While there was one less Euro 2016 group game on Tuesday, there was no loss in footballing intrigue and drama.
Both Austria vs Hungary and Portugal vs Iceland were a lot like the tournament as a whole – slightly lacking in attacking quality, full of naff full-backs, but wholly entertaining.
Here’s out pick of Heroes & Villains from Matchday five at Euro 2016.
Heroes
Ádám Szalai
Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
Haven’t scored for your country in two years? Biggest game in a generation? No problem. Szalai’s performance against Austria was like Hungary’s as a whole – nothing flashy, just hard work and taking your chances when they come. Group F has been blown wide open thanks to the Magyars, a nice exclamation mark on a lovely five days of football.
Gábor Király
Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
Not much was expected from everyone’s favourite tracksuit wearing goalkeeper at Euro 2016, but at age 40, Kiraly showed there’s life in the old dog yet. Now, where can we buy a pair of these personalised grey trackies? We want in for Sunday League.
Louis Saha
Louis Saha is just chilling. pic.twitter.com/kjl0IEgObq
— Jonny Sharples (@JonnyGabriel) June 14, 2016
ITV’s approach of ‘just hire a bunch of European footballers to ramble a bit’, may not be to everyone’s taste, but we’re enjoying watching Saha, Bilic and co. lounge about, having a laugh on holiday. Enjoy it boys.
Villains
Cristiano Ronaldo
Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images
Returning from his post-Champions League break, Ronaldo was in full-on villain mode against Iceland. Starved of service and forced to drop deeper to get the ball, Ronaldo became more and more like a pouty child as the game progressed, huffing, puffing and unable to deal with his frustrations.
His petty statements after the only match further soured things. He’s still the best attacking player at the tournament, and games like this normally spur Ronaldo on to score a bagful of goals so things will improve, but he’ll most likely have to hand over free-kick duties to someone else.
Aleksandar Dragović
Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images
Going from thinking you’ve equalised to finding out you’re down to 10 men in the space of 30 seconds is a heck of a momentum swing. Austria paid dearly for Dragovic’s hot-headedness against Hungary. After beginning as one of the sneak favourites for the tournament, Austria could be sent packing before the group stages end.
Photo by Dennis Grombkowski/Getty Images
The entire Austrian team
*tears up accumulator, vows never to call a footballing nation a “dark horse for the trophy” again*
Can’t believe we trusted you Alaba. (Do you know when the Frank Ocean album is coming out? You two are boys right?).
