France did to England what Manchester United did to Bayern Munich and what Porto did to Manchester United. The reigning European champions beat England (pix) thanks to two injury time goals by the masterful Zinedine Zidane.

Notable moments:

• Zidane giving his fellow Real Madrid galactico Beckham a peck on the cheek in the tunnel before the match. (For the life of me, I cannot see anyone doing the same to Roy Keane anytime soon.)
• The French were the more dominant side in the first half but it was Sven-Goran Eriksson’s men who took the lead. Lampard beat his marker Silvestre to a Beckham free-kick and headed the ball into the French net.
• Rooney’s surge into the French penalty area panicked Silvestre into making a rash challenge which resulted in a penalty for England. Beckham picked his spot to the keeper’s right but Barthez did brilliantly to palm the shot away. (Barthez is reported to have studied Beckham’s previous penalty attempts before the match.)
• The ever-hapless Heskey fouled Makelele in an area where you wouldn’t want to concede a free-kick and Zidane fired a shot that gave James absolutely no chance.
• Gerrard’s irresponsible backpass to James — he hadn’t even bothered to check in James’s direction for possible danger — was intercepted by Henry in the penalty area and speedy Frenchman went down under a challenge by James. Zidane stepped up and coolly converted the penalty for a famous French victory over their English rivals.

“Were they watching the same match?” Dept.

The BBC’s rating of Gerrard:

5 – An unspectacular display from the Liverpool captain – until his dreadful back pass found Henry in the box.

The Guardian’s rating of Gerrard:

8 – Exactly the force Eriksson hoped he would be. His energy, drive and passing range demonstrated what was missed at the last World Cup.

Euro 2004 has begun and it’s already had a major impact as you can tell from today’s Drudge Report headline.

(It’s strange that Drudge would call it “football” rather than “soccer” but I’m not complaining. “Soccer” just sounds stupid and it has a stupid origin as well.)

I caught the opening match of the tournament which saw hosts Portugal beaten 1-2 by unfancied Greece (pix). Greece got their first goal as early as the sixth minute thanks to some horrible defending by a nervy Portugal side. Ferreira gave the ball away to Karagounis and Couto compounded that mistake by neglecting to close down the Greek player. (Couto seemed primarily concerned with protecting his naughty bits as Karagounis was taking aim.)

Portugal then began to go to pieces with their players once again displaying poor discipline and temperament in a major tournament. The Portuguese couldn’t find a way past a well-organised Greek defence and became petulant and pouty whenever decisions didn’t go their way. Costinha earned himself a yellow card in the 21st minute after a challenge on Karagounis and then stupidly wasted time confronting the writhing Greek player.

Scolari tried to change things around in the second-half by bringing on Deco and Ronaldo but things went from bad to worse. Poor Ronaldo gave away a penalty after he clumsily ran into Seitaridis in the penalty area and Basinas doubled Greece’s lead from the spot.

Ronaldo tried desperately to make amends for his error but he kept failing to find any Portuguese player whenever he crossed the ball. He did finally manage to get a consolation goal in injury time with an exquisite header but Greece ran out 2-1 winners.