Spain

I’m begging to be proven wrong in the second half - but as it stands, this tepid performance between two giants of the international scene has been one of the worst halves of football thus far in the tournament, with Spain playing some nice football and the Italians stifling the play all night. However, Toni has looked like he’s keen up the other end, and if Spain continue to press who knows what will happen.

“They’re the team who are trying to score the goals are Spain” I hear the northern tones of Alan Shearer ring in my ears… and it’s difficult to deny that the geordie favourite is right. Take a look at the statistics, taken from the CPI, below - shots 10:1 in favour of the Red Fury, and hark at the Azzurri who have had just 43% of possession over all.

The phingy label blog were all excited about this game…  How wrong they were - for now at least.

…from the Frog and Rosbif pub in the heart of lovely, sunny Paris.

We thought that we should bring a bit of European culture to our English pages, so we drew straws, and here I am in Paris, Meant to be live-blogging the France Quarter Final. As we all know, things didn’t quite go as expected for Les Bleus, so the Frog and Rosbif (Paris’s premier English pub) gets our custom this evening. Hopefully some Italians and Spaniards will wander in and make the place jump, but it’s already pretty lively.

Look for more in a bit, but fo now I’ll pass over to ‘Short Straw’ Jack.

The last of the quarter finals sees Italy, who scraped through to the Euro 2008 quarter-finals with just three goals, all of them arising from set-piece manoeuvres, take on Spain - the team who started so well in destroying Russia - but who perhaps haven’t looked quite so convincing ever since…

OK - so the ‘Red Fury’ rested a number of players in the 3rd game against tournament losers Greece and still maaged to snatch a last minute win, but one imagines that the World Champions are made of sterner stuff than they have displayed thus far, and it’s time fo pre-tournament hero Luca Toni to score isn’t it…? Surely..? Maybe..?

For you see, taking a look back at the statistics, it becomes clear that there is a curious sense of déjà vu after he suffered a similar fate in World Cup 2006. Then, as the table below (provided by the CPI) shows, he had scored more than 30 goals for Fiorentina, (the first man to break through that barrier in Serie A since the 1950s), yet failed to score in the group stages for the eventual World Champions. His two goals in WC2006 did come in the quarter-finals, however, so perhaps he will finally make his mark against Spain on Sunday evening.

Only time will tell - but my money is on Toni finally bagging one!

Two different nationalities, two different ways of playing the beautiful game, two sets of strikers. And two very different looking Castrol Index heat maps. But the same result as both players have scored - Charisteas getting the first of the game, and Guiza the last. Arguably Guiza is the lazier of the two, hanging around Luca Toni-like in the middle of the box waiting for the ball to come to him, while Charisteas has taken a leaf out of van Nistelrooy’s book and has been coming deeper to collect the ball. Two different styles, same result. Which is better? In the words of a famous Geordie who’s voice we hear every summer - you decide.

Stats powere by Castrolindex.com

The Spanish second XI is obviously out to impress coach Aragones ahead of the Quarter Final, as they have nearly covered every single blade of grass. A look at the team’s heat map from the Castrol Index after 30 minutes shows that they have played in every corner of the ground, ploughed the wings and destroyed the centre of the pitch. Imagine what it would have been like with the first team. That said, they haven’t made fools of the Greeks…yet.

Stats powered by www.castrolindex.com

With Spain already comfortably through to the next stage of the tournament, and Greece heading home after this match, there is the distinct possibility that the squad players could get a run out tonight, and the stars get to rest on the bench. One of the incoming players should be Cesc Fabregas, who in his brief periods of play so far has had a goal, an assist and has run his little heart out for his country. A quick glance at his Castrol Index heat map below for the 32 minutes he played against Sweden shows that he covered virtually every area of the pitch, particularly midfield.

One man hoping to put himself in the shop window (if selected tonight for the Greek side) is Vassilis Torosidis, the flying Olympiakos player. Already clocked as the fifth fastest man at the tournament (well, joint fourth actually with Turkey’s Nihat Kahveci at 31.11 km/h), he’ll be looking to prove himself a worthy transfer target for the European managers watching. What? The tournament’s about the football, not the deals? Someone should have a word with Big Phil….

Stats powered by Castrolindex.com

The Malaysia Star (yes, that’s Malaysia in the Far East, writing on the Euros – that’s the power of football) reports that the old powerhouses of European football – France, Italy and Germany – are spent forces ‘clearly past their sell by date’ having to face up to the young guns of the Netherlands, Spain and Croatia, led by coaches such as van Basten and Bilic, who have the hunger that the likes of Domenech and Donadoni just don’t have.

Tvenne from OleOle has provided a round up of the tournament so far after each team has played two games. For those who haven’t been paying attention a chastisement - ‘shame on you’ he says ‘because you’ve missed a great tournament’. He argues that games with two ‘less skilled’ teams often provide the best entertainment (er…Netherlands vs. Italy, or France?) and quotes the Turkey vs. Switzerland game as an example of ‘just amazing’ football. He concludes by saying the Dutch are looking favourites with their goals coming from all angles and players and a goalkeeper playing at ‘possibly the best level of his career’. Or Spain.

Over at EPL Talk, The Gaffer thinks there is a player who holds the key to the Netherlands’ success, and its one that doesn’t make the headlines. Orlando Engelaar is a rangy midfielder who frustrated Italy’s attack by outjumping Toni, but also provided many of the telling passes in attack. By utilising the stats provided by the Castrol Index, The Gaffer managed to show how Engelaar changes his game depending on the opposition….cunning stuff, and it just goes to show the power of statistics in providing insights into the game.