and everyone, except the Germans of course, wants Spain to win. Europe is unified in its desire to see 'anyone but Germany'. Spain have been great. Not only have they demonstrated the attacking panache you would always expect from them, but they have proved solid defensively. Reducing Russia and Italy to a handful of shots on goal. solid in all areas, and with a keeper of Billy the Fish like agility, Spain are the clear favourites.
But never count out Germany. That old chesnut. Its true. Germany have been uncharacteristically inconsistent in these championships-after a convincing win against Poland, they lost to Croatia and struggled passed Austria, before impressing against Portugal, and yet while they seemed woeful against the Turks, they are surely due to another impressive game in the final. So everything is normal. Either team coud win it.
And now on to Turkey, who completely won me over the other night. I was quite moved by the end, which is weird. I was thinking about how shit the Turks are spoken about by many Germans, always going on about the "Turkish problem", and how the endeavour and enterprise they demonstrated, reflected their people in such a good, and largely accurate, light. They did themselves proud. I for one have been won over to Turkish football- in a way I wasn't by Greece's football 4 years earlier, when that nation played the triumphing underdog.
And then to Russia, who while being a pretty useful team, were not as good as everyone thought. In the opinion of football overdose their spectacular win over Holland can be put down not only to an excellent collective performance, especially going forward, but also to the briefing and insight of Gus Hiddink- who surely knew the dutch players and tactics inside and out. This is not to detract from Russia though-they are at least as good as England. The sooner the English climb down off that silly looking patriotic hobby horse, and realise they are not that good just because they play in the filthy rich premiership, the better.
Finally, I enjoyed the 5 live commentary the other day, when it accompanied the pictures. When that power cut kicked in. Can't we have them do the telly commentary all the time? they were soooooo much better.
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Even in the days of the old First Division and frozen out of European competition after Heysel, there was still the ridiculous over-expectation, ultra-nationalism and violence swirling around the English team. We also have the world's most profitable daily newspapers turning out their "sport as war" crap on a constant basis.
I, for one, have been glad England are not at this tournament and that the fault lines that can't be healed in the national psyche are not being displayed to the world once more.
Truly, if England actually WON! It would be even worse!
I support Guatemala now, a small nation with no hope of qualifying for the World Cup, but a national team whose matches are followed fervently and with good humour and any victory over a more powerful rival is reacted to just like a World Cup win (like last year's triumph over Mexico). I was out in the hip nightclub zone last Saturday, and despite Euro 2008 raging on, the real interest that day was watching some Guatemalan participation in a soccer tournament going on in L.A., an event that probably had little exposure outside a few corners of Latin America.
Good stuff. (Sorry for going on)
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