Good morning everybody. Day two of the European Championships is fast approaching as Group B prepares to kick off. Co-host Austria will begin its tournament by facing Croatia (11:50pm, ESPN2) while tournament title favorites Germany open the chase for the trophy against Poland (2:30pm, ESPN2).
Today’s schedule looks like mismatch central, but Austria will look to pounce on Croatia the way Switzerland jumped all over the Czech Republic on Saturday (Well, except for the whole not scoring thing). The Croats are one of the more fun teams in the tournament to watch so it will be interesting to see how they start the match.
The Germany-Poland tilt is always an intense one and while Germany should win, I don’t think we will see a blowout.
If you will be following the matches today, or if you need some place to follow the matches, please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on the action in the comments section below.
Enjoy the tournament and today’s opening matches.
Germany looked good.
Need to tighten up defense, play Schweinsteiger over Fritz and not look sluggish first 20 minutes of 2nd half.
Germans deserved the win, but Poland did have a nice run of play for a while there in the 2nd half.
This has been the story of the first 2 days, losing teams having a lot of run of play without being able to find a way to score unfortunately.
@ brant – good idea. I was also thinking about distracting all the kids with some adult beverages but then, uh, I become closer and closer to being that guy you read about in newspapers
Germans are just salting this away. Typically efficient, machine-like game from Deutschland and if they play like this all tournament, they’ll be hard to beat.
I think that ref escaped from the UFC pay-per-view that’s going on in London.
Sides – try pointing out to the young gals that Messi’s kinda cute, and the camera is likely to spend a lot of time on him as he dances through the statuary the we call a defense….
You guys are being a bit harsh on Poland. If they had a good striker (cough Podolski cough) this game could easily be tied.
For a while in the second half, Germany looked very shaky.
Frings looked pissed about that cross. I think probably because Klose shot it at him more than he passed it to him. It was a pin-point cross, but at 86mph and all Frings could do was watch it carom over the endline.
I prefer the jersey flavor to euro commentary. What are the chances I can win the tv back for the Argentina game – without causing marital trauma?
Damn…I missed the 2nd goal as well.
As I’m watching the replay, however, I’m wondering if Newcastle’s defense snuck into Poland’s locker room at the half. That was – to borrow a British phrase – “shambolic”.
Clear the damn ball. Put in 18 rows deep into section G. Don’t dick around with it in your box.
Goal Germany!
I have no idea what happened, as my TV went inexplicably blank, and then came back as the announcer was yelling “Two-nil!”
Sidenetting – you’ll get a better play-by-play over here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/jun/08/euro2008groupb.euro2008
we’re just being our usual snarky selves without much time for game description.
*That* is why I never play keeper. Can you imaging willingly flinging yourself in front of a shot like that?
@brant – I was referring to the Roger Gurerro comment. RE: your point, at least these days the player gets to make the choice about what national team he wants to play. Although now I question the USA invasion of Iraq…Iraq has performed very well in tournaments as of late. 😉
my tv got overtaken by a looping DVD of graduation photos…thanks for the updates.
That was an MLS-quality offsides call. I didn’t realize we loaned out the refs.
Compare & contrast Austria and Poland…
I’ll start:
Austria strings together 10 good passes and tanks it when they get to the opponent’s box.
Poland can’t string together 3 decent passes, but always seem to get the shot off.
If you could put together a Polstria team, it might trouble someone.
Homey – we expect some totally of-the-wall names in the US. But to have a German player with a Polish surname (who was, to be fair, born in Poland) scoring against Poland just seemed a little weird… you know, 750 years of bad blood and continually invading each other and all that.
And Onyewu and Mastroeni are purely American names?
That would have been the greatest kneeball ever had Ballack put that in.
How does a guy named Roger Guererro end up playing for Poland?!
Does Podolski get a stunt double for the replays?
Anyone else find it odd that the German goal-scorers name ends in “-ski”?
y’know – It’s a scientifically-proven fact that you can stand still on a dead ball kick, surrounded by the opposition, and still be completely open, so long as you wave your hand around over your head as though calling for the ball.