Posts Tagged ‘euro 2008’

Spain – European Champions

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

Spain won Euro 2008 tonight against a very ordinary German team. Its been a great tournament (although not quite the same without England) and its good for football that a team like Spain with their attacking style of football win Euro 2008.

Spain were overall the best team in the final and in the whole tournament scoring the most goals and conceding the least number of goals. Germany started well but then it was really all Spain. It was just a surprise that it was only 1-0 in the end.

After the game in an interview Lehmann, the (idiot) German goalkeeper went on about how the ref was biased and even said it was like the game was fixed going on about how Silva should have been sent off for headbutting Podolski. Maybe the ref should have given him a red card but Lehmann cant be saying things like this. Looking at the replay it was not all Silva with Podolski charging in and leaning his head in. Also you could argue that Podolski did the first “headbutt”.

The tournament has many great games with just the odd dull game – e.g. the France Romania game (luckily I missed that one). Holland entertained a lot especially in the group games – in particular when they comprenhensively beat France 4-1. Russia did excellent well and it just showed what a great manager Huddink is. Portugal and Croatia also played some excellent football but the best team were Spain. There were last minute minutes and massive drama – most of them coming from Turkey and their last minute goals. Amazing last minute drama in games like Croatia v Turkey with an game with minutes to go and then an equaliser with the last kick of the ball. Also in another game involving Turkey when they equalised late on only for Lahm to score the winner with seconds to go. High entertaining. There some excellent goals including Germany’s against Portugal scored by Schweinsteiger, Sneijder’s goal against Italy and the 3rd goal for Villa’s hat-trick.

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Joined a gym / Euros / BB

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

Finally joined another gym after leaving my last gym about a month ago. I joined LA Fitness which is based about 5 minutes away from where I live in the city centre. Its mostly underground and has the usual machines, weights, classes etc. Different to Virgin Active is that it has a pool/sauna/steam room. Also it just seemed more friendly and also had other benefits like 1 to 1 tuition and they review your exercising after 6 weeks etc.

Went for the induction the other day and went for first time this morning. Kept it easy going since not been to gym for about a month and not played football for a few weeks. However as I type now my left knee is abit sore. Hopefully will be OK for football tomorrow and the 1 to 1 on Monday at the gym.

Euro 2008

Today Spain played Swedan and won 2-1. Spain were not the free-flowing team like in the first game. However there was another goal for Villa. Thats 4 goals so far for him. At the moment Russia are playing Greece and Russia are winning 1-0. Cant be bothered watching it as dont think its going to be particularly interesting. Just watching Big Brother instead ….

Big Brother

It was the eviction yesterday and Steph went. Bit surprised as I thought Mario would go since hes been really slimy and is really is just playing a game (along with his girlfriend Lisa). He keeps going on and on about Michael’s disability (as one of the housemates said hes blind, not a baby!). Hes also patronising to others. Steph had been nicer overall and stuck up for Rachel and Rebecca against the horrible Alex. Apparently Steph got about 45% of the votes. I missed some shows and missed all the wedding task shows but it seems the first impressions count with people not liking Steph not really putting effort into the tasks. Another way of thinking is that the usual ppl who vote in Big Brother are young teenage girls and they are likely to vote out someone like Steph. Anyway ….. LOL. (So far in Big Brother UK, the 1st eviction has always been a woman).

(After the eviction there was a clip of Mario saying that he is playing no game and knows 100s, maybe 1000s of people. Also says that where he comes from has “fan clubs”. WTF!!!! :-o How big headed is he!! )

Read this great article on Inside Big Brother for more.

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Dutch destory France

Friday, June 13th, 2008

There was another great game tonight involving Holland.

Holland v France

Holland beat France 4-1 with another great attacking performance. France were not as bad as they were against Romania.

I am glad Holland won, one because of the style of football they play and I dont really like France (the football team that is). Too many Chelsea (and former Chelsea) players – Makalele, Malouda, Gallas, Anelka AKA Le Sulk).

The game had some great goals, the goals just got better and better in fact. Some great strikes and properly the goal of the tournament from Sneijdar. I just want to comment on the 1st Dutch goal – good header by Kuyt but I really like how Malouda (who was rubbish) didnt really try to defend -  more push Kuyt out of the way! Henry also didnt really play well – in the 1st half hardly touched the ball!! (Good goal though).

The Dutch have so many good attacking players, Ruud Van Nisterooy was excellent. Robben was great when he first came in – if Real get Ronaldo, then maybe we can have Robben (plus about £60m!). (Still not sure if he is 24!! His hairline has got even higher and the hair thinner.

France are almost out now – I think they need to beat Italy to go through to the quarter finals. Maybe Raymond Domenech needs to re-think picking his team by their star signs.

In the end Holland won 4-1!! Great game!! Super attacking football. Come on Holland!!!! (Although if Spain win I wont be too disappointed since I think they are an excellent team with brilliant strikers).

Just need Romania to somehow beat Holland in the next game and then Italy and France are out.

Romania v Italy

The game ended 1-1. Italy were lucky to get a draw. Romania have done well so far against the 2 finalists of the World Cup. It was a mistake which led to the Romania goal – unusual for Italian defence. Romania got a late (ish) penalty – maybe a bit harsh but they got a lucky penalty against Australia (I think in the qualifiers in the last World Cup). However Buffon saved mutu penalty brilliantly. I hope Romania joined Holland in the quarters – for one reason Italy dive about a fair amount.

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Euro 2008!!

Monday, June 9th, 2008

Well the Euros have started and most of the teams have played. After tomorrow we will have seen all the teams play.

Before the tournament started I had “picked a team”. Since England are not in (RUBBISH!!!:( ) loads of people seem to have chosen a team with different reasons. I decided to support Portugal because of Ronaldo. Best player in the world, favourite United player etc etc. However Ronaldo’s future is very uncertain and he has not committed himself to United at all. If he really wanted to stay he would release some official statement saying he wanted to stay at United etc. However he has not said anything and will not say anything until after Euro 2008. (Apparently he is not answering Fergie’s phone calls). Amazingly I agree with Ian Wright – I like Ronaldo the player, not really the person – in some ways. Also Portugal generally dive all over the place!

For that reason I may follow Holland. They play great football and there is a United connection with Van der Sar. (Also they played rather well tonight against Italy!!!). (I also quite like Spain – I think Torres is excellent and David Villa is a brilliant player – I wish United signed him!! They also play in red like United!!). Also they are abit like England in that they are known as under-archiving in major competitions. Hmmm….. who to support….. I am leaning more towards Holland (Dark horses will be Croatia I think).

Anyway, back to the actual football. Until the game between Holland and Italy they tournament had not really kicked off but it has now – they beat Italy 3-0 with 2 great goals! Portugal were pretty good as were Germany. France this afternoon were rather poor in a boring boring match against Romania.

If you miss any of the matches they are all going to be on the excellent BBC iPlayer. Also its worth checking out the BBC Sport Football site – loads of info/audio/videos. (Sounds like an advert this!!)

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