From daily to weekly. Apologies

It would appear that I bit off way more than I could chew in saying I'd update this blog every day during the European World Cup. OK so I lied, it's not like I went a week without updating it...

Anybody that's paying attention, or that cares, will notice that that last statement is also a lie, it has been a week since I last put finger to button in anger on here. But now I'm back! And what a week it has been!

In summary...

Captain Cavemaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

England were almost single handedly beaten by a caveman. When the hell did Olaf Mellburg score goals? And when he does when does he get a brace, that would have been one hell of a bet!

In Group A Greece managed to do a "Greece Euro 2004" and sneak through at the expense of the Russians, despite the Russians clearly being the best side in the group and finishing with a much better record in the tournament than the Greeks?!?! What the hell is up with this head to head rubbish that UEFA are doing? Nobody knows what is going on. Were Spain and Croatia going to draw 2-2? Were Italy going out even if they won 10-0? Were Spain going to go through? The Italian players had no idea what they needed to do to throw the Ireland game, so they just beat them and went through to the next round. I'm joking by the way I don't buy into all that "Italians are cheats nonsense". They're no more cheats than anyone else. To be fair there is one thing I find more confusing than the logic behind "Head to Head" and that is, who is who out of Gekas and Salpingidis? I thought Gekas had scored twice but it turns out it was Salpingidis that got their goal in the Poland game. Gekas could end up with the Golden Boot at this rate...

These are two different guys I swear!

Another thing that I noticed in Group A were two hilarious names in the Czech Republic team. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who giggles every time the commentators talk of Gebre Selassie (the Czech right back) and how he's full of running... I'm not surprised he's full of running, you should have seen him in the 10,000 Metres in Atlanta!!

Watch out for him on the Czech right flank

And on top of that they've also got a guy in the side called "You're a Czech" (spelt Jiracek). It's almost as if he had an identity crisis and wasn't sure who he should represent at international level, so somebody had to remind him in his name. Thank god for him he's not from The Central African Republic. "You're a Central African Republican", would that fit on the back of a shirt?


In Group B the Dutch are out! I have nothing funny to say about that, they've ruined my chances in work's prediction competition, I had them as runners up! There's talk of dissent in the camp, in traditional Dutch style. Holland if you're gonna go all late 1990's on us you might as well get the De Boer brothers back, who can I say, are so inseparable they've got a joint Twitter account. Give it up guys! Those Ajax days are over, you're going to have to go your separate ways at some point in your lives.

England are through, and once again I'm left thinking, "Am I the only one who can see the cracks?" As mentioned before we let the Swedish caveman score twice, and we didn't look all that convincing in our victory over Ukraine (I've been told I'm not supposed to say "The Ukraine"). Our goal came from a piece of goalkeeping so dodgy that even Shay Given, Petr Cech and myself were shaking our heads while we watched it on TV. You know for the fact that the Sun will have some sort of "Woy" Hodgson pun tomorrow and will have proclaimed us the new all conquering Kings of the European World Cup!

So it's on to the quarter finals and the only thing I have left to say is, how defensive/aggressive is Roy Keane? Wow! All he ever seems to say is "Listen!" We're all listening Roy (apologies to those of you who follow me on Twitter, you'll have heard that one already)! If you think I'm exaggerating watch this. Make sure you listen!

Oh and Zlatan scored AGAIN!

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.