Well, well...

It looks like all of my predictions have gone against me with Spain powering through its group and Holland doing likewise. I never felt like either country had a great team spirit in recent tournaments and saw no signs of that turning around in 2008, but I have to hold my hands up here and admit I was wrong. It's not that I didn't think that they'd make it through groups, but I certainly never expected them to look as strong as they have. I am interested to see how Spain deal with Italy in the next round, they are not the type of team to sit and watch Spain's pretty passing and I wonder if the Spanish midfield has enough steel to stand up to what promises to be a very hard fought game. I really think the Spanish dodged a bullet when the snarling bulldog Gattuso picked up a yellow card in the France match this evening, he is exactly the type of player who could wreak havoc with Spain's pretty boy midfield.

So, the one thing I was not wrong about was that the former eastern bloc countries are always a great source of entertaining soccer and what's more, a source of footie related entertainment. I noticed in Romania's first game that it must've sucked growing up under communism, it appears that they didn't even have enough names to go around as a full third of their squad is named some variation of Niculae. That was highlighted to me again today when Niculae came on for Niculae late in the game, quite possibly topping the classic Swedish change of Svensson for Svensson. I suppose they must have just dearly loved their president of thirty odd years, that or it was a crime to not name your kid after him. Respect to Romania though, they pulled out draws against both world cup finalists of last year and put in a respectable showing against what looks to be the strongest side in the field. They were well organized and disciplined going both forward and back and showed a lot of spirit. If not for an absurd penalty save from Buffon, they would be continuing on. Perhaps they would have had that little bit extra if they had gone all 1998 and showed a little team spirit in the hair department.