Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Euro 2008 so far...

Haha, you suffered one of your worst losses ever.

 Well the first round of games are done, everybody has played once and showed off what they got and don't got.  

Some observations:

Spanish forward Fernando Torres looks like he should be playing with these guys.

Speaking of Spain, they made easy work of Russia this morning.  While they made Russia look silly I'm not totally convinced that they are going to make it to the final.  While they do have maybe the quickest counter attack ever, I think that they could be exploited.  Their play reminds me of University of Puget Sound basketball.  Nothing but lay-ups, three pointers and full court press.  This works great until you play a good team with big guys.  Russia had their chances and they didn't capitalize.  If they had been able to put some away, I think that they could have thrown Spain off.  Russia also doesn't have very good defense so it will be interesting to see Spain play against someone with some D.  At the same time, David Villa started the tourney off the best way possible with a hat trick.

Greece=Boring...What a boring boring boring boring team tactic.  Play defense and kick the ball around in the back until the opposing team falls asleep and then launch a quick attack.  That tactic only works when you are winning.  When you are losing you just end up wasting time.  When I was looking for some highlights of the Greece v. Sweden game I came upon this.

Netherlands v. Italy:  Holland is my new favorite team.  I like that even though they were up by two goals they still went for more.  It was also great to see Italy lose.  Holland definitely made Italy look old, they only had one player on the field under the age of 30.  Maybe I was wrong about Holland not making it out of the group stage.  It would be pretty fun to see Holland v. Spain.  That would be a game of no defense, just goals and counter attacks.

Romania v. France:  What an un-inspired game.  Both teams played flat and didn't show much.  They both could be in trouble next game.  Holland has a lot of momentum going right now and Italy is going to be very amped up after the embarrassing loss.

Austria surprised me a bit.  They didn't look absolutely terrible. 

Croatia also surprise me, they didn't look nearly as good as I thought they would.  They are going to need to step it up against Germany who made some easy work of Poland.  Speaking of Germany, they have go to have the ugliest player in the tournament.  That player is, Bastian Schweinsteiger.  I couldn't find a really good picture but if you watch Germany play look for his 80's pop band hair cut.

I didn't get to see Switzerland, Czech Republic, Portugal, and Turkey as I don't get ESPN Classic but those games went as I expected.  I will try and watch them play tomorrow.

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