Euro 2008 - Day 7

Romania 1 - 1 Italy

Netherlands 4 - 1 France

Who would have thought this would be the case. What seemed like it was going to be the tightest of all the groups in terms of having an outright winner, has ended up having a run away winner.

The scoreline of Italy Romania probably didn't do justice to the match. You could argue that Romania have been one of the surprise packages of this years finals so far. They have performed well against the world cup finalists and the now the world cup winners. They were once again solid in defence and Adrien Mutu caused all sorts of problems up front. Like wise Luca Toni at the other end was making himself known. The game came down to a penalty and it was saved magnificently by Buffon in the Italy goal. That was enough for him to get my man of the match.

Then came Holland France. Who could have called this emphatic victory at the beginning of the game. At times the French looked menacing and had chances of their own. Henry put his goal away well, there were flashes of creative brilliance form Ribery and Toulalan started to show the reason he is so highly rated, but none of this was enough. they came up against a Dutch side full of confidence that comes from beating the world champions 3 - 0 and having some of the best attacking talent in their squad outside of South America. Engelar and De Jong were once again strong in midfield, Van Nistelrooy was once again unstoppable although without a goal this time and then the other two of the Real Madrid connection - Sneijder and Robben. Between them they tore the French apart. Robbens goal was brilliantly improbable from that angle and Sneijders was equisite in touch, baance, power and accuracy. 7 goals against two of europes best teams - is the year that the Dutch reemerge as the best in Europe?