Thank god. Thank you Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thank you Lars Lagerberg. Thank you Sweden.

Tonight you have re-affirmed my belief and love of football with your win over Greece. Watching Greece is the antithesis of why I love football, they make me hate the game, make me angry, burrow at my relationship with football and sportsmanship in general. The Greeks play a spoiler’s game, a game design to break football and make into a succession of long balls and set pieces, of cheap fouls and niggly play. Hell, I don’t know why they just don’t come on the pitch with a knife and puncture the ball. I’m sick of this argument that because they play a highly defensive tactical game, we should applaud them; Applaud them because they achieved so much with so little talent. Greece winning Euro 2004 was the worst footballing achievement of the modern era.
It made a mockery of everything I believe that football should be about, the skill that gets of your seat, the style that makes you cheer with joy, the panache of wonderful expansive play, the reverse pass that leaves defenders on the floor, the mazy dribble and a shot that breaks the net, the burst from the half way line and spanking a shot past the helpless keeper.They don’t play football, it’s a horrific, suffocating version of what we love, a cataclysmic abomination of the beautiful game. The only thing Greece want to do is not lose and that is a disgrace. I was willing Sweden on all night, as I will Russia and Spain to beat this team of destroyers. The offer nothing to the game and everything to the critics of football. Ibrahimovic’s goal should be applauded by everyone who loves football because that one moment of pure skill broke the Greek template and allowed Sweden to win for football. If tonight achieves one thing, let’s hope it’s the end of the tactical mind numbing mockery of football that the Greek’s gave us tonight and in 2004.