Euro 2012 standings: Dream shattered for Poland and Russia

June 17, 2012 | Filed under: Sports | Posted by:

By S Ahmed (NVONews.Com)

Euro 2012 standings are becoming apparent. The days of shattering of dreams have started in Euro 2012. Co host Poland and the promising Russian team were defeated and thus it ended their dream of reaching to the knock out stage of the tourney.

Sportsperson are surprised by an unexpected loss but on Saturday it was the win of Greece over Russia by 1-0 shocked many. Giorgos Karagounis made all the difference in this group ‘A’ match as he scored in the dying moments of first half. Thus the 2004 champions Greece got a berth in the last eight of the cup. This is why the Greece captain Giorgos Karagounis termed the moment as pure magic for all of them.

In another group ‘A’ match co host Poland were defeated by a surging Czech Republic team by a solitary goal. Municipal Stadium, Wroclaw was stunned by the defeat of the hosts.

The Czechs will be playing the runners-up from Group B in the knock out. They might face either Denmark or Portugal while there is faint chance of the Netherlands also. Greece would be playing the toppers of group B.

Poland’s record in the Euro champions was not very encouraging and that did not change this time as they were qualified for the tournament as co host.

Poland succeeded in holding the match without any goal till the 72th minute of the match but then Petr Jiracek helped by Milan Baros got the breakthrough for the Czech Republic which remained the only goal of the match.

The Czechs were forced to miss the services of Tomas Rosicky as he could not recover from his calf injury which he got in the match against Greece which they won by 2-1.

Poland’s performance in the first half was better and in fact the Polish got the chance to score in the 10th minute but Robert Lewandowski missed a superb chance. They missed many chances to score and they paid for this.

By winning against Russia the Greeks are now runners up in the group ahead on the head to head rule. Greece’s win as well the defeat for Russia was quite unexpected. The Russians had not lost any match in their last 16 encounters while they dominated most of the time but the lapse in the last minute of the first half.

Russia’s Dick Advocaat’s side was quite a favourite to win this match as they started with a 4-1 win against the Czechs and got a draw against the co host Poland. Ironically, the Czechs are now in the last eight. Advocaat thinks that it would not be fair to call that his team didn’t play well but he agrees that they didn’t put their chances properly.

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  • J. Laurence

    The absurd head-to-head rule meant that even if Russia had beaten the Czech Republic 8-1, instead of 4-1 (the best score so far in the tournament), the rather unfair rule would still have caused their elimination simply because of a mere 0-1 loss to the Greeks, who were faring rather poorly until their final group meet. So, although Russia had a clear two-goal difference in its favor (5-3), they were placed third in their group standings, instead of the more traditional and logical FIFA conception of them qualifying with the Czechs….
    Joe

  • David

    What a ridiculous rule? Imagine one error on the files has taken away a whole country’s right to be in the next round. Greece has been disappointing for the entire tournament while Russia deserved to be in the final eight. Nothing surprises me with europeans thinking again.