Group of Death conclusion

The Netherlands’ shocking tournament continued as they were defeated 2-1 by Portugal. Needing to win by a two goal margin to stand a chance of making the quarterfinals, Bert van Marwijk succumbed to public pressure and started both Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Rafael van der Vaart with the latter taking the captain’s armband. With the new attacking formation, things got off to a good start as van der Vaart, or VDV as the English press like to refer to him as, scored a peach of a goal in the 11th minute.

However, as predicted, Cristiano Ronaldo broke his tournament duck in the 28th minute after a sensational throughball from Joao Pereira and until late in the game, it looked like the predicted scoring draw was also going to happen. But with 16 minutes left, Ronaldo put the final nail in the Dutch coffin as he slotted home his second goal of the tournament. That also sealed second spot in Group B for the Portuguese.

To be honest, given the tactics employed by van Marwijk and the farcical defending, the Netherlands never stood a chance. At one point, even Dutch full-back Gregory van der Wiel tried to help the Portuguese out as his ridiculous backpass ended up being a perfect ball to Portugal’s Helder Postiga waiting between the centrebacks! Postiga failed to score as he put the ball wide with only keeper Maarten Stekelenburg to beat. If you lose your first two games, you really do not deserve to make the next round!

Portugal will take on the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals and be confident of claiming a semi-final berth.

As expected, Germany finish top of Group B after dispatching Denmark 2-1 in their final group match. Needing just a draw to qualify for the next round, the Germans controlled most of the game and took an early lead through Lukas Podolski in the 19th minute. However, Denmark were not going to lay down easily and equalised through Michael Krohn-Dehli five minutes later.

With ten minutes to go German defender Lars Bender, starting in place of the suspended Jerome Boateng, coolly slotted home his first international goal. That ended Denmark’s hopes of qualification as only a win would have been enough to see them through given Portugal’s win against the Netherlands.

Germany should have no problems making the semi-finals with only Greece in their way in the next round.

In a few hours, Group C comes to a conclusion and you can read more of that here.