Exhilarating Euros knocking it out of the park
The second phase of the continental showpiece has produced it all — stoppagetime bicycle kick, shock headers in opening moments, fingertip stops to win the game, controversial VAR calls to alter the course of the match, and an unprecedented hattrick of
nternational knockout football, there’s nothing like it. Stature holds no weight here, it disintegrates and fades away into oblivion.
Tactics take the backseat. Pulverising passion, oceans of emotion, gutwrenching nerves, the hopes of an entire nation — these are the driving forces in the playoff rounds.
David, Goliath, Butch, Sundance, it doesn’t matter. It is all about these 90 minutes — a oneoff tie with the highest of stakes and you have to leave it all on the pitch.
It is not the team that is most structurally sound nor the side with the highest possession that progresses. But it is the outfit that is the hungriest for the win, which will go to the ends of the Earth to give to its country the intoxicating ecstasy of progression that will prosper.
The best teams win leagues; not so much the case in Cup football. Knockout football, however, is decided by moments of magic, by players who embrace the pressure and step up, the biggest of names on the grandest of stages.
Stoppagetime bicycle kick, shock headers in the game’s opening moments, fingertip stops to win the game, controversial VAR calls to alter the course of the match, and an unprecedented hattrick of penalty saves.
This is what elimination football promises, and it is exactly what an exhilarating roundof16 delivered at the Euro 2024.
IThe prelude
There was drama in Deutschland well before the first elimination game even kicked off. There was an imbalance in the scales. One half was laden with several titlewinners like an ornate necklace sporting several beautiful stones.
The other, crafted like a pendant flaunting one dazzling diamond, a centrepiece, hogging the spotlight from its supporting acts.
Germany was set to play, arguably and personally, the tournament’s strongest unit in a revamped Spain in the quarterfinal. Euro 2016 winner, Portugal was also on the same side of the draw alongside powerhouses France and Belgium.
On the other end of the draw, it seemed like a straight route to the final for underperforming England, with a Netherlands team that came third in the 2014 World Cup and defending champion Italy also present.
The draw also had its fair share of dark horses with a Slovakia side that beat Belgium, Ralf Rangnick’s transformed Austria, and spirited debutantes Georgia, off the high of a sensational 20 win against Portugal.
Swiss affair
The stage was set. The Olympstadion Berlin prepared to host the first prequarterfinal clash, and boy was it a cracker of a game!
Italy — which finished second only