The five champions gather in the top half of the death zone! Say goodbye to the lethargic group stage and the real European Cup begins

Football Newspaper

2024-06-27 12:59Football newspaper official account

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012024 final matchday of the European Championship group stage, Romania, Slovakia, Belgium and Georgia finished first, second and qualified for Group E respectively.

02Belgium failed to defeat Ukraine in Stuttgart and reluctantly settled in the "top half of the death zone" as the second in Group E.

03Georgia became the first team to advance to the round of 16 after a 1-1 draw with Portugal.

04Due to the lackluster performance in the group stage of this European Cup, the five powerhouses of France, Germany, Spain and Portugal gathered in the "top half of death", which is expected to push the knockout round of the European Cup to a climax in advance.

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Romania won the top spot in Group E and advanced hand in hand with Slovakia, Belgium relegated to the second place in the group and had no choice but to settle in the "top half of the death zone", Georgia's upset promotion made the European Cup six-dynasty veteran Ronaldo score for the first time in the group stage, and Turkey eliminated the Czech Republic with one less player in stoppage time...... In the early morning of June 27, Beijing time, the last match day of the group stage of Euro 2024 ended the last four battles, and the European Cup entered the next stage.

After 13 days of fierce battles, how was your viewing experience? Which game impressed you and which goal will be etched in your European Championship memory? I believe that for the vast majority of Chinese fans who stayed up late to watch the game, it is difficult to live up to the name of "feast" in the group stage of this European Cup. The superstars who hurriedly embarked on the national team journey without waiting for the holiday were exhausted, and the performance of England, France, Portugal, and Italy could only be said to be unsatisfactory, and Belgium and the Netherlands, which were already slightly weaker, had negative expectations.

For a group of veteran powerhouses, the group stage in which 24 teams participated seems to be more like a warm-up and an appetizer. Fortunately, the lackluster and even slightly dull group stage has given birth to a super death semi-zone that gathers the five powerhouses of France, Germany, Spain and Portugal, plus the former European champion Denmark, which is expected to push the knockout stage of the European Championship to a climax in advance.

Belgium failed to beat Ukraine in Stuttgart and could only settle in the "top half of the death zone" as the second place in Group E. In the three matches of the group stage, Belgium has never been able to show a performance on the field that matches the third place in the FIFA rankings, and in this game, knowing that maintaining the status quo may meet France in the first round of the knockout round, it still did not show its determination to win, and its fighting spirit is obviously not as good as that of Ukraine, which has its back to fight. In stoppage time, Malinovsky's dribbling from the centre circle was even more defenseless, and if it hadn't been for Sudakov's late shot, the Belgian would have gone home.

The distraction of the Belgian defence late in the game also forced De Bruyne to react passively when he won a corner in the 93rd minute. De Bruyne's desire to spend the game at the corner flag was not understood by his team-mates, and the delay in stepping up to cooperate was even more laughable. The Belgian fans in attendance were clearly not satisfied with the team's performance, and after the game, they booed loudly from the Belgian team, who finished second in the group. After the game, the Red Devils captain called out his players and refused to be interviewed, and the media also photographed the Belgian players having a heated altercation.

Belgium coach Tedesco summed up his team's performance after the game and admitted that he had missed a good chance, but more attributed the team's lack of preparation to the tournament organisers.

"We arrived at the stadium in a situation that I had never seen before, and it took us an hour to get from the hotel under the escort of the police. The road is completely clear, but they slow down to 20-25 kilometers per hour, and every traffic light is red. I only had two minutes to prepare for the talk, and we had to cut back on the warm-up. Tedesco repeated "unbelievable" three times and complained: "Anything can happen here, everything is allowed: we can be delayed for an hour, but the game cannot be postponed for 15 minutes, someone shines a laser pointer in the eyes of our players." ”

Slovakia and Romania are also happy with the draw. The two teams shook hands 1-1 and entered the round of 16 hand in hand, so it was born for the first time in the history of the European Championship that there were 4 teams with 4 points after the end of the group stage, Romania and Belgium with a goal difference of +1 ranked first and second, the former overwhelmed the Red Devils to advance by virtue of the goal advantage, Slovakia with a goal difference of 0 ranked third and also qualified, and Ukraine became the team with the highest points eliminated after the expansion of the 2016 European Championship because of the defeat of Romania in the first game of 0-3.

There have been two previous precedents for the Continental Tournament and the World Cup to have four points tied at the end of the group stage: in the 1994 World Cup, the four teams in Group E had the same number of points, goals and goal difference, Norway was eliminated due to a lack of goals, and Italy, who were lucky enough to qualify in third place, finally reached the final. In the 2000 Africa Cup of Nations, Group A was also 4 teams with 4 points, but at that time, 16 teams qualified for the top 2 of 4 groups, Cameroon and Ghana beat Ivory Coast and Togo on goal difference, and Cameroon, the first team in the group, finally won the championship.

The first half of the zone is home to the five powerhouses of France, Belgium and Spain, and it is also the first time that the round of 16 after the expansion of the 2016 European Championship has gathered five European Cup champions. The top eight teams in the world have four spots: France (2nd), Belgium (3rd), Portugal (6th) and Spain (8th), while hosts Germany (16th) and even Denmark (21st) are not weak.

England, who was "selected" into the lower half of the zone three years ago, is also looking forward to reaching the final again. Their opponent in the 1/8 finals is Slovakia, which is not strong, and no matter who the opponent is in the 1/4 finals, the strength on paper is slightly inferior to the Three Lions. However, considering the slump of the team in the group stage and the uneven distribution of possession in the midfield, whether they can take revenge on Italy in the quarter-finals may not only depend on whether the Azzurri can break the Swiss Army knife.

After the group stage, Gracenote gave the probability of winning the championship: despite being in the "top half of the death zone", Spain still has a 17% probability of winning the championship. This was followed by Germany (12.8%), the Netherlands (11.6%), France (10.7%), England (9.5%), Portugal (7.4%) and Italy (7.0%).

The biggest highlight of the final round of Group F is that Georgia finally became a dark horse, setting 4 records in team history in the first game. Georgia have only played Portugal once before: a 2-0 defeat away to Portugal in the 2008 warm-up game, and revenge by the same score 16 years later.

The Portuguese team, which had already secured the top spot in the group before the game, rested as many as nine main players in rotation, only goalkeeper Costa and Cristiano Ronaldo, who hoped to set a goal record for six consecutive European Championships. However, Georgia, who were aiming to win, sealed the victory with penalties from Kvaratskhelia, the team's most valuable player, and Mikotaze, a naturalized center from France, who temporarily topped the European Championship scorers list with three goals and one assist. Cristiano Ronaldo was substituted in the 66th minute and has yet to score in his three starts.

It is worth mentioning that when Ronaldo visited Georgia in 2013, he took a group photo with the first batch of students at the inauguration ceremony of the renovated football academy at Dynamo Tbilisi. Eleven of the Academy's previous students have been selected for the Georgian national team, and the group photo against Portugal is three main players of striker Kvaratskhelia, midfielder Chakvetadze, goalkeeper Mamardashvili and one substitute Davitashvili. After the game, Kvaratskhelia hugged Ronaldo on behalf of the Georgian schoolchildren of the year, and Ronaldo, who failed to set a goal record for 6 consecutive European Championships, became a witness to the rise of Georgian football.

Georgia also set a number of records: in addition to their first major win and first major qualification, this was the first time in 25 official matches since Georgia began participating in international competitions in 1991 that they beat the traditional European top eight (English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Dutch-Dutch).

Georgia had previously drawn at home to Italy (1998 World Cup qualifiers) and France (2013 World Cup qualifiers) in official matches, and won the first time in 32 official matches against European champions. This is the second time in 24 years that Georgia have beaten a traditional European powerhouse in the A-League after beating Spain 1-0 away in the warm-up match in 2016.

The shock win also made Georgia the fourth time since the expansion of Euro 1996 that they would make their debut from the group after Croatia, 1996, Iceland and Wales (2016) – and although they will face one of the favourites in the first round of the knockout round, Spain, Kvaratskhelia and his team-mates have already made history regardless of the outcome.

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