EUROS NUGGETS II
Group matches
The Group of Dearth
England’s group turned out to be about as much fun as having root canal without an anaesthetic. One win, five draws, seven goals was the grim total. There have only been three goalless draws in 36 matches so far and group C provided two of them.
It was binary boredom at its most stultifying, the joint lowest total of goals in a group, a dishonour shared with another Group C, back in 2016 when Germany, Poland, Northern Ireland and Ukraine mustered a not so magnificent seven.
Red cards
Scotland did not come away with much from their twelfth major tournament without qualifying for the knockout stages. In their opening match against the hosts, Ryan Porteous was sent off in the last minute of the first half and up until the very last match of the Group stages that was the only red of the tournament when the Czech Republic got in on the act by having two players dismissed in a feisty encounter with Turkey.
Antonin Barak’s red in 20th minute of that match was the quickest in Euros history and also put the Czechs at the top of the overall naughty step, leading the table for the most sending-offs with five.
Own goals
There have been seven own goals already and the record of eleven set in 202o/21 is in sight. What is most remarkable about this plethora of OGs is that in the first fifteen tournaments between 1960 and 2016 there were only nine in total, so the last two Euros have doubled that number.
Portugal have scored the most own goals in Euros history with three, one in 2004 and two in the same match in 2020/21 when Ruben Dias and Raphael Guerreiro did so against Germany. Only on one other occasion has a team conceded to own goals in the same match and that was just four days later when Dubravka and Kucka did so for Slovakia against Spain.
‘It Started With a Kick’
This week’s episode features the BBC’s John Bennett who talks about how as a Leicester fan growing up in Wiltshire the misery of them losing the 1993 play-offs Final to Swindon was compounded when a couple of weeks later the VIP guest for his school sports day was none other than Paul Bodin, who scored the winning goal against the Foxes.
Also John was reporting on a game at St. Andrews when a 16-year-old Jude Bellingham made his debut for Birmingham City, coming on as a substitute and inevitably, scoring the winner.
Here are links to both parts of John’s episode
Part 1 https://bit.ly/4eDGPqo
Part 2 https://bit.ly/3zt5spq
The Football Mine 