So here we are, after 3 weeks and 30 games the climax of the 2012 European football Championship is upon us. 14 countries have been left bruised, knackered and defeated; now only Spain and Italy wait nervously to enter the renovated Olympic Stadium in Kiev on Sunday evening. It may not be the final that was expected, but it is set-up to be a memorable one.
So, there you have it. England’s European Championships is over. Defeat at the quarter final stage via a penalty shoot out was probably a tad predictable once you think about it. When it comes to quarter final heartbreak we've all been there, done that, bought the t-shirt (about £50 in my case as it said ‘Parker’ on the back).
Generally speaking, any assessment of the merits of the penalty shoot-out as a means of settling football matches will fall into two distinct categories – if your team has won the day, their superiority has rightly been confirmed. Lose, and it’s a lottery, akin to randomly selecting numbers from a hat.
With 90 Minutes Online being a public platform, our humble website does occasionally receive approaches from companies wanting to utilise us for commercial reasons. Yet in all honesty a lot of these tend to be concerning products that have little relevance to football, thus inducing a Bill Hicks style rant from yours truly.
If truth be told, few of even the most optimistic of the Republic of Ireland's avid followers would have harboured particularly high hopes for the country’s prospects of success at this summer’s European championships.