HALF WAY there, half have gone home and half remain. Not necessarily the worst have returned home and the best have progressed to the Euro 96 quarter finals, but sport wouldn't be sport if everything worked out perfectly.

It's better, perhaps, if there's a little injustice mixed with justice. It's better certainly than the World Cup format where 36 first round matches are played to eliminate just eight of the 24 finalists. No place, therefore, for the best third placed teams and in most cases, perhaps Italy's too, it's no more than they deserved.

Last Wednesday and Thursday, when the chips were down, so many teams came out fighting where before they were either too coy or too clever by half for their own good.

So it was, in time honoured fashion, that teams' inhibitions were merely compounded by coaches whose priority was to avoid defeat rather than go and win matches. But why should it always be like this?

After their rousing finale against the Swiss at Villa Park, Scotland must be wondering whether they would have been better served by a more cavalier approach in the preceding matches against Holland and England; one more in keeping with their spirited, swashbuckling temperament, as is categorised by their rugby teams and the Tartan Army.

A cautious, essentially defensive strategy also falls down if the said team goes a goal behind. Invariably they are powerless to react positively after taking too many negative thoughts into the game. It happened the Swiss when they fell behind to the Dutch and several other sides during the first round.

Ditto the Danes against Croatia and by the time they beat Turkey 3-0 it was too late, disgusted Danish supporters having torn up their match tickets and returned home with letters of protest to the Danish FA.

The Turks were even less ambitious. The much trumpeted Hakan was ultimately substituted at half time against Denmark, but the poor fellow couldn't have ploughed a more lonely furrow had he been escaping from Colditz single handedly.

Their limited horizons were exemplified by the post match comments of their impressive left wing back Abdullah on Wednesday when he said: "At least we have justified our place here. We were not like Greece in the last World Cup." A trivial matter for debate which they are welcome too.

A lot of tosh was written and said about Bulgaria and especially Romania at the last World Cup. The Romanian's match of the tournament with Argentina, (the real purveyors of the beautiful game in America) was down exclusively to the latter's cavalier approach.

Both these East European sides are purely counter attacking sides, who defend in numbers and attack on the break. Pitted against each other they are as exciting as dripping paint. What's more, they've grown old badly - look at the prima donna to end all prima donnas, Hristo Stoichkov.

Like the Danes, the couldn't do it when the onus was on them, to force the game. Romania may have been singularly unlucky, but France and Spain were undoubtedly the more progressive teams in Group B.

The main casualties, of course, were Italy and Russia, who could hardly be accused of defensive football. But here again the respective managers were too cute and too tyrannical for their own good. Oleg Romantsev omitted leading scorer Sergei Kiryakov for both their opening games despite a spirited substitutes' appearance against Italy before sending him on and snidely remarking he should have done so sooner.

No doubt the feisty little red head can be a truculent fellow judging by his on field antics but by playing Kolyvanov on his own up front, Romantsev played into the hands of the Italians and the Germans.

Admittedly the brilliant, Onopko was jaded from three years of continuous football, their finishing was often deplorable, they conceded soft goals more, readily than anyone and dropped their heads a mite too easily.

"The team needs a lot of works on its mental attitude. I turned out to be a pretty mediocre psychologist," admitted Romantsev.

That much was made clear by, other public attacks on his players, (never a good barometer) such as the comment that his best players against Germany were the ones on the bench. Nice one Oleg.

Romantsev is from the old school of Russian managers, one of his senior players commenting: "He just looks at you and makes it quite clear you're a piece of dirt."

It was hard not to feel considerable sympathy for Arrigo Sacchi as he died a thousand deaths on Thursday night. He is a great tactician, and an innovator, who remains calm and dignified under ridiculous pressure. One understood Ruud Gullit's obvious disappointment.

In hindsight, the flair of the brilliant Milan side of the 80s clearly had everything to do with the off and on field influence of Gullit and fellow Dutchmen Marco Van Basten and Frank Rijkaard.

Sacchi promised more of the same with the Azzurri but never delivered. They are essentially a functional side, where flair players are often subservient to the work ethic, the system, and Sacchi's famed "pressure" game.

True their technique, their passing their unrelenting pressure, and Italy being Italy, made them exciting to watch and they were, yet again, cruelly unlucky.

However, the five changes against the Czech Republic (admittedly compounded by Luigi Appoloni's suicidal dismissal merely compounded the originals non selection of Roberto Baggio, whose individualism took Italy to the World Cup final two years ago.

Their superb win over Russia was generally misinterpreted. Sacchi's Italians were never likely to pass the ball through the pitch and score the perfect goal. They pressurised and struck swiftly from inside the opposition halfway.

They had less of the ball against the Russians and, would you believe, in the first half against Germany. But presented with it in the second half they hadn't the width or the guile to make the most of it, often launching the ball toward the ever willing but ever tiring Casiraghi. The pressure game had also knackered them.

Di Matteo in midfield was a case in point and the arrival of another honest, straight running type, Di Livio for Fuser on the right, while Allesandro del Piero remained on the bench (Roberto Donadoni could have been switched to the right), was somehow a fitting finale.

Players tiring of, and with, the pressure game; the system superceding players individuality; passed out by a new era of economical pass and move, and then, needing to score or go out, the last desperate substitution sees the arrival of another favoured, functional son to no avail. Remind you of anyone?

. Scottish referee Les Mottram could be in charge of the European Championship final.

Mottram is one of three officials lined up for the semi finals and the final - the others being Italian Pier Luigi Pairetto and Sandor Puhl of Hungary.

UEFA will decide which games they take charge of once the qualifiers from the quarter finals are known.

Mottram is guaranteed at least one of the semi final ties.

. FIFA yesterday lifted their suspension on the Greek Football Federation after receiving guarantees from the Greek government that new operating statutes would be approved.