Today's EURO matches

[Guest alex]

Germany did well to make the final though, considering they were nowhere the best team in it.

[Barney 0]

Xavi won player of the tournament.

[Happy Face 29]

Euro 2008 team of the tournament

 

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Iker Casillas (Spain), Edwin van der Sar (Netherlands).

 

Defenders: Bosingwa (Portugal), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Carlos Marchena (Spain), Pepe (Portugal), Carles Puyol (Spain), Yuri Zhirkov (Russia).

 

Midfielders: Hamit Altintop (Turkey), Luka Modric (Croatia), Marcos Senna (Spain), Xavi Hernández (Spain), Konstantin Zyryanov (Russia), Michael Ballack (Germany), Cesc Fàbregas (Spain), Andrés Iniesta (Spain), Lukas Podolski (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands).

 

Forwards: Andrei Arshavin (Russia), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia), Fernando Torres (Spain), David Villa (Spain).

 

Lahm?

 

Didn't he have a total shitter of a tournament apart from that last minute goal against Turkey?

[khay 10]

I thought he did all right given the fact Poldoski does not like to defended and he had two of the worst defenders in the competition playing alongside him.

[Isegrim 10017]

Euro 2008 team of the tournament

 

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Iker Casillas (Spain), Edwin van der Sar (Netherlands).

 

Defenders: Bosingwa (Portugal), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Carlos Marchena (Spain), Pepe (Portugal), Carles Puyol (Spain), Yuri Zhirkov (Russia).

 

Midfielders: Hamit Altintop (Turkey), Luka Modric (Croatia), Marcos Senna (Spain), Xavi Hernández (Spain), Konstantin Zyryanov (Russia), Michael Ballack (Germany), Cesc Fàbregas (Spain), Andrés Iniesta (Spain), Lukas Podolski (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands).

 

Forwards: Andrei Arshavin (Russia), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia), Fernando Torres (Spain), David Villa (Spain).

 

Lahm?

 

Didn't he have a total shitter of a tournament apart from that last minute goal against Turkey?

I wouldn't have put Lahm in there myself (he played well in 2/3 of the games though). But he deserves it more than Ballack tbh who was pretty shit apart from one free kick.

[Isegrim 10017]

I thought he did all right given the fact Poldoski does not like to defended and he had two of the worst defenders in the competition playing alongside him.

I am still sure that Mertesacker will play at a top European club in 2-3 years time.

Edited June 30, 2008 by Isegrim

[khay 10]

I thought he did all right given the fact Poldoski does not like to defended and he had two of the worst defenders in the competition playing alongside him.

I am still sure that Mertesacker will play at a top European club in 2-3 years time.

 

 

Yes, both of them together was not looking good at all, but maybe with a quicker CB beside him he would look better.

[Guest alex]

I thought he did all right given the fact Poldoski does not like to defended and he had two of the worst defenders in the competition playing alongside him.

I am still sure that Mertesacker will play at a top European club in 2-3 years time.

 

 

Yes, both of them together was not looking good at all, but maybe with a quicker CB beside him he would look better.

I think that was the problem. They didn't exactly compliment each other.

[Douggy B 0]

Well done Luka

[Isegrim 10017]

I thought he did all right given the fact Poldoski does not like to defended and he had two of the worst defenders in the competition playing alongside him.

I am still sure that Mertesacker will play at a top European club in 2-3 years time.

 

 

Yes, both of them together was not looking good at all, but maybe with a quicker CB beside him he would look better.

I think that was the problem. They didn't exactly compliment each other.

To be fair, the combination did well in 2006 and in most matches afterwards. The biggest problem was that Metzelder has hardly played at all last season and was totally lacking match fitness. Why Mertesacker was so nervous and lost his confidence is a bit strange, positioning and passing are normally his strength, but he looked like a Boumble (a crossing of Boumsong and Bramble) the last couple of matches.

[Park Life 71]

I thought he did all right given the fact Poldoski does not like to defended and he had two of the worst defenders in the competition playing alongside him.

I am still sure that Mertesacker will play at a top European club in 2-3 years time.

 

 

Yes, both of them together was not looking good at all, but maybe with a quicker CB beside him he would look better.

I think that was the problem. They didn't exactly compliment each other.

To be fair, the combination did well in 2006 and in most matches afterwards. The biggest problem was that Metzelder has hardly played at all last season and was totally lacking match fitness. Why Mertesacker was so nervous and lost his confidence is a bit strange, positioning and passing are normally his strength, but he looked like a Boumble (a crossing of Boumsong and Bramble) the last couple of matches.

 

 

So perhaps Low wasn't the secret to Klinsmann's success?

[Guest alex]

I thought he did all right given the fact Poldoski does not like to defended and he had two of the worst defenders in the competition playing alongside him.

I am still sure that Mertesacker will play at a top European club in 2-3 years time.

 

 

Yes, both of them together was not looking good at all, but maybe with a quicker CB beside him he would look better.

I think that was the problem. They didn't exactly compliment each other.

To be fair, the combination did well in 2006 and in most matches afterwards. The biggest problem was that Metzelder has hardly played at all last season and was totally lacking match fitness. Why Mertesacker was so nervous and lost his confidence is a bit strange, positioning and passing are normally his strength, but he looked like a Boumble (a crossing of Boumsong and Bramble) the last couple of matches.

 

 

So perhaps Low wasn't the secret to Klinsmann's success?

Low did better than Klinsmann though.

[Park Life 71]

I thought he did all right given the fact Poldoski does not like to defended and he had two of the worst defenders in the competition playing alongside him.

I am still sure that Mertesacker will play at a top European club in 2-3 years time.

 

 

Yes, both of them together was not looking good at all, but maybe with a quicker CB beside him he would look better.

I think that was the problem. They didn't exactly compliment each other.

To be fair, the combination did well in 2006 and in most matches afterwards. The biggest problem was that Metzelder has hardly played at all last season and was totally lacking match fitness. Why Mertesacker was so nervous and lost his confidence is a bit strange, positioning and passing are normally his strength, but he looked like a Boumble (a crossing of Boumsong and Bramble) the last couple of matches.

 

 

So perhaps Low wasn't the secret to Klinsmann's success?

Low did better than Klinsmann though.

 

I disagree the Klinsmann team played far better football.

[Guest alex]

I thought he did all right given the fact Poldoski does not like to defended and he had two of the worst defenders in the competition playing alongside him.

I am still sure that Mertesacker will play at a top European club in 2-3 years time.

 

 

Yes, both of them together was not looking good at all, but maybe with a quicker CB beside him he would look better.

I think that was the problem. They didn't exactly compliment each other.

To be fair, the combination did well in 2006 and in most matches afterwards. The biggest problem was that Metzelder has hardly played at all last season and was totally lacking match fitness. Why Mertesacker was so nervous and lost his confidence is a bit strange, positioning and passing are normally his strength, but he looked like a Boumble (a crossing of Boumsong and Bramble) the last couple of matches.

 

 

So perhaps Low wasn't the secret to Klinsmann's success?

Low did better than Klinsmann though.

 

I disagree the Klinsmann team played far better football.

They did, but they didn't get as far and they were the host nation. Croatia played far better football than Germany in this tournament. That's a different thing though. And it's subjective. The cold, hard facts are the Germans were runners-up.

[acrossthepond 900]

Euro 2008 team of the tournament

 

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Iker Casillas (Spain), Edwin van der Sar (Netherlands).

 

Defenders: Bosingwa (Portugal), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Carlos Marchena (Spain), Pepe (Portugal), Carles Puyol (Spain), Yuri Zhirkov (Russia).

 

Midfielders: Hamit Altintop (Turkey), Luka Modric (Croatia), Marcos Senna (Spain), Xavi Hernández (Spain), Konstantin Zyryanov (Russia), Michael Ballack (Germany), Cesc Fàbregas (Spain), Andrés Iniesta (Spain), Lukas Podolski (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands).

 

Forwards: Andrei Arshavin (Russia), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia), Fernando Torres (Spain), David Villa (Spain).

 

None of the bolded belong. I'd also have Boruc instead of VdS, who didn't really distinguish himself I thought. Holland's wins were comfortable and their loss was abject, the keeper didn't have much say in either, I thought, whereas Boruc singlehandedly kept Poland from being a laughingstock.

[TheInspiration 1]

Sneijder looked class. Deserved it as much as Arshavin, who only played three games and went missing in the most important one.

 

Interesting that Semih and Podolski aren't there when they both scored more than Arshavin, Pavyluchenko and Torres.

Edited June 30, 2008 by TheInspiration

[acrossthepond 900]

Sneijder looked class. Deserved it as much as Arshavin, who only played three games and went missing in the most important one.

 

Interesting that Semih and Podolski aren't there when they both scored more than Arshavin, Pavyluchenko and Torres.

 

Podolski's there, but as a midfielder. And I'd definitely swap Semih for Torres, who really contributed very little but is on there because he scored the winning goal on the final (oh by the way did you hear he plays in England? For Liverpool?)

 

Sneijder went missing (actually he didn't just go missing, he actively contributed to his team's defeat with his awful wastes of possession) in his side's most important game too...which incidentally was the one in which Arshavin was earning his place in this selection.

[Sima 0]

I'd have gone for Iniesta ahead of Xavi tbh.

[Happy Face 29]

Spain leapt to the top of FIFA's monthly rankings for the first time following its triumph at the European Championship, with Brazil and Argentina both shoved out of the top three.

 

Spain's 1-0 victory over Germany in Sunday's Euro 2008 final lifted it three places to make it just the sixth team after France, Germany, Brazil, Italy and Argentina to hold top spot in the 15-year-old rankings.

 

Brazil dropped to fourth place in the list published Wednesday, the first time since November 1993 that the five-time World Cup holders have been outside the top three.

 

The Spanish, who with seven matches in June played more than any other side, headed an all-European trio.

 

Italy's troubled run to the quarterfinals was enough to push it up one spot to second place, albeit with 1,404 points to Spain's 1,557, while Germany jumped two places to third on 1,364.

 

The fact that most of the major action took place in Europe caused Brazil and Argentina to slip.

 

Last month's No. 1 Argentina was sixth, with the Netherlands' blistering first-round performances at Euro 2008 — which included a 4-1 win over France and 3-0 win over Italy — enough to move it between the South American rivals.

 

Croatia, the Czech Republic, Portugal and France rounded out the top 10, followed by Russia, which was the biggest riser in the top 50 with its Euro 2008 semifinal spot lifting it 13 places to No. 11.

 

England and Greece, which lost all three of its first-round matches to surrender the European title it won in 2004, both dropped out of the top 10 — to 15th and 18th respectively.

 

Cameroon was the highest-ranked African team in 13th, with Mexico at No. 19 the best of the CONCACAF sides. Japan was the best-placed Asian nation at No. 34, just four spots behind the free-falling United States — down nine places.

 

The next set of rankings will be published on Aug. 6.

 

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/02/...FA-Rankings.php

[Happy Face 29]

FIFA RANKINGS (previous position in brackets):

 

1. (4) Spain

2. (3) Italy

3. (5) Germany

4. (2) Brazil

5. (10) Netherlands

6. (1) Argentina

7. (15) Croatia

8. (6) Czech Republic

9. (11) Portugal

10. (7) France

11. (24) Russia

12. (12) Romania

13. (13) Cameroon

14. (20) Turkey

15. (9) England

16. (17) Scotland

17. (18) Bulgaria

18. (8) Greece

19. (14) Mexico

20. (16) Ghana

33. (32) Northern Ireland

41. (42) Republic of Ireland

54. (53) Wales

[Besty 4]

http://sport.rtl.de/fussball/euro2008_7946...mp;set_id=16097

 

[Tooj 17]