Day 7 review Italy 1 Romania 1 (predicted: 2-1) The group of death became the group of pigeons with a cat amongst them after a second Romanian stalemate left them ahead of the single-pointed Italy and France in Group C. Amongst my predictions yesterday were that we’d see a lot of Italian changes – and […]
Day 6 review Croatia 2 Germany 1 (predicted: 1-2) Yes, this took me by surprise. Unfortunately I had to make do with highlights and match reports for most of today’s games but it seems that Croatia turned things upside down in Group B. The Croatians were as good as they were lackluster in their first […]
Day 5 review Czech Republic 1 Portugal 3 (predicted: 0-2) Portugal guaranteed their passage to the quarter-finals on the same day that their manager, Luiz Felipe Scolari, was confirmed as the new Chelsea manager. Meanwhile, Cristiano Ronaldo stuck another two fingers up at Alex Ferguson with a fine display that he capped with a goal […]
Day 4 review Spain 4 Russia 1 (prediction: 1-0) It maybe wasn’t a huge stretch to suggest that Spain would overcome Russia but I did not see it being by such a wide margin in the end. David Villa struck a hat-trick and Cesc Fabregas grabbed a fourth in the dying minutes with the impressive […]
Day 3 review Romania 0 France 0 (predicted: 0-0) Tepid and fairly uninspiring, if this is what the group of death is to be like then I may just switch Group C off. Romania cannot be faulted for their workrate and organisation – the back four were very impressive and left-back Razvan Rat kept Franck […]
Day 2 review Austria 0 Croatia 1 (predicted: 0-2) For the second day in a row the competition co-hosts were hard done by, this time Austria losing out to the underwhelming Croats by a single goal. Croatia went ahead from a Luka Modric penalty in the fourth minute after Rene Aufhauser clattered in to the […]
Day 1 review Switzerland 0 Czech Republic 1 (predicted: 1-1) Two very different games unfolded on Day 1 of the competition. In the opener, hosts Switzerland were unfortunate to be on the losing end against the Czech Republic. They had numerous chances in both halves and even survived the loss of their star striker, Alex […]
There will be a different feel to Euro 2008 with no England side to cheer/jeer this summer. It certainly takes the hype down several notches. Although I’m sure one of the self-obsessed, overpaid England “stars” who valiantly failed to escape a group with Croatia, Russia and Israel will butt in with a prize quote along […]
A lot is made of the way the sacked Avram Grant, Martin Jol and Sven-Goran Eriksson were treated by Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester City respectively this season. Little loyalty was shown to the managers who failed to meet the expectations of their owners and now reports suggest that the new Man City manager Mark Hughes […]
Of course they did… The Chelsea revival might have looked solid in terms of results but they rarely strung together a good 90 minutes under Grant. They were quite fortunate against United, second-best at Newcastle until they scored, failed to beat Wigan (the result which pretty much derailed their title aspirations) or deal convincgly with […]
nearvana 