Austria

Early chances for Austria, stopped well by Boruc in the Polish goal. Repeatedly. According to his club manager, Celtic’s Gordon Strachan, he has ‘a presence’ when he walks in the dressing room, and you apparently know the goal is safe. Same can definitely be said for his performance in the first 15 minutes in Vienna tonight. Boruc didn’t feature in the CPI’s list before tonight, but you can bet your bottom dollar he’ll be high on the keepers list come the morning.

Beenhakker, looking like a faded lounge singer on the back slide of his career, crooning in a smoky bar, urges his defence - well - just to be better, really.

The unlucky Austrian defence mirrors the unfortunate Swiss back line by knocking one into the path of an opponent for a tap in. Looking at the heat maps Austrian defence and the Polish attack, one would be forgiven for thinking that they are doing quite a good job. But with Poland piling everything (literally) down the right, the Austrian back four are looking fairly central. And where did the goal come from? The right wing.

Stats, as ever, powered by the Castrol Index

In their match against Germany, the Castrol Performance Index stats highlight one player as the reason behind Poland’s downfall. Defender Michal Zewlakow played way too high up the pitch, leaving space in behind him for Klose and Podolski to exploit to bag the goals. Leaving his fellow defenders and keeper hideously exposed in such a way might cause coach Beenhakker to have stern words. And the Zewlakow can’t mitigate his absence from the back four by saying he ran forward to win the ball, as he was successful in only 50% of his challenges.

Austria have the legs to exploit the gaps in Poland’s defence too. Standfest and Aufhauser both covered over 11km in their match against Croatia, proving that the co-hosts aren’t just there to make up the numbers. And with home crowd advantage, maybe we’ll see an upset as Austria power through the weak Polish lines.

Tricky one to predict, but Jack reckons this might finish 1-0 Poland, although it doesn’t matter as they’re both bound to go out in the group stages.

Tom says a sneaky 1-0 Austrian victory.

Stats provided by http://www.castrolindex.com

Castrol Performance Index ambassador Arsene Wenger has been speaking about the tournament in general, and what the CPI can tell us about certain aspects of the games we have seen.

He reckons a big part of the reason that the games have been quite under par has been the psychological pressure that the players are under not to lose, leaving them a ‘little apprehensive’ about committing too much to the game or throwing their force forwards and conceding on the break. The ‘mental pressure’ of having ‘the weight of a country on their shoulders’ is obviously telling, but the Arsenal manager has had a look at the CPI stats, and has found some interesting points to show it isn’t all just in the mind.

He noticed that Croatia collectively covered 105km in their game with Austria, and commented that in the Champions League and Premier League he’d expect to see a figure around 115-125 km. He didn’t put the lack of work rate down to the players being tired after long domestic seasons though, more that they haven’t played for 3 or 4 weeks and ‘can’t sustain the pace of a top level game’. He expects distances and pace to improve as the tournament goes on.

As far as the France – Romania games goes, Wenger saw that the French were frustrated by the deep defending of their opponents, who didn’t ‘leave any space behind them’ for Les Bleus to attack. As the Romanian defence’s heat map below shows they certainly were packing the central area in and around the edge of the penalty area, which ultimately succeeded as a strategy and frustrated the French no end.

What Wenger has noticed is a change of tactics once a team goes ahead. ‘Holland scored first and Italy had to take more chances’, which resulted in them leaving themselves open at the back. He ended with a stark warning for any team that concedes in the tournament – ‘84% of the time [he’s talking in general], the team that scores first wins the big games’. Certainly true of the games so far in Euro 2008, so let’s see if this pattern continues through the tournament.

With a sterling attempt that no doubt won their footballing side a modicum of respect worldwide, Austria proved those 8,000 fans who signed a ‘take them out of Europe because they’ll be an embarrasment’ petition wrong – by running Croatia rather close in their first game in Euro 2008.

Indeed, it was only a cast-iron penalty from a clumsy Austrian challenge that led to Spurs’ new capture Luca Modric drilling home the resultant spot-kick with ease, that gave Slaven Bilic and his boys their expected 3 points – and eased the pressure on them in Group B.

Other than that though it was noticeable that Austria were working hard, and with the impressive Joachim Standfest covering more ground than any other player, and his fellow countryman Martin Stranzl hitting a top speed of 27.12kph – it was obvious that Austria were putting in the graft.. Indeed, as the BBC sports site said “An equaliser would not have flattered a plucky Austria side who had to dig deep to recover from a terrible opening spell.”

For a more comprehensive report, take a look over at 101 Great Goals, who had it spot on, saying “after the break Austria produced a stirring performance that was worthy of an equaliser. The hosts created a raft of chances, Ivanschitz and Harnik both shooting off target. The oldest player in the tournament, 38-years-old Ivica Vastic, had a sweet header saved by Pletikosa. Then in the final stages, Korkmaz had a curling shot well saved and Kienast headed narrowly wide as the hapless Austrians failed to find the crucial goal.”

And it was that lack of confidence that told – leaving Austria, for all their hard work, anchored at the bottom of group B… Will Poland be joining them in a few hours time? The totally unbiased side of me hopes ardently that they won’t! It’s time for an upset, and wouldn’t it be sweet if it was Germany? Ahem… By which of course I mean, may the best team win *mutters*. At least he’s happy tonight (see below).

OK – so I’ve been happy to dismiss the hosts as absolute also-rans throughout the entire build up to the tournament, the CPI rates them as a 1% chance to pick up the trophy – and as we speak they’re still 1 down to Croatia.

But by gum – with only around ten minutes to go those Austrains are putting up quite a fight. “Not quite the stroll in the park that some people expected it to be” say Old Mother Beeb – and noone can deny that! Despite the perfect start, Croatia are on the rack somewhat.

Over on the Castrol Performance Index, to which I am glued (with one eye on the telly of course) one can see that the Austrians have certainly been industrious, running 2km more than Croatia in total with heat maps showing Croatia on back foot.

Could be worth putting Austria down for a last minute equaliser here – have they got the confidence in front of goal though? Keep your eyes on the screen

Croatians ahead, but the Austrians are coming back at them. Possession for Croatia has fallen from 58% to 56%, and they have only had 7 shots despite this amount of ball control. The Austrians, meanwhile, have has 4 shots on goal, and the team heat maps actually show that the Austrians are pushing forward more than the Croatians.

And let’s not forget that the goal was a clumsy penalty.

The Croatian midfield has been the busiest, covering26848m to the Austrian 16502m, and the defence has had it relatively easy, only having to run a collective 13670m compared to the 24821m of the Austrians.

Martin Stranzl is the fastest man on the pitch at 27.12km/h, almost matching Ronaldo’s speed of last night, and the player who has covered the most distance is Srna with 5655m covered. Splitting the honours then as far as stats go, but who knows how this will finish?

1st penalty of the tournament. Blatant in my eyes. ‘No argument’ according to Gavin Peacock of the BBC. Luka Modric slots the ball home confidently. Slavan Bilic looks like a happy man. This could be a rough game, let’s see what the stats say about the free kick count.

Luka Modric in action in a previous Croatia game

As my esteemed colleague Jack has recently Tweeted this could, indeed, be quite a short tournament for Austria, especially if they deliver so little up front in their next two games.

Can’t see this ending 0-1, especially if the co-hosts keep on fouling as much as this.

The Croatians are dominating possession with 57%, but shots are even so far at 3 apiece.