[Tournament] UEFA Euro 2008

I have no idea whom I should support this time. Germany's team sucks ass in my opinion (relatively). Not that I wish they fail this contest, but if they do, it's going to be hilarious listening the experts analysing, debating, denialing. I love the ones that have this face: "Oh I don't care crap, but I get paid for the job so yeah." The only worthwhile comments are going to be from Lothar Matthäus anyway, who according to SZ (Süddeutsche Zeitung), will escort this event with individual critique on the german team.

If anything, I'll root for Italy to a certain degree. They have Luca Toni and he's probably going to own this contest. Cristiano Ronaldo is going to be responsible for failed penalty shots, general comedy and drama lulz.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

My impressions of the teams so far:

Schwitzerland: Good fighting spirit, but the whole team appears still too disorganized. Second half it looked like they were better and pressing and stuff, but a really good team would have made more out of it. Too bad for them, Alexander Frei is out. That's really pitchdark-black luck.

Zeckenrepublik: They look like an organized, calm team, but also revealed definciency in offense. If they are under pressure nothing goes, see second half of yesterday's match.

Christmas Turkey: A solid, slightly above average team. Resisted the attacks of the Portugese for a long time and had half-decent football construction on opponent's ground. Karim was good, Tuncay was not.

Port Ugal: Oh yeah, they have quite the stars in their team and also played like a team. They will probably go far, but it depends on how stable they are if they meet equally good teams and are under pressure. That's usually when you see whether a teams falls apart or has what it takes for the trophy.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Holy cow, did you see Klose's second fateful pass to Podolski? He faked a shot and gave a millenia arclamp ball to Podolski, BAM, goal. Too bad his performance was so authentic the press didn't see it the same way.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yesterday, I was most impressed by van Nistelroy's action not to go for the penalty shot when it's most likely that he would have gotten it. It's simply, let's call it justice for first goal, the offside regulation of which is not even known by most experts. But Italy didn't play that bad, they were just forced to be on the move after the first goal, allowing more rooms and then the Netherlands played just a PERFECT counter-attack.

Romania vs French was the most boringest match so far. The French team totally put their best player in the wrong position. Ribery belongs to the left side.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Well, I certainly enjoyed the match between Sweden and Greece, but on a different level. At one point I couldn't stop laughing at how bad it was. Look, it's the magical defense triangle with overwhelming ball possession and perfect short pass play, yet the spectators are booing. The second goal was the icing on the cake.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I don't know. I think there are days where playing football is impossible, and yesterday was such a day for Germany. It's the first minutes that usually determine how motivated a team is and what you can expect from the match. Unfortunately, yesterday both team went into a state of staticness and chess football pretty fast. I can't particularly fault anyone for this.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I actually dared that Russia is going to defeat the Netherlands with 2:1.

Regarding the match yesterday, I think Germany got lucky that everything fits so nicely. But they had little advantages that added to the great sum:
1. Psychological advantage: not being considered the favourite, early goal
2. Good tactical adaptation: 5 midfielders for more stability in the defense and domination
3. More praxis: Portugal's main players were resting for 8-9 days, that's too much in my opinion. Just think of an extreme value (unit:days), estimate the performance level, roll it back to reasonable values, use the continuity concept of math.

FELIPE NO

This final was a rather anticlimatic match, hence most of the german folks weren't too upset about the loss. On the whole this was a great tournament that shows the general trend of modern football. Sometimes I watch older games (like ~1985-1995) and think what the hell, why do they have so much space, why are the running so slowly? Not to mention ~1960-1980 football, hehe.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?