European Football Cup 2008’s Weblog

Just 383 days. That is the age gap between Slaven Bilić and Ivica Vastic, two of Thursday’s prime movers but men pushing at totally opposite extremes in their respective trades. While one is the youngest coach in the competition and potentially the youngest ever to lift the trophy, the other is the tournament’s oldest player – and the man whose last-minute equaliser for Austria cemented top spot in Group B for Bilić and his charges.

Tournament contenders
Thanks to Vastic’s strident spot-kick, Croatia will avoid Portugal in the quarter-finals, a meeting many thought they were not only destined for but destined to lose. No-one will be quite so quick to write them off now, and Bilić’s pre-match comments that “any team that beats Germany can hope to beat anybody” will find real resonance when the tournament contenders are next tallied up. But what do you think? Can the mobility and technique of Luka Modrić, Niko Kranjčar and Ivan Rakitić see them through to the end or will more dynamic teams than Germany expose Robert Kovač and Josip Šimunić’s lack of pace at the back?