Euro 2008 Day 11 - French Toast

The Group of Death is decided and Holland showed to be the clear class of the group sweeping all 3 games.  Italy dropped France 2-0 to go through as the 2nd place team and earn the right to face Spain on the weekend.

Italy 2  Spain 0
Italy survived the Group of Death with their 2-0 victory over ten-man France on Tuesday in combination with Holland’s win over Romania by a similar score.  The Azzurri will now face Spain in the quarterfinals while the Dutch will play either Sweden or Russia. France was eager to open the match fast and looked like they were in stride with Franck Ribéry creating two early chances that went wide.  The first set back for Les Bleus came in the 10th minute, when Ribery was injured and taken off the pitch on a stretcher.  After the re-start Italy slowly started to take more in control with France’s back line in some disarray allowing Luca Toni to get receive a through ball behind the defense only to squander his break away by shooting wide from the top of the box.  The second and ultimately deadly set back for France came in the 24th minute when Eric Abidal fouled Toni and the referee immediately pointed toward the spot before showing Abidal a red card.  The defender was forced to foul Toni after he did well to control a looping pass over the defense and was preparing to strike on goal.

Holland 2   Romania 0
Second-half goals from Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Robin van Persie gave Netherlands a 2-0 win over Romania at Euro 2008 on Tuesday.    Huntelaar sidefooted home in the 54th minute from a right-wing cross by Ibrahim Afellay.   Van Persie then made sure of victory with a fierce left-foot drive into the roof of the net with three minutes to go.   The Dutch finished with a 100 percent record at the top of Group C and will play Sweden or Russia in the quarter-finals.