GROUP B FINALE: Germany 2-1 Denmark; Holland 1-2 Portugal

They've only gone and done it again.

Even being plopped in the sewer that was The Group Of Death couldn't stop perennial Group Stage qualifiers Germany and Portugal from, er, qualifying from the group stage.

I don't know what happened to Holland, and I'm sure Holland doesn't know what happened to Holland. Even in the game last night, they started well and looked like they would win it. But then, they just stopped, or at least stopped believing.

Only saw the goals from the Denmark/Germany match - this playing the last group games concurrently stuff is hard work for just two eyes.

So, the Germans, my tips to win this thing are through, that's the main thing. The fact that they're the only team out of the four who've qualified that I predicted would qualify is something I'd quite like to gloss over at this point, thank you very much.

HOW THEY FINISHED: 1: GERMANY  2: PORTUGAL  3: Denmark  4: Holland

A state of affairs that bears little resemblance to this shoddily predicted state of affairs.

Germany 2-1 Holland

Two defeats and you'd expect to be on your way home. You'd deserve to be out. And yet, the Dutch (what has that word got to do with Holland or the Netherlands, and what have those names got to do with each other?) can still progress with a win against Portugal in their final game.

Meanwhile, Germany, my tip, my favourites, produced a convincing display that backs up my faith in them. Gomez looks like the goalscorer he's always been at club level, good enough to keep the mercurial Miroslav Klose on the bench. It's hard to find a weakness in their ranks.

And yet the mathematicians will tell you that it is still possible for the Germans NOT to qualify for the knockout stages if results don't go their way in Sunday's final games.

Now, that is kerrrr-azeee.

Holland 0-1 Denmark

Ah, the first bona fide shock of the tournament. World Cup finalists the Dutch come unstuck against the lowly fancied Danes.

The Dutch were all over them though, and but for woeful finishing/last-third play they would have won this. But the Danes played like I think England will need to play if they're going to get anywhere. Go one-up and defend defend defend defend, hope, pray, defend a bit more, bore the opposition into submission. Do a Greece 2004...

Euro Moments No.2: England 4-1 Holland, 1996

Yeah, it's back to '96 again. Blah, blah, blah. No apologies for that.

Quite simply, this is the best England performance I've seen in my lifetime (too young to have been around for '66).

Although the 5-1 in Germany runs it close, this was in a major tournament, this was under pressure, this was against a highly fancied Dutch team, and this was liquid football. The day when everything slipped into place, and we gave one of the most erudite footballing nations a real lesson.

And yes, I had a few beers while watching it. Wellllll...