World Cup ‘06 was an epiphany for Brother Reynell. After years of looking upon soccer as a bunch of guys kicking a ball around, Reynell came to realize the subtle intricacies of futbol. Join him as he continues his journey into the light of the game on the pitch.
If you’ve been watching the European 2008 Championship, you have to be pinching yourself. With all the games widely available to an American audience on ESPN and ABC, the action could not be more suited for action starved American sports fans. After Germany’s drubbing of Portugal in the first game 3-1, we’ve had nothing but overtime games, two of which went to a shoot out. Plus, many of the games have been dramatic comebacks (see any Turkey game). ESPN ran a statistic that said of the sixty-eight goals scored thus far, eighteen of those have come after the 85th minute. The semifinal matches are as follows:
Wednesday June 25: Germany vs. Turkey
Thursday June 26: Russia vs. Spain
Sunday June 29: Championship game in Vienna, Austria
There are plenty of injuries and suspensions that may affect one or both of these games. Keep up with who’s in and who’s out here. For now, let’s hand out some awards from the quarterfinal round:
Overachievers: The Euro 2008 Youth Movement
So many younger players are making names for themselves, and the players who were thought to dominate seem to be remiss. Spain’s Fernando Torres has taken a back seat to David Villa, Michael Ballack does not seem to be producing as expected (one goal off of a free kick), and the self-proclaimed world’s best, Cristiano Ronaldo, failed to advance his very talented team to the semifinals. Nevertheless, this has been a great championship because there are plenty of new players on this novice’s list to watch when league play starts back in August. Should make for a good article.
Underachievers: Group Winners
Croatia, Portugal, and Netherlands all won their respective groups, but lost their quarterfinal matches. Almost as quickly as the Dutch caught fire, they fizzled out against a young Russian team that looked more like the Oranje with crisp passes and a relentless attack on goal. It’s hard to blame Portugal because they did lose to Germany, a favorite to win and a world power when it comes to soccer. Cristiano Ronaldo will have to wait two more years to answer the international critics in the 2010 World Cup. One has to wonder what the deal is with the Portuguese – all that talent and nothing to show. Sad to see the Clipboard’s adopted team, Croatia, lose a stunner to Turkey.
Player of the Week: Andrei Arshavin, Russia
After serving a two game suspension at the start of the tournament, has come on strong for the Russians by scoring the game winner against Sweden and also scoring against Netherlands in the quarterfinals. His play has seemed to further validate his greatness achieved with his club, Zenit St. Petersburg, which won its first European trophy this past year by defeating Rangers Glasgow in the UEFA Cup Final. If this is in fact a youth movement of sorts, then the twenty-seven year old Arshavin is the vanguard. I hope he leaves Zenit and signs with a bigger club over the summer so we can watch him more closely. More on Arshavin’s play here.
Goal of the Week: Semih Şentürk Turkey versus Croatia
As a substitute, Semih scored in stoppage time at the end of the second overtime. He was able to squeeze it through two defenders and go near post. Not much space at all, as you can see here. The question for Turkey now is can Semih do it for ninety minutes; he will be starting in place of the injured Turkey striker Nihat Kahveci.
Save of the Week: Rüştü Reçber penalty kick save to assure Turkey’s win versus Croatia
Maybe not the best save of these quarterfinals, but certainly a memorable onefor Turkish fans. We do need to consider this: Recber has appeared in more games (117) for Turkey than any other player and he wasn’t even supposed to play in this European Championship. The starting goalkeeper, Volkan Demril, is currently serving a two game suspension after being red carded against Czech Republic.
Game of the Week: Spain versus Italy 0-0 regulation and extra time, Spain wins 4-2 on penalties
Once again Euro saved the best for last this week. This game had all the action without the goals. There were plenty of shots (a total of nine on target, Spain alone had fifteen sail wide) and some great defending, especially by Italy. Both goalkeepers made saves late in the game to push for extra time. Iker Casillas came out of the shootout as the hero and seems to be in top form going into the semifinal match against Russia.
Reynell
This is great stuff. One challenge I have with soccer on the international level is keeping up with all of the personalities. So much of our interest in American centers around getting to know the players. Too often I watch soccer matches and cannot make the connections with the individual players. That is until I read articles like this.
Franjo – please continue to contribute your commentary. 🙂
As you could see, It was a one fantastic tournament, the football has changed a lot in the last few years, there is no more defensive team to go throught, like Greece did.
Russia was unbeliveble, and for me they were the greatest surprise of the tournament, but they deservedley lost.
The Spain will lift the cup, they heve more fantasy moves.
This tournament showed us why we love football so much,.
The another interesting tournament is the Champion leauge, i hope that Reynell will make one post when it began.
And i have a request for everyone here, to make dream team of Euro 08
So long. Greetings from Croatia. God bless you.
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