My thoughts on The "European World Cup Soccer Championship of America" Day 1

Can't wait to watch Brazil

A quick explanation re the post title. So I'm sitting at work and I'm forwarded an email from a friendly colleague who shall remain nameless; basically his team leader has decided that it would be a great morale boost for the team if they hold a Euro 2012 sweepstake, the email is titled, "The Written Communications European World Cup". My first impression is, that doesn't even sound right?!? Even if you don't give it much thought it's just a bit of a mouthful. Then you start to give it some logical thought... "European World Cup!" It sounds like the sort of thing you'd get an American saying, not one of those enlightened Americans that know what's going on in the World outside of the U S of A, one of these guys. I can just imagine them now, "We now have the latest news from The European World Cup Soccer Championship of America! Brazil have benched their goalscoring forward Paylay in place of the rookie Ney-Mar...!"

As for the tournament, I stuck £5 on the French to win on a recommendation from my other half who knows absolutely nothing about football. I thought to myself, every year I sit here weighing up qualifying records and looking at friendly results and injured players etc, and for all that "insight" I never pick the winner. So on this occasion I'm going to go with the opinion of someone who knows nothing about football. My girlfriend certainly fits that bill, in addition to that France had a good qualifying record and have looked decent in recent friendlies...

Day 1 Summary
I rushed home from work to see the last 10 mins of what looked like a pretty naff opening ceremony. Managed to catch the "Magician" who was trying (and failing miserably) to juggle a ball. At one stage I thought he was going to revert to good ol' fashioned one footed kick ups but then again I think he'd have struggled to do those.

I thought the opening game was fantastic, one of the best opening games I've seen to a football tournament, largely due to the technical frailties of both sides. What stuck me from the beginning was how much of an atmosphere the home crowd created, it must have been pretty intimidating for the referee and he certainly showed it with his performance. How an earth he managed to send off the Greek centre half I'll never know, hopefully it isn't a sign of things to come. Poland look terrible, it all started off so well for them, they were getting so much joy down the right hand side, Twitter was full of jokes relating to Poland having a strong right wing element (boom boom). At the same time the Greek defence was literally parting every time they attacked, leading to much talk of Greek instability (boom boom, I'm 'ere all week). I was not surprised at all when Poland scored early in the game, and wasn't too sure what the Greek keeper was trying to do at the time. I often get berated by my team members for opting to stay on my line for some crosses, if the Greek keeper had taken some lessons from Travis Newton he'd have been fine. Instead he went for a wonder and Ledw Lwed that fella from Dortmund that I put in my Dream Team (Lewandowski I know his name, I'm messing with you) scored a decent header. At that point I though it was going to be a massacre or even a... Greek Tragedy, you know one of the newspapers would have said that, but to their credit the Greeks shrugged off Poland's dominance in the first half along with some clear home team refereeing to come back well in the 2nd half. They were unlucky not to end up winning the game in my opinion.

The Greeks spurned many a chance, including a missed penalty

The second game was also a good one. I thought the Czechs started well but then Russia came to life and showed why they're clear favourites to win a very weak Group A. For some reason despite thinking Russia were better, I decided to go for a 1-1 draw in the office prediction competition, told ya I knew nothing about these things! In the end Russia were just way too good for them and the scoreline told this story. I do think that the Czech's may do well against the Poles and the Greeks though and more inportantly I have three Russians in my dream team!

A dream start for the Russians (see what I did there? Dream, as in Dream Team, I'm so clever)

Day 1:Hero
Dzagoev for Russia, he scored twice. Although he did miss a couple of sitters.

Villain

That Spanish ref in the Poland game. I'm not even bothering to Google his name, you know who I mean. He made some shocking decisions especially the Greek sending off. Somebody Tweeted that he has produced 16 red cards in 19 La Liga games this year, well he's already had two in one European Championship game. Why didn't the Spanish send the one who looks like Dracula (or is he Mexican? Well it is the European World Cup, he is eligible) 

Is Dracula Spanish or Mexican? Get him in!!

Bet of the day
Russia -2 would have been a good one but I doubt anyone would have realistically bet on that. I did however win £1.40 on there being under 3 goals in the opening game.

So there you have it, Euro 2012 is finally here and the first two games were quality. I can't wait for tomorrow's games, although now they'll probably be cagey and boring. They'd better not! Oh, and can people stop backing Ronaldo to do well, Portugal are dog poo, he doesn't have his Real Madrid team mates around him now.