Euro 2020 - Knockout Stages, Day 2
So my first post on here for an age proved to be as disastrous as most of its predecessors. I predicted that Wales would get at least a draw against Denmark. Wales did not get a draw against Denmark. No, they got stuffed. Handed a new one. Bent over the knee and giving a royal spanking. I don’t think anyone saw that coming, and even for relative neutral, it was quite difficult to watch.
On TV they spoke of Denmark's ‘change’ and about how the ‘change’ had made all the difference. Before the ‘change’, we were told, Wales had been on top, Gaz had come to the party, and there looked to be only one winner. But then, around the twenty-five-minute mark, came the ‘change.’ From what I could gather, one eye on the football the other on work, the ‘change’ consisted of moving the central defender Andreas Christensen from defence into defensive midfield. Now I am no expert but as 'changes' go this seems to be a pretty obvious one to have made but by all accounts it totally stymied the Welsh. They had no answer to it.
The first goal arrived shortly after the ‘change’ and a second came along shortly after half-time. As the game continued talk of the ‘change’ became so prevalent that I wondered why Wales had not countered Denmark’s ‘change’ with a ‘change’ of their own? The answer to that question I suspect lay in the identity of the Wales manager, Rob Page. A good man no doubt, and definitely a likeable man in all the media in which I have heard him speak. However, as a football manager, parachuted into the job due to serious issues surrounding his predecessor, he always looked a bit out of his depth. Fostering team spirit and creating positive vibes will only take you so far and Page and Wales found this out yesterday.
Incidentally it is a lesson that England learned at the last World Cup as Gareth Southgate let the semi-final against Croatia slip from his grasp as everybody else cried out for a substitute to redress the growing midfield imbalance. I hope Southgate was watching Wales yesterday because he is often slow to make a ‘change’, but sometimes in football, a ‘change’ can be as good as a rest.
Today's bet is for over 2.5 goals in the Belgium v Portugal game...
This article was written in a hurry.
