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With warm preemptive congratulations to Kanzlerin Baerbock :)
Your friendly bookie wholeheartedly endorses a German velvet revolution. Let's go Europe!
Day 14: Recap
Bookie’s Stats—
Spread: 12-26
Straight up: 17-14-7
What a day of football, gentlemen! More Danish Delight for the neutrals and a surprisingly gallant effort from the Austrian underdogs. Six incredible goals render the bookie's task of selecting whom to award the day nearly impossible. Dolberg? Maehle? Kalajdzic? Chiesa?
Bookie thinks it's got to be the Juventus winger with the break of the deadlock in extra-time against Austria. Sublime control and composure from Federico Chiesa. What an incredibly focused finish!
That strike had the added bonus of getting this guy out of his seat.
Are you not entertained?
Admit it, brothers. Once the cameras spotted this guy in the stands, we knew the day wouldn't be complete until he was gifted something to cheer about. My name is fannus italianus maximus....and I shall have my victory at Wembley!
This was the best day for Romans in Britain since the days of old emperor "cl-cl-cl-cl-Cladius". Well done, Azzuri. You managed to stutter more than Derek Jacobi in the PBS mini-series, but you won us over in the end.
S.S.S. Tactical Breakdown
Loads to catch up on tonight as we've still the three countries who were eliminated on the last day of active play to cover in our "goodbyes" section. This not being a dedicated to a review of your friendly bookie's Vaterland, there shall be flags and colors galore.
Both winning teams accorded us with relevant tactical information for the next round. As predicted, Roberto Mancini encountered an issue with his personnel selection. Kasper Hjulmand of Denmark continues to deploy precisely predictable tactics based on what we've been tracking.
Lineup—Italy—Match Four (4-3-3) (6/26/2021) 
The issue is one of getting a now healthy Marco Veratti into the lineup. The bookie's solution, conjectured in the latest lines post, was to retain the 4-2-3-1 from the final group stage match and sacrifice Nicola Barella. Mancini's answer turned out to be much braver. He returned to the 4-3-3 and left off Manuel Locatelli.
The Italia Gazettas are going to have a field day with this choice. While there was little to criticize from the dominant first-half, Foda's Austrians were able to gradually carve out passing lanes around the second axis. They also broke down the high press of the fullbacks when the midfield started producing turnovers.
Arnautovic was literally inches away from giving the underdogs the lead on that ultimately disallowed goal in the 65th. Even though the tally didn't count, the 4-3-3 looked reserved and rattled even after Mancini refreshed the entire front four with two double substitutions over the next 19 minutes. Possession recycling was woeful.
All told, I don't think there's all that much cause for concern for the advancers. They proceeded to lord over much of the possession for both extra time periods. The two excellent goals were a testament to the fact that, as much action as the Austrians were getting in transition, only one team really had the skill and class to make use of their counters.
Absolutely nothing could have been done about that late Kalajdzic goal. That counted as an aberrant piece of world class quality from a team that didn't possess enough true finishing artistry to deserve to win the match. Sorry, Germano-philes. Sorry to myself (since I happen to be one) while I'm at it. The best team won here.
....dammit. Mancini really reminds all of us that we need to get back to the gym after this. This man must dine on a diet of olive stones and gristle. No plate of pesto pasta someone of that waistline. Never in his life. Bookie vowed to fit back into his suit pants before July is out!
Everyone's so very happy for the Danes after their nightmarish two weeks. Difficult to fathom that it's truly been only 14 days since their captain collapsed. Football lovers can't help but be overjoyed for a talent we've been waiting to watch breakthrough for a long time.
Congratulations to the scorer of the brace that effectively put the match to bed early.
When news broke of Yussuf Poulsen's injury, it came as something of a surprise to see Dolberg slotted in. One wasn't necessarily stunned after the way Dolberg played in thirty minutes of spirited relief against the Russians on Monday. It nevertheless served as a nice reminder of how little club form can matter during the wondrously magical time of summer internationals. Great stuff.
No real surprise here either. Exactly the same re-format we saw on Days Seven and Eleven. Precisely the same personnel as we saw in the second match. This remains out there for anyone with the time and inclination to scout it on an overhead tactical cam. The Dutch, should they beat the Czechs as expected, will plan intensely with this in mind.
Naturally, merely because one knows roughly what's coming doesn't mean stopping it will prove easy. Pierre-Emile Højbjerg has proved himself an amazingly dynamic midfield player in this tournament. He completely clears the zone on his own solo axis.
The way Christensen unpredictably creeps up in conjunction with Stryger Larsen also impresses. That's one reason why Joakim Maehle frequently finds himself in such dangerous space. Jensen and Cornelius looked like absolute beasts out there today and Braithwaite finally got a much-deserved goal.
They're all feeling it out there. Surging confidence and an unflappable team spirit.....
S.S.S. Salute to Fallen Comrades
-4 games played
-5 goals scored
Complete coverage of "Kleindeutschland" available on this summer's blog. After the late-goal and the admirable fight right up until the death, many will hail this historic first-ever run to the knockouts of a European Championship a great moral victory.
Well...I picked the lineup precisely, right down to the smallest nuance of the shape. This is a bad thing, of course. Sabitzer probably should have run the center while Baumgartner worked wide right. Foda had the right idea moving Konrad Laimer over to the left and putting Sabitzer behind Arnautovic after he introduced Alessandro Schöpf for Baumgartner in the 90th.
Like all of his substitutions on this day, everything came too late. Foda didn't even employ his first change until Baumgartner pulled his hamstring in the final minute of normal time. There was a certain point after the disallowed goal when the match seemed there for the taking. Christopher Trimmel, Stefan Ilsanker, and Louis Schaub could have been introduced then.
Germans are inclined to be hard on Austria's first ever German manager. We're honestly very hard on anyone who coaches this team as it features all the domestic league players we watch all season long and we all have our own opinions on how they should be arranged.
In fairness to Foda, we witnessed a bit of the 4-1-4-1 shape during this match that he probably wanted to play in had captain Julian Baumgartlinger not gotten hurt. One can make the case that he had to experiment a lot in this tournament....or one could argue that he had enough time to devise something else.
The ÖFB will likely keep him around and Germans will keep rants at the ready. He should be done after the next cycle, whether the team qualifies for the WM or not.
Wales—"Dreigau Cymru"
-4 games played
-3 goals scored
Previous Wales Tactical Coverage:
Very poor refereeing in today's fixture against Denmark. German Daniel Siebert likely won't get another match in this competition. That doesn't excuse the vital error from Neco Williams that gave Dolberg the brace. It also doesn't excuse Gareth Bale's sarcastic hand-clapping, for which he was rightly booked.
This won't be the last time one sees him in a national team uniform. Mark the bookie's words. He's far too young to retire by modern standards. A Real revival could be in the cards. So too could another 8-10 club campaigns with modern conditioning standards.
How long he feels like dealing with the stress of captaining his national side is a different matter entirely. Generally in such situations, the FA knows just which buttons to press. They'll hit the right ones and we'll see him in three years time.
Lineup—Wales—Match Three (3-4-1-2) (6/20/2021)
Interim trainer Rob Page shook it up a bit against Italy in the final group stage match. The bookie's round-of-16 lineup projection was based on the assumption that he would stick with the back-three when squaring off against the Danes.
Lineup—Wales—Match Four (4-2-3-1) (6/26/2021)
He didn't. Page went directly back to the formation and personnel choices he used in the first two group games. This worked well for about 15 minutes. That's truthfully the extent of which today's game remained competitive.
Both subs--Neco Williams and Harry Wilson--were disastrous. One has to say that Page (maybe Mancini to a certain extent as well) weren't ready to face higher caliber opposition today. Group A proved weak sauce indeed.
A few questionable calls from Siebert notwithstanding, this team heads home a little later than expected only by virtue of the fact that their group made them look far better than they were.
Poland—"Bialo Czerwoni"
-3 games played
-4 goals scored
Previous Poland Tactical Coverage:
This man will remain on track no matter what. For whatever it's worth, bookie is off the mind that the Polish FA start interviewing new candidates immediately.
One doesn't have to built this team around Lewandowski. That's the fallacious thinking that needs to get out of the mind of the new coach.
Lineup—Poland—Match Two (3-4-1-1-1) (6/19/2021)
Lineup—Poland—Match Three (3-1-4-2) (6/23/2021) 
Slovakia—"The fighting Repre"
-3 games played
-2 goals scored
Previous Slovakia Tactical Coverage:
A nation many tend to forget turned in a completely forgettable tournament. Some of you may not even remember that they were here to begin with, or that they even beat the Poles in their opening match.
Stefan Tarkovic set this side up in a manner no one could have possibly envisaged. After a season spent watching Ondrej Duda fill in as an emergency striker at 1. FC Köln, bookie was gobsmacked to see him play exactly the same role for country.
Lineup—Slovakia—Match Two (4-4-2) (6/18/2021)
....and then it happened again in the second match....
Lineup—Slovakia—Match Three (4-4-2) (6/23/2021)
....and then it happened again in the third match. What the shit? I guess Ivan Schranz was hurt. Bookie didn't pick up on that morsel until later. Why Duda of all people to lead the attack, though? Hamsik can play striker. So can Michal Duris, Lukas Haraslin, Robert Bozenik, Jan Gregus, Vladimir Weiss, and even Robert Mak.
I guess Tarkovic watched a little too much Bundesliga this year. Your friendly bookie did too, by the way. Somehow he came to a different conclusion about Köln's season. There happened to be a league table as well. This country ended up being die Geißböcke of Europe. We'll now turn our attention to the competition's Bremen.
-3 games played
-1 goal scored
Well, we didn't expect much from the debutants. Their upset victory against the Danes in the initial round came under what the very phrase "extreme circumstances" was meant to convey. Bookie remains a bit pissed about them not upsetting the Russians in the great historic rivalry.
Everyone chill out. You'll get the blue cross tricot. You may not get it in this picture or in the outdated jerseys of the subsequent draw-ups, but you'll get it in your schwag packs.
A lineup as difficult to project as it is to pronounce.
At least the bookie got the strikers correct.
The name Joel Pohjanpalo shall become a familiar one to football fans soon enough. The Leverkusen forward, who really did well on loan at Union Berlin this year, scored the winner after the Eriksen delay.
He scored here as well, though the goal that could have seen them beat Russia was disallowed after review. Really good match from Rangers man Glen Kamara and the very German sounding Rasmus Schüller as the inward wingbacks in this one.
Kamara (no relation to the brutal African militant) did his best in this third game. Were it not for Hradecky's error, the match might have ended in a draw as I predicted.
“Riffs of the Day”—Day Fourteen
Reader: Sami Khedira in studio!
Vicey: At long last, 15-M! He was every bit as boring every other German commentator ESPN ever hired for the Euros. Sami joins the proud ranks of Michael Ballack and Jürgen Klinsmann in the nonchalant pantheon of Kraut color analysis.
Fox Sports had absolutely no right to fire this man. Simply because he speaks his own incomprehensible style of English doesn't mean he doesn't belong on the panel. For fuck's sake, that's part of the fun! Dastardly, dastardly yanks.
Reader: Your German ref is killing my Welsh.
Vicey: Welshy! Not Welshy!!
On a more serious note, 130-M, this year's dragons are bloody awful.
Reader: I'm counting 14 wop-flops thus far this match.
Vicey: Nice of you to be honest, 5-M. At least I haven't seen anything on the Vicenzo Iaquinta level from 2006.
You think I'm FORGETTING THIS? Never.
Reader: This is supposed to be the "new Italy". Why are they still diving?
Vicey: I guess you can't take the cheat out of some styles, 36-M. They'll take any advantage they can.
How dare you take Torsten away from us during the 2006 Semi-Final? That was our tournament! Did we come over to your country and take the World Cup on your home soil?!?
Oh wait a second....
DAY FIFTEEN—PREVIEW
Netherlands vs. Czech Republic
Very few takers on the high line here. Somewhat surprised. Okay, somewhat disappointed. One of those lines that are bad for the bookie's oddsmaker stats but good for the wallet.
THE LINE: Netherlands +2 Goals (holding)
Belgium vs. Portugal
vs. 
Then there's the "upset alert". Have to close betting to protect the wallet here.
THE LINE: Portugal +1 Goal (BETTING CLOSED)
GENTLEMEN, ENTER YOUR WAGERS
