Euro 2012: Greece And Czech Republic Through To The Quarterfinals

The first half of the match was mostly uneventful, with Greece surprisingly sitting back a bit even though only a win would send them through. Perhaps they knew Russia would be wasteful, or perhaps they only know one way to play, but in any event Fernando Santos’ tactics turned out to be 100 percent spot on.

The only reason Russia even had chances to get back into the match -- not that they ever came close to taking them -- was because of a refereeing mistake in the second half. Karagounis was shown a yellow card for a dive in the box when a defender clearly made contact with him before he went down. Not only was a penalty not awarded, but Karagounis will not be able to play in the quarterfinal.

The Czech Republic didn’t create many chances for themselves today at the Stadion Miejski, but when it really counted Milan Baros and Petr Jiracek combined to score the game’s lone goal, giving the Czechs the top spot in Group A and a spot in the quarterfinals.

The first half started great for Poland as they put the Czech Republic defense under a ton of pressure early but failed to take advantage by putting a ball in the net. As the half progressed, the Czechs were able to wrestle away possession and slow the match down to the plodding crawl that benefited their desire for a draw. All that changed in the second half.

After a rare foray forward for Poland, the Czechs hit on the counter attack. After a series of quick passes to push the ball forward, Milan Baros patiently held the ball up as he moved in on goal, allowing Petr Jiracek time to make a run to his left. Baros made a simple pass and Jiracek beat Przemyslaw Tyton with a low shot.

With Russia still down 1-0, it could be the goal that wins the group for the Czech Republic and books their place in the quarterfinals. Still time left though for Poland.

The opening minutes of the game were entertaining, however. Konstantinos Katsouranis forced a save out of Vyacheslav Malafeev in the 6th minute, which seemed to signal that Greece had some attacking intent, but it was their first truly dangerous foray forward. Russia picked up the pace for a few minutes afterwards and created a couple of decent half-chances, but things settled down around the 20th minute. For the next 25 minutes, almost nothing happened as both teams looked very content to head into the half tied 0-0.

We’ll have live coverage of both of Saturday’s games simultaneously in our Euro 2012, Group A Finale StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on twitter.

Kickoff is at 2:45 p.m. ET from the National Stadium in Warsaw, Poland. You can catch the game on ESPN2 in the United States.

We’ll have live coverage of both of Saturday’s games simultaneously in our Euro 2012, Group A Finale StoryStream. For more on Euro 2012 and the entire world of football, follow @SBNationSoccer on twitter.

There is nothing quite like sorting through scenarios to see who advances from a group and when all four teams are still alive heading into the final matchday. Here are the possibilities for advancement in Group A, as the group prepares for its final matchday in Euro 2012:

Russia advance if: A win or draw will put Russia through to the knockout stages. If they win, they are guaranteed to win the group. But if they draw and the Czech Republic wins, then they will be group runners up. If Russia lose, then they can only advance if the Czech Republic and Poland draw.

Greece has obtained two different results in the team’s first two games at Euro 2012, but the performances have been exactly the same. They’ve gotten off to slow starts and made bad defensive errors, they’ve been forced to make a move away from their ultra-conservative tactics when they failed to keep their opposition off the scoreboard, and they’ve obtained much better results in the second halves of both of their games while looking more ambitious.

Russia are not expected to make any changes, though it wouldn’t be too surprising to see Dick Advocaat make some moves due to form, or to protect players from suspensions. Igor Denisov and Alan Dzagoev are both on yellow cards, and Denisov in particular plays a position where cards just happen sometimes. Giving him a rest and giving a run-out to veteran midfielder Igor Semshov wouldn’t be a terrible idea.

1. Don’t let Croatia bring flares into the stadium, and if you do, do not let them light them. Italy was on schedule for their standard win: go up a goal, play suffocating defense, and advance with a win.

Then this happened.