Scout Notes – Euro 2012 – Matchday 1

Robert Lewandowski gets Euro 2012 underway by netting the opener against Greece but Wojciech Szczesny spoils the home celebrations by picking up a straight red card. Russia tear the Czech Republic apart, with Alan Dzagoev the star performer as Dick Advocaat’s side show just why they are the Group A favourites…

Poland 1 Greece 1
Two red cards, a couple of dodgy goalkeepers and the runaway winner of the Captain Poll netting the first goal of the tournament – yesterday’s opener had a bit of everything for Fantasy managers. The Poles lined up as expected, with Damien Perquis shaking off any doubts over an elbow problem to take his place at centre-half for the co-hosts. Poland looked menacing from the off – Robert Lewandowski managed more shots than any other player and Ludovic Obraniak’s set-piece duties seeing him create five goalscoring opportunities for his team mates.

Jakub Blaszczykowski provided the assist for the opener, crossing from the right for Lewandowski to nod home just after the quarter-hour mark but, despite having the majority of attempts on goal, the Poles failed to add to their score. Wojciech Szczesny’s dismissal means he will now miss the next game against Russia and is hugely frustrating for his Fantasy owners – he is stuck on -2 points and is unable to be subbed out of our lineups for this round. Replacement keeper Przemyslaw Tyton is now up for consideration – priced at 4.0 in the McDonald’s game, his penalty save harvested a six point return in comparison.

One game in and Greece already have a defensive crisis brewing. Fernando Santos lost both his first-choice centre-halves inside the first 45 minutes – Sokratis Papastathopoulos received his marching orders after picking up a couple of innocuous bookings and will now miss the game with Czech Republic on Tuesday. He currently sits on -2 points and, similar to Szczesny, cannot be replaced this round. Avraam Papadopoulos limped out of the proceedings early on and has been ruled out of the tournament with knee ligament damage. Kyriakos Papadopoulos is now handed a chance in the heart of defence – the Schalke man’s 17.2% of owners in the McDonald’s game will be relieved, after he was omitted from yesterday’s starting XI.

Dimitrios Salpingidis could well oust Sotiris Ninis from the Greek first-team after an eye-catching second half display. On as a sub for Ninis, he grabbed the equaliser before being felled in the box by Szczesny – after Greece missed two spot-kicks in the previous friendly with Armenia, reports suggest Giorgos Karagounis stepped up as a last resort, with no other player willing to take responsibility. The Greek captain subsequently missed, leaving the match all square.

Russia 4 Czech Republic 1
Dick Advocaat’s side produced a superb attacking display in the evening kick-off to confirm their status as Group A favourites. Playing on the right of the Russia front three, Alan Dzagoev dazzled throughout and bagged a brace to pick up a 13 point return in the McDonald’s game. Classified as a midfielder and priced at 7.5, many had preferred Roman Shirokov due to the latter’s cheaper cost of 6.0 – Dzagoev had just 6.6% ownership prior to last night’s game but this is surely set to rise now. Shirokov still proved his worth, though, netting his side’s second, while Andrei Arshavin looked back to his best on the left of the front three – he created as many as seven goalscoring opportunities and was rewarded with a couple of assists.

The margin of victory was flattering only on the Czechs – Aleksandr Kerzhakov had seven efforts and failed to manage a single attempt on target before being subbed off. His replacement, Roman Pavlyuchenko, had an instant impact; despite being handed 16 minutes game time, the former Spurs man still managed a goal and assist contribution, giving Kerzhakov’s Fantasy owners plenty to fret about ahead of Tuesday’s match with Poland.

The Czechs rolled out their expected first XI, with Michal Kadlec at left-back again after starting their last friendly game against Hungary in the heart of the back-four. Two down at half-time, Bilek withdrew Jan Rezek and brought on Tomas Hubschman – this offered brief hope, as a superb Jaroslav Plasil through ball allowed Vaclav Pilar to reduce the deficit to just one before Pavlyuchenko’s introduction swung the game firmly in Russia’s favour.

Plasil was a strong creative presence throughout and, similar to Arshavin, provided seven goalscoring opportunities, though picked up just a single assist for his endeavours. For Michal Bilek, there’s no hiding from the fact that his team were second best by some distance last night – the only consolation is that the other two teams in the group look far less likely to cause the same problems as Russia. With a group stage wildcard available in the McDonald’s game, Fantasy owners of Petr Cech and Tomas Rosicky could see a drop in the pair’s prices; the duo have 35% and 17% ownership respectively and are more susceptible than most if managers choose to ship out their Czech assets on the back of last night’s performance.