10th
July 2016
As so it
came to pass that in spite of his petulant on-field strops, his barely
concealed impatience at the limitations of some of his teammates, his woeful
free-kicks (not to mention a shameful verbal swipe at those awfully nice
Icelandic chaps), Euro 2016 may well go down in history as Cristiano Ronaldo’s
tournament.
Christ, I even
heard someone call it Ronaldo’s Final – utterly bizarre given he spent just
seven minutes of it as an active participant; until Dimitri Payet’s clumsy (but
nothing more) challenge effectively ended his day. And yet, even after his eventual withdrawal
on 24 minutes, his presence appeared to hang over proceedings like a pall. And I genuinely believe it was French boss Didier
Dechamps' inability to take full advantage of the piece of good fortune presented
to him which ultimately cost his side the trophy.
For even
with the early loss of their opponents’ talisman, France did not really appear
to alter their game-plan one iota. A
more proactive thinking-on-the-hoof manager may have immediately (or, at the
very latest, at half-time) replaced Moussa Sissoko or Blaise Matuidi with N'Golo
Kanté, and thus freed up Paul Pogba to run the show in midfield. Instead the Juventus man remained pinned down
to his task of “protecting” his back-four.
Goodness, how much fortification does any international defence require
when faced with lightweights such as Nani and Ricardo Quaresma? A touch more adventure would surely have seen
the hosts pick up the prize.
That being
said, Descamps I suppose could quite justifiably point to the fact his side
dominated possession for much of the second-half and carved out at least three
gilt-edged opportunities in the process which, on another day, may have seen
the French win with ease.
Antoine
Griezmann’s headed miss on 66 minutes was a quite appalling one for a
professional footballer (even one who stands just 5’9”), with Olivier Giroud’s
failure to beat Portuguese ‘keeper Rui Patrício ten minutes later equally
damning.
And what of
André-Pierre Gignac’s last-minute effort which hit the post? Bad Luck perhaps? His turn which out-foxed Pepe (my
player-of-the-tournament) was quite divine, but ultimately his subsequent shot
failed to hit the back of the net for no other reason than his inability to
strike the football cleanly.
With extra
time came an incremental yet tangible shift of the pendulum towards the
Portuguese, with EDER’s 110th minute winner coming just moments
after Raphaël Guerreiro had thudded a free-kick off the French crossbar. The ease with which Eder shrugged off Laurent
Koscielny’s challenge in the lead up to the goal was almost laughable, although
in mitigation, the Arsenal centre-back had just received a yellow-card, which I
am sure, was fresh in his mind.
Urged on by
Ronaldo’s increasingly megalomaniac antics on the touchline the Portuguese
defence held firm, although were glad to see Anthony Martial fluff his big
opportunity in the dying seconds.
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| Stade de France - Euro 2016 Final |
Although Son
had noted the moth on Ronaldo’s face as the player was shown injured on the
large screen, more generally where we were sitting the fluttery little chaps were
few and far between. Perhaps a dozen or
so in total, flying about in that seemingly aimless manner they employ. What was more noticeable was the flock of
swifts that bombed around at roof level clearly gorging themselves. And once darkness begun to fall, larger lighter-coloured
birds also appeared – hawks to feed on the swifts? If so, Nature Red in Tooth Claw, true enough.
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View of the stadium from our hotel
(not that you particularly need to know that). |
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| Stade de France, Paris. |
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| Stade de France, Paris. |
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| The Canal St.Denis loops around the Stade de France |
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