Euro 2012 Scores: Strong Performances That No One Saw Coming

There's a reason they play the matches. 

At the beginning of Euro 2012, there were essentially two clear favorites to advance from each group. Of course, football is a funny game. 

With two groups done and four teams through to the quarterfinals, we already have a slew of shocking performances that would have been impossible to predict. 

Let's take a look. 

Recent Results and Scores

Sunday, June 17

Portugal 2 - 1 Netherlands

Denmark 1 - 2 Germany

Saturday, June 16

Greece 1 - 0 Russia

Czech Republic 1 - 0 Poland

Greece Shocks Russia

After Russia dominated Czech Republic and Greece struggled against Poland on the first day of the tournament, no one saw this coming.

Simply needing a win against the team that was so heavily favored, Greece got the all-important first goal when Giorgos Karagounis found the back of the net in extra time of the first half. 

Once they had their lead, the Greeks were able to park the bus in front of Russia's gold and held off 25 shots from the Russians.

Greece may be ranked No. 15 in the world by FIFA, but no one was expecting this scrappy squad to advance from Group A, nor were they expecting Russia to be sent home so early. 

Denmark Impressive in Defeats

The Danes lost to Germany by a score of 2-1 and thus were eliminated from Euro 2012, but their performance in the Group of Death was a pleasant surprise.

Coming into the tournament, most just assumed Holland, Portugal and Germany would beat up on Denmark and then it would come down to how those squads did against each other.

Not so fast, says the ninth-ranked Danes. 

In a dominating performance, they upset Holland to jump out to an early lead in the group. Losses against Portugal and Netherlands eliminated the Danes, but it wasn't because of a lack of effort. 

Nicklas Bendtner put forth a classic performance against the Portuguese side that helped the Danes make a classic comeback before falling late.

And in a game everyone expected Germany to dominate, Michael Krohn-Dehli got an early goal and had the Germans sweating for a while. 

Daniel Agger was one of the best defenders of the tournament, and the Danes certainly impressed, even if they are headed home. 

Netherlands Falls Asleep 

After a shocking loss to Denmark and disappointing defeat to Germany, the Dutch were still surprisingly alive. Still, they had some work to do.

The odds were low coming in, so Netherlands' failure to advance isn't unexpected. How they lost to Portugal, however, is what is so surprising. 

Needing a two-goal win to stay alive, it was obvious the Dutch would have to come out attacking. They scored an early first goal that made things interesting, but just went to sleep after that.

Holland look disinterested in advancing to the quarterfinals as Cristiano Ronaldo proceeded to cut them up and find the back of the net twice. 

It was a disappointing tournament by Holland and its atrocious back line, and this match was just the perfect summary for the effort it put forward this past week.

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