Euro 2008 Diary [day3]

France 0-0 Romania

"Its been dreadful, its boring," summarises Alan Hansen at half-time depressingly close to understatement. Like Vienna yesterday Zurich's stadium has also received a blue makeover for the championships, sadly the backdrop is the most vibrant aspect of a first half devoid of chances. Nicolas Anelka nods a bouncing ball over the bar and there have apparently been three yellow cards, although few can remember who to or what for.

The opening ten minutes of the second half offer enough action to wake up the Romanian support at least. As the yellow section of the stand begins to bounce John Champion intones that "if we're not careful a decent game might break out here". That fear is quietly allied within ten minutes as Romania's back eight restrict France to a couple of feeble efforts from Karim Benzema. Quite simply, the worst game of the tournament so far.

Netherlands 3-0 Italy

What goes down must come up and so after the tournaments nadir we are treated to what is set to be its benchmark game. In the opening minutes the Dutch kit catches the eye as they have elected to team their famous orange shirts with blue-pants-in-a-white-wash coloured socks. Holland have the better of the opening quarter of an hour and may have had a penalty when Ruud Van Nistelrooy rounds Gianluigi Buffon; however the Dutchman stays on his feet when thousands wouldn't and the chance is gone.

The opening comes within ten minutes; Buffon fails to clear Rafael Van der Vaart's free-kick and Schneider drives the ball back into the box where Van Nistelrooy pokes it home. The striker subsequently unveils a new celebration involving a prolonged and guilty look toward the linesman; the replays show he is clearly offside. Italy come close as a corner is cleared off the line by Giovanni Van Bronckhorst, but within seconds are two behind after a thrilling counter-attack. Van Bronckhorst racing from his goal-line heroics to pick out Dirk Kuyt whose knockdown is turned home by Wesley Sneijder. "Wonderful Goal! Wonderful Goal!" yells David Pleat.

Before half-time the match could have been settled as Van Nistelrooy is denied a second only by a great save from Buffon. In the second half Italy throw on Alessandro Del Piero to try and rescue the situation; he goes on to create some of their better opportunities, but Edwin van der Sar is proving formidable. "This is his moment" champions Clive Tyldsley as Antonio Cassano is thrown on as well and the Italian almost lives up to his billing, putting Luca Toni clean through. However Toni wastes the opportunity and the watching Italian coaching staff are left to see, hear and speak no evil in slow motion.

Andrea Pirlo is next to come close with a curling right foot free-kick that is brilliantly saved by Van der Sar who proceeds to celebrate as if he's saved a winning spot-kick. Whilst the keeper punches the air the Netherlands counter again; Van Bronckhurst feeds Kuyt and when his initial effort is well-saved he chips the follow-up back into the box where Van Bronckhorst heads home the third Dutch goal. As Tyldsley waxes lyrical about Italy never having lost by more than three goals in a tournament finals, Dutch sub Ibrahim Afellay almost ruins that statistic mid sentence grazing the Italian crossbar. Instead it finishes 3-0 and suddenly the Dutch are the favourites.