Euro 2008: Germany 3 Portugal 2

Well what a turn up for the books that was… by chance a double booking took us to the Twenty20 last night in dear old St John’s Wood which meant we missed most of what must go down as one of the classic Euro encounters

While we were swilling down great quantities of beer and wine and getting agreeably shit-faced in NW8, one of the great quarter-finals was unfolding as an apparently rocky Germany took on the much-fancied might of Portugal.

Now it’s a universally held truth that betting against Germany in the knock out stages of any major tournament is like betting on the white guy in a boxing match; it’s something you just don’t do, even if you’ve as little sense as we have.

But the German 2008 vintage had looked spectacularly poor in the group stages and had not so much belied their billing as pre-tournament favourites, but had seemed determined to set out to systematically dismantle it.

Shows what we know, with Ballack’s boys exposing some really poor set piece defending and consigning Big Phil - in what turned out to be his last game in charge - to being one of the also rans... again.

With a wealth of talent and such an impressive manager Portugal probably the finest modern international team never to have won anything and must remain filed under ‘unfulfilled’.

But credit to Big Phil who was man enough to shoulder most of the blame himself.

That was classy. Interesting times in the Premiership await.