Rob Smyth's Blog, page 73

Iceland 1-1 France: Women’s Euro 2022 Group D – as it happened

Dagny Brynjarsdottir’s injury-time penalty was not enough for Iceland, who went out of the tournament despite not losing a game

1 min Peep peep! Iceland get the match under way. They’re in their stylish blue strip; France are wearing white.

The captains, Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir and Wendie Renard, embace warmly in the centre circle. It’s time for action.

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The Fiver | Women’s Euro 2022 group-stage permutations and melting brains

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We’ll be honest, it’s not every day we google the words “Rotherham Met Office”. But that was the Fiver’s first thought when The Man dispatched us to the Banter Bunker for a 90-minute stretch, presenting us brusquely with a list of tonight’s fixtures, a paper airplane for a fan and the outré and frankly unhelpful observation that “they had it worse in ’Nam”.

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Denmark 0-1 Spain: Women’s Euro 2022 – as it happened

Spain will play England in the quarter-finals after Marta Cardona’s last-minute goal gave them a tense but deserved win over Denmark

5 min Spain have settled quickly into their pass-and-move groove. Denmark’s shape is more 5-4-1 than 3-4-3 at this stage, though they are springing quickly on the counter-attack.

3 min Bonmati picks the pocket of Junge in the centre circle, makes 30 yards and finds Athenea on the left edge of the area. She tries to cut inside and is dispossessed.

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Northern Ireland 0-5 England: Women’s Euro 2022, Group A – as it happened

The substitute Alessia Russo scored twice as England ended the group stage with another crushing victory

Here come the players. It’s a beautiful summer evening in Southampton, with temperatures around 23C.

A reminder of the teams

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The Fiver | Antonio Conte’s single purpose with his brutal Spurs pre-season

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Antonio Conte is fast becoming The Fiver’s favourite manager. Sure, we’re largely terrified of him, and on balance we’d rather cross Keyser Söze. But from a safe distance we can’t get enough of his capricious charisma, managerial brilliance and, most of all, his rampant disdain for what the hive think. What some describe as defensive football, Conte calls pragmatic. What others call their opinion, he calls wrong. And what some call sadistic, he calls pre-season training.

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Germany 2-0 Spain: Women’s Euro 2022 Group B – as it happened

Klara Buhl and Alex Popp scored in the first half as a ruthless Germany beat Spain to win the group of death with a game to spare

When tiki-taka goes bad. Panos, the Spain keeper, played a lazy pass straight to Klara Buhl, 12 yards from goal. She controlled it deftly, veered away from Paredes and rammed a low left-footed drive into the far corner. It was an emphatic finish, but a horrible moment for Panos.

Germany take the lead after a howler from Sandra Panos!

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The Fiver | After England’s jaw-dropping 8-0 win, we’ve reached peak giddiness

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The Fiver has a simple morning routine: wake up, lament continued existence, look at the day’s football fixtures to see how we’ll pass the next 12 hours. On doing so this morning, we saw something confusimg. Nestled among Fraserburgh v Montrose in the Scottish League Cup and Drita v Inter Turku in the Europa Conference League qualifying round were two other fixtures: Denmark v Finland and Germany v Spain in a thing called Euro 2022.

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England beat South Africa by five wickets in first women’s cricket ODI – as it happened

Emma Lamb’s maiden century and a majestic allround performance from Nat Sciver helped England beat South Africa with almost 18 overs to spare

2nd over: South Africa (Steyn 2, Wolvaardt 8) Boom! That’s the trademark Wolvaardt who nails back-to-back drives through the covers in that Nat Sciver over. Lovely stuff from South Africa’s alpha.

1st over: South Africa 1-0 (Steyn 1, Wolvaardt 0) That’s a top, top start from the veteran Katherine Brunt who is on the money immediately. Her first two balls whizz past Andrie Steyn’s bat. The second one even prompts a (rash) review for caught behind. Nothing doing though. No matter, the rest of her set is tidy enough with just a squirmed single down to fine leg.

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The Fiver | A simple tale of Laurence Bassini, Simon Jordan and Birmingham City

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They may be a giant club, but life hasn’t always been easy for Birmingham City. In 1993-94, during a desperate run of form, manager Barry Fry was told about a supposed curse on the club, which was a barrier to them getting out of the old First Division and into the Premiership. Bazza, under instructions from a curse-lifting specialist, marked his scent on all four corners of their St Andrew’s ground. “I am not normally superstitious but after three months I was willing to try anything so I went and took a leak on all four corner flags,” he chirped. “It took me a while – it’s not that easy.” Fry was willing to do anything to get Birmingham out of the First Division, and it worked – they were relegated a couple of months later.

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Norway 4-1 Northern Ireland: Women’s Euro 2022 – as it happened

Caroline Graham Hansen and Guro Reiten starred as Norway cruised to victory over Northern Ireland’s history-makers

On a lovely summer’s evening in Southampton, the players on both sides walk onto the field - Norway in red, Northern Ireland in white. There’s a fine atmosphere, with a reported crowd of around 11,000.

Northern Ireland are up against one of the all-time greats tonight: Ada Hegerberg, the 2018 Ballon d’Or winner who recovered from an ACL injury to inspire Lyon to Champions League glory this year. And now she’s back with Norway too.

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