Prospect of elimination brings best from teams

WE had to wait a while but with the start of the third round of matches this tournament has suddenly sprung to life.

Everything became far more interesting with the teams who had performed badly early on frying to revive their fortunes, while one or two of the stronger sides have looked to be exercising some control over their destinies in the knockout phase.

The competition has also been set alight with some very fine goals. Stoichkov's free kick, Gascoigne's great skill against the Scots and Davor Suker's wonderful second goal in Sunday's win over Denmark have all been terrific to watch while the best of the lot was Klinsmann's first against the Russians.

The margin of that win meant that the Germans could be fairly relaxed going into last night's game against Italy, but with everyone else having something to play for it turned out to be a fantastically exciting night of football.

On the night the Italians were superb and if Sacchi loses his job, which seems likely, it will be for the changes he made for the meeting with a mediocre Czech side rather than his team's performance at Old Trafford.

His side obviously have a valid complaint about what should have been the sending off of German goalkeeper Kopke early in the game, but after that the level of passion and pressure Italy produced was marvellous.

As the match wore on, though, they seemed to lack something in the last third of the pitch and I was surprised that Donadoni, who began to look very tired, stayed on when they had Del Piero on the bench, particularly after the sending off of Strunz robbed the Germans of a recognised right full back.

For Berti Vogts it will have been a night of mixed emotions, for while his side suffered one of their worst roastings in many years they came out of it without conceding a goal. They also did certain things well, especially defending at set pieces, although there were certain players, most notably Sammer and a couple of the midfielders, who were very disappointing.

The match might actually have been just the sort of jolt that the Germans needed to get them to raise themselves and, unlike the Italians, it is an experience they can learn from.

On the whole, though, the tournament will be the poorer for the loss of the Italians with players like Zoln and Maldini having looked to be amongst the very best involved in it. The great pity of it is that this had been the best start that the Italians had made to a major championships finals in a long time.

Prior to last night everything here had been overshadowed by England's demolition of Holland and the level of the fans' expectations for their team has grown dramatically as Terry Venables leads his side towards Saturday's quarter final at Wembley.

Winning the group was in considerable bonus for the England manager, as playing at their regular home gives his side an added advantage and none of the other managers will fancy their chances against the hosts there with the sort of confidence that there now is within the camp.

Tuesday night's performance was certainly impressive, although it must be noted that the Dutch team turned in one of the country's worst performances in many years of international competition.

It's strange that they have such a strong tendency to shoot themselves in the foot at championship finals with Johan Cruyff having constantly argued with his manager in his day, Ruud Gullit refusing to take part in the last World Cup and, this time, Edgar Davids being sent home.

The sight of the Dutch players wandering around the other night after the end of their battering was really astonishing. They looked as if they neither knew nor cared whether they were in the next round of the competition and, to be honest, it seemed as though they had simply had enough of football.

That is not meant to take too much away from the English, who played well and showed that they have a few assets within their ranks that can help them take on anyone left within the competition.

David Seaman has stopped everything that needed stopping over the three games so far while Gascoigne and McManaman have been good in midfield. Best of all for the English, however, has been the return to scoring form of Alan Shearer up front, with the Blackburn striker looking like doing damage to opposing teams virtually every time he gets the ball.

The Spanish are a good side albeit with a vulnerable looking goalkeeper in Zubizarreta but they will not relish the task ahead of them this weekend and, while the Germans still look capable of proving themselves the best side in the competition, the English now have the potential to severely worry just about anybody else.

Despite the extent of Holland's defeat it was still welcome that they went through to the quarters. We have been lucky in that just about all of the teams that have been eliminated so far have with the probable exceptions of the Russians and Italians been the worst sides in the competition.

The Danes knew their own limitations only too well before they travelled. They didn't really expect the presence of the two Laudrups and Peter Schmeichel in the side to be enough to enable them to prosper in the event and, sure enough, they were right.

Bulgaria might have been expected to do somewhat better in the tournament but in the end, like Romania, they proved to be far to reliant on their playmakers and when Stoichkov and Letchkov failed to excel they failed to come anywhere close the reproducing the sort of form they showed on the way to fourth place at the World Cup.

Of the teams that are through, the French and Portuguese have looked better with each game and both have enough strong players in key positions to keep going over the next week.

In the case of the Portuguese, though, the ease of yesterday's win must in some part be attributed to the rather bizarre attitude of the Croatian manager Miroslav Blazevic, whose decision to change more than half his team would appear to indicate a certain enthusiasm for facing Germany sooner rather than later.