IKF u21 European Championship day 4
Thursday, 12 May 2011 10:46
Day 4 brought us some excellent matches. Portugal against England was, you could say, passion against brains. The Portuguese fought as usual with all their heart but forgot to use their brains. England also fought, but did it more calmly and used their brains when they had to. It was quite impressive to see. In doing so they also saved energy while with Portugal the fuel tank seemed empty after 20 minutes. From 4-4 England took a 9-5 lead at half time. In the second half Portugal tried again and took a lot of risks. The English team played very cleverly and punished every fault their opponents made. At the end it was 20-12 but they weren’t the only winners, the spectators were also.
Photos by Marco Spelten (www.actionphotography.nl)
Catalonia-Germany was as tense as you can get. The Catalans started furiously and took a 6-2 lead. At that stage Germany didn’t know how to play. Too often they made the wrong choices but in the second part that changed. The 12-10 at half time was already a hint for what was to come. In the second half the Germans had their defence organized and, after the Catalans missed a penalty at 16-13, it became 16-16 after 18 minutes and the match started again. Only this time the players got more nervous by every minute. That meant that 30 seconds before the end the score was still 16-16. On both sides more than a handful of good chances had been missed. But then Germany scored at last. Of course there was an outburst of joy in the German camp but you had to feel sorry for the Catalans who led during nearly the whole match but lost it at the very end.
In the last match of the day the Hungarian team pleased their fans by scoring fairly well against the strong Dutch side. Especially at the beginning of the second half when they scored four goals in a row the spectators were very delighted. With the 31-15 end score the players could leave the field with their heads high. Poland against the Czech Republic ended in a 25-15 win for the Czechs and the poor Slovakians had to suffer another big beating, Belgium winning 42-5.
