Group of death lives up to its reputation

As a warm up to my Group C review, have a look at this article about Holland’s Edwin van der Sar. He’s had a decent season with Manchester United, culminating in his heroics in Moscow that all Chelsea fans would rather forget. Can he turn it on in his last national team tournament?

Romania (Bogdan Lobonţ) 0-0 France (Grégory Coupet)

A good result for Romania. Just as I wanted, Lobonţ managed to earn a clean sheet, although it was unmatched by a Romanian goal at the other end. Neither goalkeeper was tested very much, except for a near own goal on the Romanian end as well as a low Karim Benzema shot that was well saved by Lobonţ.

The one glaring reoccurrence that I can comment on is Bogdan Lobonţ’s inability to control back passes. On two occasions he received relatively good balls and on both occasions he made a mess of them. But what is goalkeeping without having to work on your game once in a while?

Holland (Edwin van der Sar) 3-0 Italy (Gianluigi Buffon)

This match had everything. Skill, goals, saves, near misses, and controversy. The controversy, of course, was the first Dutch goal. If a player is down, off the pitch, behind the goal, does he count in determining offside? I believe the goal is legitimate, but draw your own conclusions.

Their second goal was far less controversial. Nothing Buffon could do about the masterful counter-attack, starting with a save off the line at the other end. The Italian defensive organization needs to be better. An Italian defense usually noted as having no holes is missing Fabio Cannavaro.

However, if there was a silver lining for Buffon, it was his one-on-one save at the end of the first half to keep the match within reach. Besides that, he looked fairly solid, even after being 2-0 down, which would shake worse goalkeepers psychologically.

Van der Sar was relatively untested until he made several big saves in the last fifteen minutes. The third Dutch goal killed the match, but Buffon was unlucky to concede again after a great point-blank save and good recovery to the middle of his line.

To conclude, I will leave you with a non-playing victory for goalkeepers everywhere: in the most entertaining match of the tournament thus far, both Holland and Italy were led out by goalkeeper captains. And if that wasn’t enough, then how about the fact that all the matches so far have been clean sheets?

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