Euro 2008 Day 3: The Dutch "Wonder of Bern"

Since one of the hosts of this year's Euro is Switzerland the German media keeps on reminding their viewers that there was another competition which took place there some time ago. Yes, it's the inevitable "Wonder of Bern" again and again. Although I always encourage people to dig up the stories most of the people have forgotten over the time, the World Cup winning team of Germany in 1954 has long established itself in German football lore. Every child knows by now that the name of the commentator for the German national radio was Herbert Zimmermann, who screamed his famous line "...aus dem Hintergrund müßte Rahn schießen! Rahn schießt! Tor! Tor! Tor!" ("...from the background Rahn might be able to take a shot! Rahn shoots! Goal! Goal! Goal!"). I might have missed one goal there. There has been a movie two years ago which portrayed the team to a certain extent, although the far more interesting storyline was how a German family was trying to find their place in past-war Germany. Helmut Rahn, nicknamed "The Boss" scored twice in the final against Hungary, the best team on the planet at that time. Everybody knows that it was "Fritz-Walter-Weather", rain the whole day long. Everybody knows by now that the Germans had their secret weapon given to them by adidas owner Adi Dassler, shoes with exchangeable sticks underneath. All of this is known and they told the story hundreds of times by now.
So, what I am trying to say is that I am fed up with always being reminded of the same boring, though glorious past of the German team. It almost sounds like the English whining about how they haven't won anything in the past ... how long is it now? Oh, yes, 42 years.
The German media is going crazy over the performance of Lukas Podolski in last night's match. Well deserved, if you ask me. He was all over the place. The British press meanwhile in one of their (in)famous plays on words labelled him "Good Luk". Brilliant.

Romania vs France 0-0 (Group C)
Let's be honest, this was boring as hell. I guess there always has to be at least one game in the group stages which doesn't excel the expectations some people had before the start. France have all the talent of the world to completely take their opponents apart and yet in the past few competitions they didn't really get going. Their group phase at the World Cup two years ago was like a mill grinding corn, slowly and painful and only after the knock out stages began they started living up to their potential. The games against Spain and Brazil were high class and showed what that squad is capable of doing. Now that the old boys are gone or injured it was up to the young guns to fulfil their promise and they didn't do that. Franck Ribéry played an outstanding season with Bayern Munich and yet in this game he failed when he tried to run through the Romanian defense. The strikers in blue were also a huge disappointment. Former prodigy Nicolas Anelka, who celebtrated his magic at highbury almost 10 years ago, was taken out of the game by the defenders and the next big thing from France, Karim Benzema, didn't have any chances at all. This was really poor stuff. You cannot blame Zinedine Zidane's sucessor Samir Nasri though as he was thrown into an already aweful game.
There wasn't anything to expect from the Romanian side although some people had them as the dark horse in the so called "group of death". Still with a performance like this I cannot see them advance to the next stage. It's one thing to stand at your own penalty box with seven or eight players, but you have to at least try to score a goal.
This looked like two teams who were only out on the pitch for one thing, a goalless draw. There was no movement, absolutely nothing. A huge disappointment.

The Netherlands vs Italy 3-0 (Group C)
And there we have it. The first huge surprise of the tournament. I have to admit I was not quite sure of what to think about the Dutch team who have a reputation to fall apart in times of pressure. With Italy coming in as the reigning World champion this was a tough task. But the way they responded was absolutely outrageous. They did not really take Italy apart, but all it needed were a few great attacks and there were the goals. The first one was quite controversial, but considering what I found on the net it seems to be true that if a defending player is lying behind his own goal line he is still considered to be in play so Ruud van Nistelrooy's goal was correct. The second one was pure brilliance. A wonderful counterattack which took apart the Italian defense like a surgeon during an operation. This was high class.
Italy was not giving in though, but they failed to create any threatening chances. I think their main problem is playing with Luca Toni as their lone striker up front, a system which is too much alike to what the Czech Republic plays with Jan Koller. It is way too see through.
The best match of the tournament so far. The Netherlands are now a force to be reckoned with.