Euro 2008 News Archives

You knew this was coming…

If you’re going to Euro 2008, you might want to pay attention to this one.

A month before Euro 2008 kicks off, the Swiss Aids Federation has launched guidelines for people who visit prostitutes.

Postcards have been handed out in Basel, Bern, Geneva, Zurich and Chur – the first four being tournament host cities – urging politeness, respect and cleanliness when paying for sex.

They also call on men to keep their word when paying the agreed amount and remind them that alcohol reduces staying power as well as inhibitions.

Punters can also consult the Don Juan advice centre for information on forced prostitution.

According to the Swiss Aids Federation 230,000 men aged 17-45 pay for sex. Prostitution is legal in Switzerland but prostitutes have to register with city authorities and health authorities and get regular health checks.

Source

Hmm….

I’m surprised that they haven’t talked about the need to verify the legality of the prostitutes, or offered special Euro 2008 discounts for protection (oh, you mean to say they make money off of prostitution in Switzerland?).

Still, if you’re going and you’re going to be drunk and unaccountable for your actions, be nice to the locals, pay what they ask for and clean up your own mess.

Nike just released a new video in their buildup to Euro 2008 - it’s well-directed (very ‘in your face’ and raw) and it features the likes of Wenger, Fabregas, Gallas, Ronaldo, Rooney, Materazzi, Ibrahimovic, and a couple of babes and ends with…well, I’ll let you see that for yourself.

They’re supposed to be showing a special feature-length version of this video during the two Champions League games next week. Figure they’d use a similar video cut edition for a future FIFA game?

Here’s the Nike vid:

Edit: And here is that 2 min version of the ad:

Two years ago (well, actually it was April 29, 2006) England’s chances of winning the World Cup went splat. Or should that be crack!

I’ll always remember where I was when, amid Chelsea’s second consecutive Premiership celebrations at Stamford Bridge, Man United striker Wayne Rooney chased a lost cause in the penalty area and went down painfully under the challenge of Ricardo Carvalho.

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With less than 50 days to go now the cream of Europe’s footballing nations are gearing up for the European Championships in Austria and Switzerland.

The fact none of the Home Nations have managed to qualify has put a dampener on the tournament for the majority of the United Kingdom’s population, but let us not get away from the fact that true football fans will still be tuning in for a feast of great action between June 7-29.

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Has anyone ever noticed how little there is to do with regards to football between matches? Once you read the paper, rant like a nut on your favourite blog, post a few things on a forum and elaborately explain to anybody willing to listen why your team should have won, you are left with nothing to do. No football entertainment whatsoever.

For this precise reason - I can only assume - somebody invented fantasy football: a wonderful distraction that will keep you football-busy for another five to fifteen minutes per matchday. But these minutes can be golden when the wait until the next game is only a few hours long. For this reason, SoccerLens has created its very own private Euro 2008 fantasy football league and we want you to join it!!

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Czech captain and Arsenal midfielder Tomas Rosicky is doubtful for Euro 2008 because of recurring knee tendonitis. The 27-year Rosicky is suffering from a painful inflammation at the back of his knee and has been out of action since the end of January.

The vice president of the Czech football federation Vlastimil Kostal says that he’s “worried” about Rosicky’s participation in Euro 2008 and the Czech team doctor says that the treatment is “difficult” and that Tomas would probably not play for Arsenal again this season.

Missing a major tournament (or indeed, the season run-in for your club) is tough on any player but the main thing here for Rosicky is to ensure that he gets fit with a view towards staying fit in the next season. More injuries will not help his career nor his place at Arsenal. Rosicky and Arsenal must ensure that he doesn’t turn into another Louis Saha and have a torturous time training and getting injured for no good reason.

Euro 2008 kicks off on Saturday 7 June 2008 and Soccerlens will be covering it every step of the way, from the on-pitch action to team news to the wonderful fans that will be traveling to Austria / Switzerland.

Here’s the full list of Euro 2008 fixtures, bookmark and share away. Once the tournament starts, we’ll use this page to list results as well.

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Euro 2008 attracts many big advertisers, and they don’t come much bigger than Coke.

Part of Coca-Cola’s campaign for Euro 2008 involves a Football Language ad - the video is below, I leave it to you guys to judge if it’s good or not.

Euro 2008 promises to be massive - with or without England. Along with team beer and several exciting stars expected to leave a mark on the event, there’s also the small matter of football fans (if anyone forgets, this is what we had in Germany 2006).

I know a lot of bloggers will be covering Euro 2008, so this post is for them - while preparing Soccerlens for Euro 2008 coverage, I realised that there was no one place to get all the team flags (we already have the Euro 2008 kits, if anyone’s interested). Don’t know about you guys but I like to have images on my posts and flags / team crests are quite useful to have when you’re covering an event, even if some of them look the same (damned Europeans).

Alright then, here we go:

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In June, 16 of Europe’s best national sides will descend upon Austria and Switzerland for the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, or as most people call it, Euro 2008. While many of the continent’s top teams will be on display, some of Europe’s - and the world’s - best will be as well, so even if your team isn’t in it, you still have plenty reason to watch.

With that in mind and before the tournament begins, we (as in I) have conjured up the juggernaut of juggernauts, an All-Star Euro 2008 Starting XI.

There are several players you won’t see on this list, like Francesco Totti, Fernando Torres, and others, but I compiled this list with one major rule - no more than two players from one country, for the sake of diversity. Keeping that rule in mind, I did try to include the best players, both promising youngsters and experienced stalwarts alike. So, while all of the names below are recognizable, you may not agree with all of the selections. Then again, you’re not supposed to.
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Reuters soccer blog will be covering Euro 2008 with several reporters but they are looking for the help of our readers in relation to videos from the tournament.

Reuters would like you to send your own video contributions. If you’re at a match in Austria or Switzerland then that would be ideal, but if you have access to a video camera and can produce an exciting piece on the tournament from your own armchair then they would be keen to see it.

The best videos will be posted up on the blog.

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Since Graham’s been going on and on about predictions, here are a few I’ve made in the past (1, 2, 3, 4). I got a few specific ones wrong (David Jones was sold, Alan Smith was sold, Rossi was sold) but in hindsight, that was wishful thinking. I got a few key ones right as well - Makelele’s decline, Scholesy and Giggsy decline and Arsenal’s problems last season.

In any case, I hope you guys enjoy Gerry’s and Graham’s weekend previews - on to the rest of today’s news:

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In a cliché world everyone in Switzerland and Austria walks around in Lederhosen, quaffing down Wurst, Schnitzel and large vats of foamy lager, whilst trekking up large mountains with large dogs, socks pulled up yodelling about Ricola. In reality Lederhosen is a German fashion item and the only yodelling that still exists is in American adverts. The beer and the food is very true.

Unless you have been locked away for the last year, I am sure you are aware of the forthcoming European Championships hosted in said countries from the 7th to 29th June. Here is a guide on how to get around, generally survive and make the most of your money.

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Being that I spend much of my day at the computer, it’s nice to have something to distract me from an article every now and then.

Not that I needed anything more to play to my slacker tendencies, but thanks to JVC (and Ahmed, who put it up on the site, in case you haven’t noticed), I have something to steal my brain for a half-hour, and European football fans have the chance to win prizes.

Without further ado, I present to you Euroball, a frantic 90 seconds of fun and frustration.

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For many teams across Europe, the second biggest tournament to qualify and win would be the Euro. Behind the World Cup, of course. So it is a big time for all teams across the continent to unveil kits that will be worn for this event only, or for a couple years following. Though some of the kits have not changed since the 2006 World Cup, there are some that have, so I have created a collection of the kits here.

However if you want a brief synopsis of the teams kits, here you go:

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Now that we’re into the new year, it’s time to think about some of the stories to watch for in 2008.

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After many protests, UEFA finally saw the light, and allowed a do-over in the qualifiers. England and Russia were asked to play once more in a tiebreaker in Moscow, to once and for all determine which team was more worthy to move on.

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The Euro 2008 Final Draw took place on Sunday December 2 at 12:00pm local time, in Lucerne, Switzerland. Soccerlens has covered the event LIVE, and now gives you the list of the 4 groups of Euro 2008.

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In the aftermath of yet another failed qualifying campaign, Scotland can at least take great heart in their gutsy and impressive performances over the past 14 months. Those performances have seen an unprecedented rise through the FIFA Rankings to the all-time high of 13th place. Putting that into perspective, Scotland are now ranked higher than the USA, a country with almost 60 times the population, and Greece, the current European champions.

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The odds have been set for next summer’s Euro 2008. The favourites out of the 16 nations to win the tournament are Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland and France. Co-hosts Austria and Switzerland have been seeded first along with defending champions Greece as the race for the final in Vienna on June 29th begins.

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The South Africa 2010 Preliminary Draw has paired England with their recent conquerers Croatia in the qualifying round. Responding to the draw, The Sun quoted:

Michael Owen has kick-started preparations for 2010 World Cup qualification in earnest by insisting none of the Croatian team would get into the England side.

Hold on a second. Has little Mickey unearthed the problem at the core of the England national side? That players deserving and capable of taking their team to the European Championships, wouldn’t even get into the team? A team over-flowing with overpaid, over-hyped, over-rated prima-donnas who for the most part are picked on reputation alone. Then it is no wonder that Owen and Co. will be enjoying a spot of Floridian sunshine next summer when Slavan Bilic takes his excellent Croatia side to the European Championship finals. You are judged on results in this game Michael - the results (and ability on display at Wembley last week) suggest that Croatia are far better than you.

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England’s failure in the 2006 World Cup, unsurprisingly on penalties, brought about that familiar disappointment and the usual inquests from the media and fans alike. The melancholic failures since 1966 were all the more painful considering the consensus that the country possessed a pool of talent with the best chance to win the Jules Rimet trophy in a long, long time.

The inquests began, why was Walcott taken instead of Defoe? Is the perceived, paradoxical issue of foreigners in the Premiership contributing to it? Can Lampard and Gerrard function together? Why doesn’t the former repeat his club form for country? Why don’t the players gel together? They ran to those a little more subliminal, does the nation have a losing mentality where sport is concerned (even bearing in mind the rugby team’s success in 2003 and a year after that World Cup)? The final, personal one is why did the media have to hound Luiz Felipe Scolari causing him to reverse his decision to take the job on after that tournament in Germany?

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Italy and England are similar in that after the last World Cup, both their coaches resigned - Lippi and Eriksson. They are also similar in that many people doubted the abilities of their new managers - Donadoni and McClaren. Now, Donadoni and McClaren share many similarities as well. They were both professional footballers when they were younger and they were both heavily criticized for the “new direction” they wanted to take the national team. So as you can see, there are many similarities between Italy and England. However, that is where the similarities end, because while Italy qualified for Euro 2008, England didn’t.

Now why is that?

There are many many reasons to be sure, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to the players and the manager. After all, who else is actually on the field playing if not them?

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Yesterday, UEFA revealed the draw seedings for Euro 2008’s final tournament. The 16 qualified teams have been separated into 4 different pots, which will be utilized to determine the 4 groups of the tournament by drawing one team from each pot.

With the two co-host nations (Austria/Switzerland) already occupying positions A1 and B1 in the draw, Pot 1 will be formed by European champions Greece, and the team with the highest UEFA coefficient from the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2008 qualifying, in this case the Netherlands. The remaining pots have been filled in order of coefficient. The teams in Pot 2 will be Croatia, world champions Italy, the Czech Republic and Sweden, while Romania, Germany, Portugal and Spain will occupy Pot 3. Finally, Pot 4 contains Euro championship newcomers Poland, as well as France, Turkey and Russia.
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The news that Steve McClaren lost his job has filtered through the media this morning, following last night’s abject 3-2 defeat to Croatia at Wembley. It was a defeat that summed up all of the elements of his reign, as a shell-shocked England found themselves 2-0 down within 14 minutes in the crucial Euro 2008 qualifier. Despite restoring parity with 2 of their own in the second-half, the hosts were simply out-classed on the night by their experienced opponents before Mladen Petric determined England’s fate with a deciding goal in the game’s latter stages.

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“Wake up. You didn’t lose the game because of the tactics. We’re simply a better team. I admire your team and your players but my team is a much better team.”

That is what the Croat manager had to say after the game at Wembley. Not only has he used the word ’team’ four times in two sentences, but he has also purposely made a false statement driven by his desire to rub salt into England’s wounds. Or so I like to think. Truth being told, England were woeful on Wednesday night, but the Croat team – the one which qualified after having beaten England twice – is by no means overall better than the current English team. But the manager… that is another story.

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[Editor’s note: for a minute-by-minute live blog report of the England-Croatia game, see this post] 

One word: Nightmare. On the night of the most important games for England in recent years they bottled it. A gutless and nervy performance from every player. They gave it away all throughout the game and constantly played long balls up-field to Crouch who nodded it on for no body to get onto. Where was the player I said should have been playing just behind him?

The second half performance was better after Beckham and Defoe were introduced to the game. Defoe was making the runs and Beckham was getting the balls in…for a very short period only. They were all just too nervous and never controlled the game. Despite the Croatians already qualifying for Euro 2008 they still played as if they wanted it more and simply outclassed England.

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England 2-3 Croatia - and England are now out of Euro 2008.

Full-Time Report: The dissection can be spared for tomorrow morning (honestly, nothing new to be said, England haven’t learned from their mistakes). Croatia, to a man, played well and did their job.

England had Richards, Lescott and Campbell and SWP do well, but to be honest the midfield was horrible, and Crouch, who deserves a lot of credit for his goal, was pushed off the ball too easily too many times and couldn’t outjump his markers.

Feel free to criticise in the comments - remember that Macca has said that he won’t quit if England didn’t qualify, and now that England are not going to Euro 2008, they must plan for South Africa 2010. With 2 and a half years to go, certainly it’s time to pick a new squad?

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Another 6 countries secured their places at Euro 2008 on Saturday night, with Leo Beenhakker’s Poland possibly celebrating the loudest after their 2-0 defeat of Belgium qualified for the first time to a Euro championship. World champions Italy, Netherlands and Spain all progressed with victories while Croatia, beaten by Macedonia, advanced thanks to Russia’s defeat against Israel. France’s players did not even have to put on their boots, with Italy’s last-gasp win in Scotland enough to send them through also. This takes to 12 the number of teams now qualified, with co-hosts Austria & Switzerland, holders Greece, Czech Republic, Germany and Romania already assured their places.

4 more spots to Euro 2008 remain up for grabs, with only one round left to go. Here’s a round-up of each qualifying group, with an analysis of the situation with regards to Wednesday’s matches (courtesy of uefa.com).

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I had initially anticipated that my next 3 articles, which are in the pipeline, would concern something completely different to the slightly dubious nature that this one takes on. However, by complete co-incidence an issue has come to my attention that I felt must be written about, if only to gauge the thoughts of the football audience more than anything.

In the day of yellow cards being issued in the name of the goal celebration, is it a case of the killjoys again, or is it all perfectly acceptable? No doubt you’re all aware of the recent result in Israel which has left England requiring only a draw on Wednesday night against Croatia. It was a result that contradicted the conspiracy theorists within the English media, who had referred to the fact that Guus Hiddink’s father had helped the Jews with their escape during the Second World War. It seems England loves Israel, who love Hiddink, whose employers love the Balkan country. Here goes…

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