They Finished 14th: POLAND

Ah, another chapter in the burgeoning tome that is Host Nations That Fail To Get Beyond The Group Stage has been writ. (This book is not available in any good, bad or indifferent shops, or indeed in any digital format.)

Poland looked nervy, despite (or probably because of) the massed ranks of fans desperately wanting them to do well. And I shared that desire. For my money, a tournament always benefits from having the host nation involved.

But alack, they are gone. When will we see them again? Probably Euro 2016, held on foreign, less pressure-heavy foreign soil and featuring a whopping 24 teams.

GROUP A FINALE: Poland 0-1 Czech Rep; Russia 0-1 Greece

Has a tournament group ever been turned on its head so savagely by the final group games?
Russia were by far the best team in the group, thrashing the Czechs 4-1 in the second game of the tournament, and yet it is they who go home and the Czechs who progress. And the host Poles are on their way home (not far to travel at least) after being frozen by fear of failure in all three of their games.
HOW THEY FINISHED: 1: CZECH REP  2: GREECE  3: Russia  4: Poland.

As you'll see from this, it didn't quite pan out the way I predicted. Although it really should have.

Poland 1-1 Russia

This one kicked off way before it kicked off. Fighting in the streets, a lad knocked unconscious face down on the news. The sort of images UEFA like to think only ever involve England fans.
There's history between these two nations of course, unfinished business, even though the Soviet Union has disintegrated, the Eastern Bloc has crumbled, the Iron Curtain torn.
The perceptive among you will have noticed I've written nothing about the game. That's because I missed all of the first half and was a little drunk during the second.
However, there's a contender for goal of the tournament in this game, a bullet, diagonal shot from outside the area for Poland.
The Polizei or whatever variation on the word Police they're called out there will have been glad of the draw, as points shared are problems halved.

Poland 1-1 Greece

It's quite possible that we've already had more excitement in Euro 2012 than we did in the entire last World Cup. Two goals. Two reds. A saved penalty. All following a mercifully short opening ceremony.
What more could you ask for, other than a streaker perhaps.

I didn't catch the whole match, just the very start and the very end, but judging from the highlights, what happened in between was positive fayre, unlike the over-cautious dirges that tend to occur in the early stages of tournaments.

I had a couple of lines lined up like Poles Taken Apart or We Came, Warsaw, We Conquered, but neither is apt, or possibly, very good.