France Out of Euros

Henry: End of an era

Glazer won't sell Ronaldo. Arsene Wenger's upset about Milan's interst in Adebayor. The Barca Trio are coming to England. Four rugby stars have done something dodgy in New Zealand.

All of these were possible stories this morning. But you don't want to read them. You want to read this: Italy 2, France 0, which means the French are out of Euro 2008.

And they only picked up one more point than England...

With Romania needing to beat Holland – a team for whom defeat is looking increasingly unlikely – it was always likely to be a winner-takes-all clash between the 2006 World Cup finalists.

Neither team has played well this tournament but it was Italy that finally found their form, while the French just surrendered. Anyone would think it was genetic or something.

After Abidal saw red for his lunge at Luca Toni, Andrew Pirlo calmly slotted home the resulting penalty.

And as if that wasn't chucklesome enough, the Azzurri's second goal game from a Thierry Henry deflection.

Admittedly though, by that point, the Italians should have been five up, if Luca Toni had done his job. Instead the word's 'banjo', 'arse' and 'cow's' sprang to mind.

The bad news for Italy though was bookings for Pirlo and Gattuso, which means they'll both now miss the quarter-final clash with Spain.

It could also have been different if Romania had beaten Holland, as that would have sent both Italy and France crashing out. However, despite the already-through Dutch making nine changes, Romania didn't even come close and crashed out 2-0.

Nine changes and still beat Romania? That's just showing off.

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