Croatia 1 – 1 Turkey (0 - 0 @ 90)
Holland 1 – 3 Russia (1 – 1)
Spain 0 – 0 (0 – 0)

With one exception there were as few points gained in the predict-a-score quarter-finals as there were highlights in last night’s game. A good thing for the PAS as it holds the interest, which is something that could hardly be said for the latter.
There may have been 11 men in white shirts running around on a field in Vienna last night, but whether they had come to play football is an argument that even the Italians, who can after all start one in a phone box, would find difficult to sustain. While Shearer wondered whether they had played for penalties from the first whistle, we all might be forgiven for thinking that when we their squad was first selected. An Italian team without a decent striker is no Italian squad and how they must be looking back on the salade verdi days of Del Piero, Schillacci, Vieri, Bettega, Rossi, Vialli and of course Baggio, the list goes on. Luca Toni was as likely to join that list as Swiss Tony was likely to get lucky in a nightclub.
Spain tried hard but walking amongst giants was never going to be easy for them as the Italians acted like new neighbours with a secret to hide and stayed very much indoors with the curtains drawn.
The Russians by contrast have ripped away the blinds, thrown open the windows and shouted “dobroye utro, dobroye utro” to the dawn of perhaps a new footballing age. They caught Holland on Saturday in the same way that Van Basten’s men caught Italy and France during the group phase but they have done it when it matters. A few missed chances caused one to think that they would pay the penalty later in the game as the Dutch master’s traditional superiority would win out, but it just didn’t in what was easily the best of the quarter-final matches
A similar turgid 90 minutes was played out on Friday night as Croatia and Turkey struggled to adjust to the rarified atmosphere of a tournament’s knockout stages, but credit to Turkey who, apart from an eager opening to the game were second best to Bilic’s boys for the rest of regulation time, as they found some puff in extra-time. That they found the resolve to equalize what must have been a sickening goal in the last minutes meant that they just about deserved to prevail in the penalty lottery. It was a sad end for a Croatia team for whom this seemed a game too far.

So we have Germany v Turkey, where Hull-target Kazim Kazim wants to “do it for England” and beat Germany for us, cheers Colin, and Russia v Spain which should be a cracker.