With the outcome of Group A still undecided, every team playing tonight was still in the balance and who was to go through was far from predictable. A win for either side in the tie between Greece and Russia could prove to be crucial to elongating the dreams of either nation, but the result in the day’s other fixture between Poland and the Czech Republic. The best early chance went to Greece, with Kostas Katsouranis forcing Igor Akinfeev to claw away his looping strike, and not too far into the encounter there was some concern surrounding Russia’s Aleksandr Anyukov, who went down after a clash of heads and looked a little concussed, but his issue was nothing that couldn’t be cured by the soothing touch of a damp sponge.

The unluckiest man of the tournament so far award has to go to Russia’s Aleksandr Kerzhakov; he seems to be putting his all into trying to score at least one goal, but his fourteen attempts so far have produced some of the most drastic misjudgements of where the goal actually is. His latest endeavour was only a fraction away from finding the top corner, but the volleyed effort from the edge of the box was always curling away from the post. There were further chances for Russia that never resulted in a goal in the first half; an open goal was not even found by Kerzhakov due to a vital interception from Kyriakos Papadopoulos and despite Russia’s dominance, they were caught asleep at the back by Greece on the stroke of half time, and Giorgos Karagounis powerfully punished Russia’s missed chances with a strike that comfortably nestled in the far right corner of Akinfeev’s goal. Advantage Greece, and with nothing doing in Wroclaw, both Russia and Greece would qualify.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve been reading our blogs throughout Euro 2012, but you may already know of our disgust at the shoddy refereeing this tournament has witnessed so far, and Greece were more than furious when Karagounis was not only denied a spot kick after being tripped in the area on the hour, but was booked for his ‘theatrical’ fall. I’m sorry, but even a being who has never watched football before would have been able to see that there was a meaningful contact between two pairs of legs in this incident, so why can’t six men yellow-clad men? Even manager Fernando Santos emerged from his regular sullen expression to make his opinions known to the officials. Giorgos Tzavelas struck the woodwork not long after with a mighty free kick that could have worsened the circumstances for Russia, but the truly bad news was still to come.

Yes, a breakthrough in Wroclaw, and it was the Czechs who had taken the lead, meaning Russia would be packing their bags if the score stayed this way based upon the ridiculously unjust head-to-head qualification system. Russia had to step up a gear if they were to keep their hopes alive, but a resilient defensive performance from Greece meant they were kept at bay, particularly by the goalkeeping heroics from Michalis Sifakis. Firstly, a comfortable gather from Anyukov’s ambitious low drive and in the dying moments a fantastic stop from Roman Pavlyuchenko’s strike. Even the tournament’s joint top scorer Alan Dzagoev was off the boil and couldn’t find the target with a glancing header which should have had the net bulging.

To be fair, on the basis of this performance and the way they came back against Poland in the opening game, Greece were worthy qualifiers, but you really expected Russia to succeed as one of the tournament’s dark horses, particularly after their annihilation of group winners Czech Republic, but they seemed to give only a half hearted effort this evening and it came back to haunt them. One group down, three to go; let’s hope there are more pleasant surprises ahead.