Goalies Jan Oblak and Diogo Costa would both have been worthy winners of Uefa’s official man of the match award. Such was their influence on Portugal’s round of 16 tie with Slovenia whose man between the sticks, Oblak, etched his name in football folklore by saving the great Cristiano Ronaldo’s extra time penalty with the game still delicately poised at 0-0.
Costa clinched the award by saving all of Slovenia’s first three spot kicks in the penalty shootout to propel the 2016 winners to a quarterfinal date with France who toiled to a 1-0 victory over Belgium. Remarkably, neither Kylian Mbappe Lottin nor Ronaldo, the tournament’s record scorer, is yet to break his Euro 2024 duck.
It’s a testament to the resilience of defenses that Les Bleus are in the last eight without scoring a goal. Barcelona defender Jules Kounde was the official man of the match in France’s win because he stood up to Jeremy Doku’s speedy threat while providing an attacking outlet though it was another veteran, Jan Vertoghen, whose deflected interception gave Didier Deschamps’ side victory.
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Ngolo Kante with yet another monster performance
France through to the quarters
Incidentally, Atletico Madrid keeper Oblak and FC Porto’s Costa are available for sale by their clubs but eighty percent of winners of Uefa’s official man of the match awards at Euro 2024 already play for one of the continent’s top 25 clubs. That must be a source of disappointment for scouts scouring Euro 2024 for talent.
Of the last six men of matches, only Ruben Vargas (Augsburg) who won the award in Switzerland’s 2-0 win over Italy, is not playing for a Champions League playing club. The rest – Antonio Rudiger (Germany 2-0 Denmark), Jude Bellingham (England 2-1 Slovakia AET), Rodrigo Cascante Hernandez ‘Rodri’ (Spain 4-1 Georgia), Kounde and Costa are mainstays for top European clubs.
Ahead of Tuesday’s round of 16 fixtures which see Austria pit its wits against Turkey and Holland lock horns with Romania, there had been a total of 41 awards handed out to various winners with Granit Xhaka, Kevin de Bruyne, Ngolo Kante and Stanislav Lobotka the only players to win the gong twice. The first three would cost an arm and a leg while Slovak Lobotka is already on the books of 2022/23 Serie A champions Napoli.
Scouts usually show interest in winners of such awards because they are usually a strong indicator of character. A player who dominates opponents at such an important stage is a man most coaches would love to have in their trenches when the chips are down.
Two Slovenians – Zan Karnicnik (Cejle) and Adam Gnezda Cerin (Panathinaikos), Romanian Nicole Stanciu (Damac), Poland’s Lukas Storupski (Bologna) and Dynamo Kiev’s Mykola Shoparenko are the only players who aren’t household names on Uefa 41-man list of winners.
Of these, Bologna’s Storupski is 33 and Damac’s Stanciu is 31. In short, for scouts scouring new talent, Euro 2024 is akin to searching for water in Sahara Desert.
RESULTS
France 1-0 Belgium,
Portugal 0-0 Slovenia (3-0 on penalties)
TODAY
Austria v Turkey,
Romania v Holland