Comment by Michael Osareme
After 30days of football the UEFA Euro 2016 reaches its climax today, 107 goals have been scored(2.14 average goals per match), 7 braces, 12 penalties awarded, 8 scored,3 own goals, 195 yellow cards, 3 Red cards and amazingly no hattrick was scored.
After plenty of thrills, upsets, Cinderella stories
(Wales! Iceland!) and complete failures
(England! Spain!), we're down to two teams
battling it out in Sunday's Euro 2016 final.
Portugal takes on host France in saint denis. The two sides have met 24 times with France coming up tops 18 times and Portugal with just 5 wins, 1 ended in a stalemate.
France are favourite in this final with Portugal coming into this tie as underdogs.
France run to this final was quite smooth, if not easy, albeit a difficult and tactical game against pre tournament favourite Germany.
As for Portugal,their run to this final saw them not winning a game in 90mins except for their win against Wales in the semi final.
In a tactical sense, the final is rarely the most fascinating game of a major international
tournament. It's usually a tight and tense, but
not particularly tactical, contest between two
sides playing cautiously, waiting for the opposition to make a mistake rather than prompting it through clever strategy.
France coach Didier Deschamps hasn't entirely
worked out his optimum system throughout this
competition, chopping and changing between
two very different setups, while Portugal manager Fernando Santos has stuck to roughly the same, highly unusual shape throughout.
France are the favourites for this final, but tactically speaking, Deschamps is likely to be the more reactive manager.
Portugal will be hoping that Cristiano Ronaldo comes to the party, the Real Madrid attacker
being arguably the most devastating counter attacking player football has ever seen.
As for France, top scorer Antonie Griezmann will be hoping to produce another moment of magic after his heroics against Germany.
For all the talk about systems and possession,
however, there's a good chance that set pieces
will be crucial here. Portugal's opener in the
semifinal victory over Wales came from a corner, as did the crucial penalty won by France in their win over Germany. If either side scores from a dead ball situation, it has an excellent chance of lifting the trophy.
Will Cristiano Ronaldo win his first international title? Will Antoine Griezmann score a seventh Euro 2016 goal and lift Les Bleus to their second Euros win as hosts, having won on home soil back in
1984? Will Olivier Giroud be the difference-maker, or will it fall to the mega talented, new Bayern signing Renato Sanches to lift Fernando Santos' side to victory?? I keep my hands crossed to see how things will pan out tonight in stade de France,kick off 8pm.
My Verdict : For the 1st time in this tournament I will be sitting on the fence, No predictions guys!!!!!
Lets just hope tonight's final serves us a great match to watch.
Myk d pundit wrote this,thanks for going through.
See you on the other side.
Adiós..
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