The Tale of Two games

With Group C or the "Group of Death" kicking off today, it was going to be a great day of football.  The two games were worlds apart.  Romania and France was a boring game, and The Nedtherlands vs. Italy was an exciting match.

France were the favored side, but didn't play like it.  Romania had strong defense, and limited the good chances of the potent French lineup.  Romania had few good chances, but limited all strong chances for France.  The French will be dissapointed not to take maximum points from their game against the weakest team in the Group.  Romania will be pleased with the point, and will look forward to playing Italy who were thrashed by The Nedtherlands.

The Dutch had a tough road to qualify for the nock-out stages.  They had to beat the two finalists of the 2006 World Cup, and a underrated Romania.  The Nedtherlands got the perfect start.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy scored in the 26th minute when he was clearly offside.  Buffon cleared a free kick, that was shot back in.  Van Nistelrooy deflected it in, and the replay showed that a blind man would have seen he was offside.  However, Christian Panucci had crashed into Gigi Buffon on the initial clearance, and was lying behind the goal.  He played Van Nistelrooy onside, and Van Nistelrooy punished the Italians with a collected touch in.

The Dutch didn't put their foot off the gas, and they scored a brilliant goal courtesy of Wesley Sneijder.  The Dutch went on a counter attack, and swept the ball into space on the left.  The ball was played to the right, and back into a sprinting Sneijder who put the ball by an onrushing Gigi Buffon.  

The Italians began to play better, and the game started to level out.  However, in true Dutch fashion, Les Oranjes didn't stop trying to score.  Another counter attack saw the Dutch charge up the field, and Dirk Kuyt struck a ball that was saved by Buffon.  He collected the rebound and sent the ball into the box.  Giovanni Van Brockhorst was wide open and he didn't waste his golden opportunity.

The Dutch fans were delirious, and they should be.  The Nedtherlands beat the World Champions Italy 3-0.  Italy were thoroughly dominated, and Roberto Donadoni needs to do some serious thinking about his lineup for his next game against Romania.