I was a bit sad the Italians won in 120 minutes since I was hoping the Germans would go out on penalties.

I was a lecturer in sport studies and I set the students the problem of solving drawn games at Championship level like this.

The most imaginative answer was that the penalty shoot-out is taken before the game. Once it got to ninety minutes the team that won would be the winner if the result was a draw. The students believed there would not be many and it would encorurage forward play, though in fairnesss it was not much needed last night!!