Quite the Tourney! (so far)
Simon B
The first weekend of Euro 2020 has been some of the most entertaining football I've ever watched in my life.
Three years ago, I said the same thing about the beginning of the World Cup. It seems as though the beginning of international tournaments have so many mistakes early on in the games and there's always drama and surprises.
The quality of play has been really fun to watch. It's been fast, precise and they're been a fair amount of goals, which is something that this sport lacks at times.
Biggest Surprise
I wrote in my tournament previews that some of these groups don't really have headline games. You wouldn't think that Finland and Denmark or Austria and North Macedonia would be exciting games based on the fact that even the most invested football fans wouldn't be able to name more than three or four players per team. I've learned that in sports (especially football), you should always give smaller teams a chance and watch their games.
I can tell you that I really enjoyed the first bit of the Finland-Denmark game before the scary Christian Eriksen incident. Austria and Macedonia was a great game. The Macedonian fans were simply enjoying their time in their first game ever in a Euro, their players put up a great battle, and Austria scored some beautiful goals. It looked like some video gameplay at times. Wonderful football all in all.
Now that I've seen these games, I'm going to tune in to every game that I can no matter who's playing and I encourage you to do the same. Even if you see Scotland-Czech Republic or Poland-Slovakia, give it a shot you might just be pleasantly surprised.
The Good teams are Good
Italy had a lot of question marks heading into their first game against Turkey on Friday. Before the game, Turkey was getting a lot of hype and praise. Not that they don't deserve it but I felt like people forgot that Italy has a really strong lineup. I wasn't surprised at the 3-0 win for the Azzurri at all. Turkey didn't live up to the hype at all.
For Turkey, it's important that they don't linger on their opening night loss. They've got a shaky Welsh lineup next and if they focus on their style of play, they will have a shot a getting a win. If the Italians play the way they did over the course of the group stage, they will cruise to a group A win for sure.
Belgium was as advertised with a convincing 3-0 win over the Russians in St. Petersburg. The Belgians normally start off their tournament slowly and work up to their best form. Belgium has a relatively easy group stage so they can afford to have a slow start. Especially because they are without their star midfielder Kevin DeBruyne for the start of the tournament.
England and Croatia provided some answers for fans of both countries. For the English, we saw them dominate Croatia for long stretches throughout the game. It's gonna be a huge confidence boost to their group because they've now gotten past the toughest challenge in their group. If they play similarly against their northern neighbors in Scotland and against the Czechs they, like Itlay, should win their group. The Croats do have some work to for sure though. They didn't look at all like the team that went to the World Cup final in Moscow three years ago. Their stars are aging and they couldn't keep up with the speed of England. If they're gonna bounce back against the Czech Republic their gonna need to create an attack from the midfield a lot more instead of the counterattack strategy they tried Sunday that didn't work at all.
Christian Eriksen
At the 43d minute of Denmark and Finland's opening game, the Danish midfielder collapsed in the middle of play. I didn't see what happened so I thought he was fouled or something and they didn't show the replay because it was honestly a scary moment. We now know he suffered a cardiac arrest
I don't have much to say about this simply because there isn't much TO say but I think there is one person who deserves a lot of respect.
Simon Kjær was the first person to attend to Eriksen when he went down and immediately held his head up so that he wouldn't swallow his tongue. Then Kjær performed CPR to try and keep Eriksen alive. The Danish medical staff arrived seconds later and used a Defibrillator on the Inter Milan star to save his life.
Thank goodness that Eriksen is ok and recovering well in Hospital. The decision to restart the game was frowned upon by many, including the majority of the Danish team who struggled to focus for the remainder of the game and ended up losing the tilt 1-0. I think that they should've resumed the game the next day once we had more information on Eriksen's condition knowing he was doing well. Much like the Leafs in their playoffs, Denmark will be playing the remainder of their games for their teammate.
The Wrap
This was a bit of an overview of the first weekend of the tournament. I'll be doing more of a focused article after every day from now until the final on July 11th. Today's games so far have been just as entertaining as the ones over the weekend. It's a big-time tournament and were seeing some big time
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