year. At this moment I missed it, but the most important thing is that the team won. I lost twice on penalties this season and won the third time. Sometimes football is fair and sometimes just, but we deserved to qualify.
I will always give my best for this shirt, whether I fail or not, but you have to take responsibility. I have never been afraid to face things head on. Sometimes I do things right, sometimes I don’t, but giving up is something you will never hear from me.
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to our daily Euro 2024 news blog. We’re down to the last ten: France and Portugal reached the quarter-final yesterday, and the last two places will be decided by today’s fixtures:
Romania v Netherlands (5pm)
Austria v Turkey (8pm)
Yesterday’s games were relatively boring but highly dramatic. France beat Belgium with a late own-goal from Jan Vertonghen; and Portugal, as predicted, beat Slovenia comfortably – but only in a penalty competition after a fraught goalless draw. All three of Slovenia’s kicks were saved by Diogo Costa.
Cristiano Ronaldo managed to both enhance and diminish his reputation. At times his desperation to score turned the game into a bit of a farce. But after having an extra-time penalty brilliantly saved by Jan Oblak, a moment that reduced Ronaldo to tears on the field, he showed extraordinary mental strength to score with an unsaveable penalty in the shootout.
Here’s what Jonathan Wilson made of it all.
