ITALY 2-1 RUSSIA TURKEY 0-1 CROATIA

STORY OF THE DAY The remaining quartet of the tournament’s 16 teams are unleashed.

Notoriously slow starters Italy require all of five minutes to go in front at Anfield. Arrigo Sacchi’s World Cup finalists are pegged back by Russia – expected by some to be the Group of Death’s whipping boys – and Italian brows are furrowed until Pierluigi Casiraghi bags his and the Azzurri’s second, provided again by Parma magician Gianfranco Zola. Maybe such a player could grace English football one day.

While Nottingham Forest’s City Ground is the smallest of England’s Euro 96 venues, it’s bouncing as noisily-supported Turkey – whose only previous major tournament experience was a group exit at the 1954 World Cup – face complete novices Croatia. Sadly it’s more of an historic event than a quality contest, until substitute Goran Vlaovic’s late breakaway... THE GOOD Croatia’s cut-glass counter for the game’s only goal. Turkey are maladroitly fumbling for the winner from a corner when Alpay Ozalan, their future Aston Villa defender, kindly moves out of the way so that Croatia’s Aljosa Asanovic can take the loose ball. Just as Asanovic appears to be hurtling into the stand, his sudden stabbed diagonal brilliantly finds

Vlaovic lurking close to the centre circle. The striker’s first touch takes out a ludicrous lunge from the covering defender and his next takes him to the edge of Turkey’s penalty box, where his shoulder-drop dumps keeper Rustu Recber to the floor. Vlaovic’s rolled finish past a sliding Alpay comes 13 seconds after Alpay had the ball by his feet at the other end of the pitch. THE BAD Again, the games are cagey rather than classic. USA 94, as the first three-point World Cup (and with the backpass freshly outlawed), averaged 2.7 goals per game, but the first eight matches of Euro 96 witness 1.6 – lower than any Euros’ whole-competition average since the ’60s. Italy-russia is the only tie of the first six days to feature more than two goals (i.e. three). Ahead of a rest day, it’s hoped that even closely-matched sides will be more expansive in their next games, because the tournament hasn’t really burst into life yet. THEY SAID WHAT?! A Turkish banner at the City Ground sends its good wishes to “Queen Elizabeth II, symbol of the British nation and to all good English gentlemen”. How charming. THE MEDIA “A goalkeeper is a goalkeeper because he can’t play football” – the BBC’S new pundit, Ruud Gullit, after a poor Stanislav Cherchesov kick gift-wraps a goal for Italy.

IN OTHER NEWS... On June 12, a panel of federal judges in Philadelphia blocks President Bill Clinton’s Communications Decency Act, arguing it would infringe upon the free speech rights of adults. Anyone who has sworn online since can be thankful.