good old John Motson.

He, as ever, did OK. Mark Lawrenson can be quite acerbic sometimes too. 'Mottie' did make me laugh last night though. With his stange insistence on referring to the Runners Up as losers. They may have lost the final but for Christ's sake-they came 2nd! That ain't so bad.


'And the German players look gutted, they are in no hurry to collect their losers medals.'

'Ah, here the come now, here come the losers.'

Then Quuen started to play over the tannoy, and as Freddie Mercury belted out "NO TIME FOR LOSERS " The camera cut away from jubilant España and towards Lehamann looking jealous as hell, and Schweinsteiger looking gutted.

Also strange was the endless repetition of the pundit's line "this is the worst German team in years." Sure, they are not of the class of previous years, but ever since Germany lost 5-1 to England half a decade ago commentators have been saying the same thing. For such a rubbish team they have done rather well one thinks. And they shoud be very proud of these so called 'losers' medals.

Football Overdose would also like to thank the A-Level English Language students from Bury St Edmonds for their wonderfully titled "Month In a Life Of A Fly At The European Champoinships 2008" that closed out the BBC's coverage last night. Poetry indeed.

Here is the first draft the prodcers rejected...

"I only lived for a month,
But what a month,
Unfortunately I was too busy watching football to remember to procreate
And my species is now dead
But what the hell
At least Italy or Germany did not win it"

the final is here, almost

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.

tomorrow's potential (rubbish) headlines

TURKISH DELIGHT (for the umpteenth time)
SOUR KRAUTS (if Germany lose and there is an air of controversy)
KICKED IN THE BALLACK
SHEESH!
TURKEY'S ASCENSION TO EURO SUMMIT
ONE FLUKE OVER THE EAGLES' NEST (admittedly this would work better if Turkey had a last gasp lucky win over Nigeria)
UBERDEUTSCH
GERMANY SPELL IT OUT IN LEHMMANN'S TERMS (if they win on penalties)
DONER COUNT TURKEY OUT
TURKEY BLITZED BY MY MIGHTY GERMANY
LEBENSROUT
ONE HALAL OF A BEATING
GOBBLE ON THAT!


Turkey's magic carpet is still flying high after last night's....

There was to be no Arabian nights style twist as Turkey's fairytale came grinding to a halt last night....

Turkey pulled the rug out from under Germany's campaign last night...

The ruthlessely efficent German footballing machine annexed Turkey last night...

Actually, surely no-one is daft anough to write these, apart form me... we shall see.