Ding Ding End of Round One...

And so we reach the end of the first round of group games with Group D.
First England v France, in which Roy Hodgson remarkably managed to get thicko England players to understand a system and stick to it, to the point where even Steven Gerrard stayed in the middle of the park instead of haring like a lunatic up the field. This meant they weren't going to trouble the French defense much but it stopped them scoring at will too.
And Ukraine v Sweden turned out to be a great match. The world rejoiced that Andriy Shevchenko managed to upstage Zlatan Ibrahimivic, a man whose ego size is only rivalled by that of Christiano Ronaldo. Zlatan may have scored a good goal, but he also gave us shot of the tournament so far; you thought Geoff Thomas' 1992 corner flag bothering effort against France was good, but this one was so wide it went out for a throw on the other side. Marvellous.

The game was also notable for having in Shevchenko and Olof Mellberg two men with a combined age of 112. Sweden also fielded the magnificent Elm; who did indeed look like an elm so that was good. And finally, I didn't even need to switch over to the BBC for Springwatch when we had a cameraman happy to suddenly cut to a ladybird taking off from the sleeve of someone in the crowd. Makes a nice change from the obigatory shots of pretty ladies they usually cut to.

So, what have we learned from that first round?
Well, not a huge amount. Spain may well want to start using a proper striker (so not Fernando Torres then) instead of a load of midget midfielders however good they are. Holland are going to have to remember they can't just turn up and expect to win. The tournament is just as likely to end in ignominy or triumph for France and Italy, either is possible. And Ukraine and Sweden have every chance of beating France and England to get out of Group D which would be hilarious. Finally, Ireland just have to beat Spain and they're laughing...
Round two? Bring it on.
PS Didi-watch update: bit of twitching but not the worst by any stretch. let's see how he is by next week.