Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Euro 2016

Most of the Round of 16 went as expected at Euro 2016, but there were two big exceptions.  Italy drilled Spain 2-0, so the two-time defending champions are out of the tournament at a much earlier stage than expected.  And Iceland, which has a smaller population than Louisville, beat England 2-1.  The English are humiliated right now, as they should be, but this is actually good news for them.  England's soccer team is run by a group very much like the sort of folks who run the UK Athletic Department -- they prefer genteel mediocrity to annoying excellence.  So they will only hire a really good coach when things get so bad that they can't hide from the embarassment.  Losing to Iceland falls into that category, so I expect improvement from England.  Here are the results from the round of 16 (Wales is into the quarter-finals!):

Switzerland 1 - 1 Poland (Poland win 5-4 on penalties)
Croatia 0 - 1 Portugal (after extra time)
Wales 1 - 0 N. Ireland
Hungary 0 - 4 Belgium
Germany 3 - 0 Slovakia
Italy 2 - 0 Spain
France 2 - 1 Ireland
England 1 - 2 Iceland

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