Euro 2012: Poland 1-1 Greece - Two Red Cards & A Missed Penalty

So where the specific Britishness of our personalities told us that the intense build up of Euro 2012 will lead to only disappointing dullness and footballing mediocrity, the introduction to Euro 2012 offered a delightful display of ballsy attacking, scruffy football, peculiar refereeing decisions and an exciting precedent of what this tournament could offer. Poland took the initiative and were the better team throughout the first half. The speed of their attacks whilst counter punching a blunt Greek frontline saw them reep the rewards in the 17th minute with a Lewandowski header capitalising from some awfully misjudged goal keeping, allowing him to sneak a smart header in to the half empty net. Here the game started to fizzle out, whilst Poland still managed the sporadic attack the game lulled as Greece started to dig their way in to the game but without really challenging the Poland defence. The game took a turn for the bizarre when the rather upsettingly named Sokratis Papastathopoulos got a second yellow for having the audacity to touch a player who was already falling over; needless to say this didn't much please the Greeks who spent the final few minutes of the first half kicking, moaning and getting yellow cards which is a mature response that could only help their scenario. Fortunately for Greece the half time whistle seemed to shock them in to a response and they levelled the game early in the second half, a mishap in the Polish defence allowed Salpingidis to turn in a poorly handled cross which seemed to sum up the mood of this game. Whilst every now and then a spark of excitement and creative football would revitalise the often stagnating affair but then mispasses and mistakes would highlight why these two teams aren't much fancied for tournament success. These recurring instances of poor football was epitomised by a red card penalty which happened after Arsenal and Poland keeper Sczezny tripped a Greek attacker through on goal to see the games second red, but also another lacking of quality in the areas of judgement and semi-decent penalty taking, the Greek captain Karagounis only pushed the ball lightly to the replacement keepers left and he saved comfortably and was the final interesting incident which gave intrigue and instances of quality, but was overshadowed by the teams' recurring ineptitude.