Euro 2008 - An Armchair Blog - Can't think what day it is

I went to Wales with my sister, brother-in-law and niece last Friday and only got back yesterday, hence the gap between this blog and the previous one. You would think that the Euros would not be on the agenda when stopping in a caravan by the seaside, however, with Bridgend just a stones throw away, it was essential we stopped the devil from making work for our youthful, idol hands. So the Euros provided us with background entertainment while we consumed alcohol and Jessica dreamt of chocolate Petit Filous.

I wrote the last blog having just watched the team I’m supporting put in one of the worst performances by any nation in the tournament. But this one is written having seen them scrape past Austria thanks to a superb Ballack free kick. While I now have huge doubts about Germany’s ability to win the tournament, I stand by the statement I made in the first of these blogs and repeated in another; you can never write off the Germans. So I won’t, even though they don’t stand a chance against Portugal unless they can tap into their own huge potential.

‘That Turkey-Czech game’, that’s bound to be how it is referred to in the future, so I won’t waste any time. What a game. I was having some feelings of disappointment creeping into my gulliver until that game followed the dramatic results of Spain 2-1 Sweden and Holland 4-1 France. These three nights of magical football left me with no doubts about the quality of Euro 2008 as a tournament. I’ve never been a fan of the Turkish team, they seem to have an air of arrogance surrounding them that is completely unfounded, but they definitely deserved that result, especially having had their previous deficit increased with a little help from the fourth official. Why are the refs taking ages to let players back on the pitch? If Turkey hadn’t won that game there would have been a huge uproar about it.

Tonight it’s the French and the Italians doing battle (2nd and 3rd in the Euro 2008 Disappointment Table respectively). The two are out to get the 2nd spot in group C behind the awesome force of the Dutch who take on a well organised but overly conservative Romania. How will the Netherlands manage to deploy their amazing counter attack against a team that gets a nose bleed when they get a corner? Only time will tell.

Tonight should be a very interesting night, it’s nice to think that the football is this exciting and we aren’t even in the knockout phase yet. I love the Euros.

Oh yeah, and the infamy of the 1st place in the Euro 2008 Disappointment Table has to go to…(drum role)…Mario Gomez. Who I called a ‘f***ing retard’ in a rare instance of non-PC verbal diarrhoea when he missed that miss.