Euro Trash Day 9: Day Awesome!

Just goes to show, if you worship your keeper as Kālī, he will let you down.

A double-team effort for you here tonight. The NY Kid Precious Roy and ü75 are here to tell you what we remember of the games that were on the TV while we were staring at our computer screens. Just for fun, we will switch games (not really).

Switzerland 2, Portugal's Second Team 0.
Well, the Portuguese gave the co-hosts a nice parting gift by not starting any of Cristiano Ronaldo, Deco, Bosingwa, Simao, and Ricardo Carvalho.

The Swiss actually had the better of the early play as many of the Portuguese players seemed unsure what they were doing on the pitch and not on the bench. But in the 18th Nani sent in a scorcher that Pepe got a touch on and Zapruder (can't recall his actual name and am too lazy to look up the name of the eliminated goalie) did well to get enough on it to put it off the post.

Shocker of the first half was that Senderos saved probably two goals. He made amends by committing a couple of silly fouls. One of which resulted in a card for his own player, Yakin (probably dissent, not positive as there was some switching going on with the Czechs and the Turks).

Game got a little chippy in the second half and Ribeiro could have been tossed for a late studs up tackle. Only a yellow. In the 71st Inler send a nice ball in to Yakin and he put it right past Ricardo. Portugal pretty much packed it in after that. Not in the defensive sense but in the effort sense.

A somewhat dodgy call went for the hosts when Barnetta got taken down in the box. Yakin converted the PK and the Swiss get to play "what if" for the next couple of years.

What if we get at least a deserved draw against the Czechs, what if we don't give up the stoppage time goal to the Turks, what if our best player doesn't go down before the first match is half in the books, what if our players had been offered free beer for life for scoring, what if we started naturalizing Brazilians, etc.

Silver lining: It was Switzerland's first ever Euro win. And most of the players likely sleep with very attractive women. Probably even Senderos.

Turkey 3, Czech Republic 2.
I said what I had to say in the 90th minute. That was a bolded, all-caps "Holy shit!" Just in case you think that was a little over the top, go see what the liveblogger at Soccernet had to say. He starts to use exclamations in the 75th minute and doesn't stop. It was that kind of game.

The Czechs started off bright and on the attack. The Turks, however, had a different game plan. Little did I know it at the time, but Turkey was waiting for the Czechs to tire themselves out. It took 75 minutes and giving up two goals, but dammit it worked.

Czech Republic went up 1-0 in the 34th minute on a textbook Jan Koller header. Remember WC2006 in the first five minutes against USA? Yeah, it was that again. The Turks had been packed in early, getting lots of fouls called against them. the Czechs were all too happy to attack, but could put nothing strong on frame until Koller outleaped everyone in the box. Turkey tried to respond, but after about five minutes retreated into their defensive shell and waited for the second half.

That second half was a complete opposite of the first. Turkey was all over the Czechs from the kick, and by the 51st minute had looked dangerous on at least three attacks. The Czechs had fallen into a counter-attacking mode, and it would have worked with anyone but Koller up top in the 61st. No matter, one minute later the Czechs scored again, this time through a sliding Jaroslav Plasil picking out a cross from Libor Sionko. At 2-0, the game looked finished.

Full credit to the Turks, they never quit, though they did have about five minutes of "feeling sad time" to get through. Finally, they got their breakthrough in the 75th when Arda Turan met Hamit Altintop's grounded cross and Cech was beaten near post.

I am fully aware that if you have not seen the ending of this match, you will not believe what I write next, but trust me, it happened.

The Turks kept up their attack, spurred on by their full-voiced support in the stands. The fans were rewarded when, in the 87th minute, Petr Cech fumbled a slippery ball from a high cross right onto Nihat Kahveci's foot. Nihat's reaction poked the ball over the line for a 2-2 scoreline. I had barely had the time to post the details when Nihat scored again, this time beating an offside trap and floating an amazing shot over Cech, who made no move on the ball.

By this time, all decorum was lost on the blog. Go look. I stopped typing complete sentences. Everyone in the comments used their favorite expletive and exclamations were used as if they were the space bar. The game took an even weirder turn in stoppage time, when Turkish keeper Volkan Demirel, probably incensed that Koller tried to knee him in the hip at full speed, pushed Koller in the chest. Koller flopped like his name was Rivlado. Hey, that was against Turkey, too. Anyway, straight red and Turkey was forced to put a field player in net.

Though there were some possible time-keeping issues, the Czechs could not put any attempts on emergency keeper Tuncay and the Turks were through.

I regained normal breathing about two hours later. Some people were a little too excited, though.



Other stuff happened today, too.

Brazil lost, again. This time in qualifying [Soccernet]
US wins easily against Barbados [Soccernet]
For Mexico, not a strong start to the SGE era [Houston Chronicle]
Man U use different technique to get young Italian to sign [Daily Mail]
Euro Poon [Fox Sports] It says poon--that means NSFW, okay?

Finally, with all due respect to Julie Foudy (whatever exactly that is), do not come onto the post-game show and say that Sneijder's goal is the goal of the tournament anymore, this one is (the angle at :48 does it the best justice).

2eme but Nihat Turquie-Repúblique tchèque
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