The day many of you have been waiting for is finally here. Euro 2008 is set to begin today and the action in Switzerland and Austria will take center stage in the soccer world for the next month.
Today’s matches feature the teams from Group A, with host Switzerland taking on the Czech Republic (11:50am, ESPN Classic) and Portugal meeting Turkey (2:30pm, ESPN Classic).
Soccer By Ives will provide coverage throughout the tournament, with running commentaries and post-match analysis throughout the month. Be sure to check in to SBI every matchday to share your thoughts and opinions on the tournament.
Our Euro 2008 coverage this month is sponsored by Elephant & Castle pub and restaurants, which will be hosting tournament watch parties throughout USA and Canada. Be sure to visit the Elephant & Castle website for more info on their Euro 2008 contests and promotions.
If you are following the matches today, 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.
brant – you can always get your wolfpack joy from the great Vinny Del Negro getting hired as Bull’s coach. With you on the Guardian too, only I wish they didn’t ditch Scott Murray, he was the writer I really dug.
Portugal piling on the pressure now. Deco picks out Joao with a great long ball, and his shot is just deflected by a great last second tackle. Turkey is barely hanging on here. 42nd
gotta flip channels – NC St is up 6 in the bottom of 9th, but UGA’s got the bases loaded with 2 outs. Drama!
Ronaldo off the post! He hit a great free kick off a MORONIC hand ball by the Turkish defense, and lined up over it all pouty and intense. On replay, the keeper got a finger on the ball to push it onto the post.
Turkey race back and get off their first real shot of the game.
39th.
Courtesy of Fox Sports:
http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/pgStory?contentId=8216748#sport=Euro%202008&photo=8216314
just ignore the Turkish chicks at the end. ugh. these two are chemical-accident ugly
Portugal starting to look better, knock around a few passes then Deco takes a couple clever touches before he’s tripped. Can’t make anything from the corner. 35th
As the Guardian noted, as of the 25th minute, there are no new updates regarding Ronaldo’s contract situation and where he;ll play next year. The game’s still young, tho.
Ronaldo makes his first run of the game, but doesn’t make anything out of the shot.
31st
I’m disappointed that Nani didn’t get the start. He’s still young, and not always in the ManU line up, but he and Ronaldo have played so much together, I’d like that familiarity, and they’d be a devastating pair of wingers to trot out.
Portugal have one waved off for offsides. Turkey aren’t showing much early on.
Still enjoying the broadcast team, it just sounds more Euro. But, they still do talk all the time, there is almost no air space there. A lot of people say that’s a trait of American announcers, but they do fill up every second.
good lord. it took about 4 seconds from the time the Portuguese keeper caught the corner until they were shooting at the Turkish goal…
My espn360 says no events are available right now.
goal disallowed by offsides for Portugal. Correct call, tho. Nice to see offsides called correctly after 12 weeks of MLS, though.
anybody else having trouble with espn360?
I wish we could get the verbal equivalent of Barry Glendenning or Gary Naylor from The Guardian Online’s minute-by-minute reports. Those guys are a riot. Sometimes their humor is inherently written, with the plays on words. But those guys are sooooo much better than 90% of the sportswriters we have here in the US.
How is Andy Gray doing as a pundit for ESPN?
I used to live in England for well over 12 years until 2005 and had Sky Sports, the network that Andy Gray works for and I must say how refreshing it is and a breath of fresh air hearing Andy Gray’s voice again. i really have missed him and Martin Tyler who are in my opinion the two best commentators in the World. I’m sick and tired of hearing Tommy Smyth talk. I also wish they would find someone else besides Adrian Healey because he is terrible. JP Dellacamera would have been nice but at least ESPN were smart enough to get Gray which is surprising since they usually have a low standard.
I saw that score, big win for them after nearly losing their whole soccer program.
Did anyone just hear what Tommy Smyth said? Missed who he’s talking about, but he said a Portuguese player would “kick his own grandmother if she came through the middle”. Nice!
It ain’t Euro 2008, but if anyone’s interested, Iraq defeated Australia 1-0 and are still in with a shot at WC 2010. They’re 3 points behind Australia and Qatar with 2 matches left in the current stage. China lost at home to Qatar and are all but eliminated.
Good game. Czechs clearly the better team, but the Swiss played a good game. One mistake and the Czechs capitalized. While the Swiss had chances they didn’t put away, so did the Czechs.
Unlucky for the Swiss, but not unexpected.
Czechs got lucky, Suisse hit the post and were lucky not two have a penalty when Ujfalusi had a handball. Anyone catch that suisse fan picking his nose for like 10 seconds?
Anytime you have Cech, you have a chance to win. He’s still a game changer on any level, with his Frankenstein skull and all.
Swiss can’t get the call at home, Czech defender with a clear handball in the box, that’s called 9 times out of 10. Apparently this is the 10th time.
But speaking of game changing keepers, I missed the action 1st time while watching Matt Reis’ highlight reel from last night, there’s a keeper on fire for ya.
How unlucky can the Swiss get?! They manage to hit the post. If the Czech Republic holds on, the score will surely flatter them. Plus, it’s good for them they brought Petr Cech with them.
Sweet! The Swiss roll out a Columbian born sub. I was about to wonder how many latino’s are in the Alps. 76th min
That’s ok, I like the Swiss for the host factor, but I’m also okay if they are forced to score goals to advance. No goals given up in the last WC, but they’ve been breached at home in game 1. They’ll need better finishing to rebound.
Nice goal by the Czech Republic, though completely against the run of play. Just a mistake in the back by the defense and the offensive player made no mistake.
Quick counter where the defenders didn’t get out fast enough and kept the front attacker onside. Ball pinged around for a sec as the Swiss thought they were clearing upfield. When a quick one-touch bounce from the Czechs looped over the heads of most of the defense, the last Swiss defender didn’t get out fast enough and the Czech #10 was blazing in to latch onto it. One well-placed (tho not cleanly) ball later, Czechs up 1-0.
Oh No! Against the run of play, the Czech Republic take the lead. The ESPN commentators are so right, the Swiss defense fell asleep.
GOAL! Czechs up 1-0
Decent free kick for the Czechs who look like they’re starting to re-assert some control. The Swiss are full of energy, but the Czechs seem pretty unruffled by it all.
As I say that, the Swiss have an excellent chance on a header with 2 great passes and a good decoy run.
Good effort from the Swiss resulting in a clearance the Czechs put into low-earth orbit. But now the crowd’s into it and the Czech’s look like they’re chasing it more than leading the way.
Of course, now that I have Classic on the TV and not watching a feed on the computer, I have to flip between the SUI-CZE game and the NC St- UGA Super-regional… Go Wolfpack!
Not impressed with the Czech Republic at all, they’re over the hill and going to drop off in the next couple. The Swiss are looking good, riding the home crowd, but the question is if they can finish what they’re creating.
DCM,
In San Francisco, Comcast does offer ESPN Classic.
As for MLS, yeah, the design switch for the ball would be nice, along with getting rid of the grid iron lines on some of the fields and ditching artificial turf.
Apparently Comcast doesnt offer ESPN Classic in my area because of an ongoing (years and years) dispute with ESPN. Comcast didnt like it when they started showing live games on ESPN Classic because Comcast owns (or partly owns) many regional sport networks around the country. Then when ESPNU was added, it made it even worse. So the lady at Comcast told me only about 70% of their subscribers get ESPN Classic.
Brant
Well played… well played in deed…
It drives me nuts that Comcast doesn’t offer Classic or U.
Gene – Agreed, wish MLS would switch to it.
Oh, yeah, love the retro design of the ball, this is the type of ball I played with as a kid. The only other design worth having is the 1982 tango (courtesy of World Cup 82 in Spain):)
OK, how’s this for customer service – I just called DirecTV to see what it would take to add ESPN Classic to my package. I’m not worried about a huge cost b/c I’m moving a few weeks, and I’ll be shutting off the satellite when I do, so if it was $5-10 to change packages and get ESPN Classic, I was fine with that.
Apparently the difference btw the package I have, and the package with ESPN Classic is about $5. I said that was fine. Then she asked if I wanted to add any premium channels, and I said “no” – heck, I’m gone in 4 weeks and shutting the satellite off. Instead, she offered me 2 months free Showtime (which I said thanks for) and apparently that promotion includes $5 off your bill for the next 3 months, too.
So the net of this is: I now have ESPN Classic, I’m going to get Showtime added (which I don’t really care about), and b/c of the way the billing cycle ran with my last payment, DirecTV owes me 35c.
How may of y’all are actually *making* money watching Euro 2008?! 😀
Big blow if Frei cant continue, hes by far the best player on the pitch.
It was a decent 1st half, actually, though no goals. Swiss looked to be a more energetic side, though their play in the offensive end lacks imagination (it seems they are a German-lite style team, much as some would call U.S. an English-lite style team). Frei was their only player of quality, but he seems to have suffered a knee injury.
Is it just me, or does Jan Koller look like the guy that played “Earl” on “That 70s Show”?
Try http://channelsurfing.net/. I see a link for the Euro games but I use ESPN360 so I do not need it. Therefore, I dont know what language or how good the feed is because I have not tried it. Good luck.
Found one: http://www.justin.tv/anfoc
DCM – thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I’m on a Mac and can’t use Sopcast. I was hoping Justin.tv would come thru for me, but apparently so are several million other people, and the site is down for being overloaded right now. 🙁
Brant,
Sopcast (one time download of content) has several feeds for the games. I’m watching now online… now if I could only find an English speaking broadcast versus listening these Frenchmen!
For those of us without and Elephant & Castle nearby, is there a feed we can watch somewhere?
the next game will be the goalfest…it’ll end up like 4-3 i bet.
I picked the Swiss to upset the more talented, but aging, Czech Republic today. I’d love the game itself to be a goal explosion we’ve seen during the opening of the 06 World Cup. But, more likely, we’ll see a 1:0 game.
My picks:
FAVORITE: Germany (my home team! 🙂
DARK HORSE: Croatia
OTHERS: I’m pretty excited about Turkey and Russia. Not much buzz and I can see either making a big splash.
I just want to say that if any sponsors are reading this, the legitimacy, accuracy, insightfulness, and abundance of genuineness of Ives’ blog is enough that any sponsor who aligns itself with him is ok in my book.
On the Internet, there’s a line between when someone is selling out (Re: Robert Scroble) and when someone is working with smart sponsors in order to keep the content coming. And in this case, the blog is the later and I think I can speak for all of IvesNation in saying “Thanks” for working with Ives.
Let the games begin!