Game 1: Poland v Greece
After a fantastic opening ceremony the game kicked off with Poland hounding the Greeks down in packs and it wasn't long before the Dortmund trio were tearing it up down the right and it wasn't long before "Kuba" and Lukas Piszczek were combining to unleash their compatriot Robert Lewandowski and in the first couple of minutes this paid dividends as Lewa went close and almost scored from a header. Soon after the Greeks were throwing bodies at the ball to keep the Poles out but then after some more of the Polish pressing Piszczek delivered a fantastic ball into the box and was met by Lewandowski and the National Stadium errupted! For the rest of the half the Poles continued to dominate with Greece getting very few moments of respite with Polanski impressing in midfield.
But then came a moment of controversy as Greece's Sokratis Papastathopoulos was booked for winning a fair header against Lewandowski and then shown another yellow for what looked like a pull on Lewandowski, but then replay after replay it became apparent that the Spanish referee had got it wrong and that Lewandowski had already slipped. The first half flew by, not a bad start to the opening game?
Then came the turning point, Dimitris Salpingidis came on for the impressive Ninis, but this turned out to be a master stroke as the Greeks came into the game far more and after a massive mistake from Szczensy he leveled with the easiest goal he'll score.
After a dull period of the game game were Greece were happy to defend, until they broke forward and earned a penalty after our friend Szczensy brought down super sub Salpingidis in the box and the goalkeeper was given his marching orders, as Salpingidis celebrated the cheers turned to tears as sub keeper Tyton came on and was an instant hero as he stopped veteran Karagounis's penalty. The Greeks could have easily won it had it not been for some abject finishing from Georgios Samaras it could have easily been a victory for the Greeks but what was a must win game for both sides turned out to be a decent result as the Czech's were horrible against the Russians.
Game 2: Czech Republic v Russia
So after what was supposed to be the most boring game of the tournament we travel to Wroclaw to another exciting encounter between a strong Russian side and an experienced Czech team. The game kicked off and the first 10 minutes were dominated by the Czech's but none of the early pressure paid off and the Russian's began to get back into the game and after a slick move the Russian's went 1-0 up through the impressive Alan Dzagoev and shortly after that, Czech left-back Kadlec decided to go for a run in the wrong direction and ended up in fairy land as Arshavin played a lovely ball through to Roman Shirokov and he chipped the on rushing Cech and it was 2-0.
Into the second half and then the Czech's got back into it through a great pass through to Valcav Pilar who round Malafeev and slotted it home, where Russian defender Anyukov vould probably have reached it with a slide. Then came another Russian onslaught when Dzagoev made it 3-1 with his second, finishing another slick Russian move and it was left to Roman Pavelyuchenko to make it 4-1 finishing off a captivating display by the Russian's orchestrated by Andrei Arshavin who found form after a loan move to Zenit.
I'm not sure if I'll do this everyday but I'll try!
Thanks for reading!
Jonathan.
Follow me on Twitter: @JWalsh97
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