It’s about damn time

We claim to call ourselves a sports blog, but there’s one sport we’ve somehow overlooked during our entire existence — soccer.

As EURO 2008 is just two days from entering the knockout stages, it seems like it’s appropriate to finally include a futbol post.

In case anyone missed it, the Group A Czech Republic-Turkey game was one for the ages. Call it a choke, a miraculous comeback, whatever, it was something else. I watched the game from start to finish and it’s one of my top 3 soccer games, right up there with 1997 US-China women’s world cup final and 2006 barcelona-club america friendly at Reliant stadium. Look it up. FANTASTIC game, especially for a friendly.

Germany’s also been playing uncharacteristically badly. Of course, bad for the Germans still means advancing to the next round, though it remains to be seen if manager Joachim Low will be on the sidelines – or in the stands – for the quarterfinals. If UEFA suspends Low, I think it’s a huge mistake. I don’t even think it was warranted being thrown out from the game. (FYI – Low and the Austrian manager were both tossed for arguing too much with each other and the officials. Plus, gotta say, loving that even though the Germans dumped Jurgen Klinsmann, the coaching staff still has the GQ look.)

Whatever it is, the Germans have got to up their game before the clash against Portugal, who have to be considered one of the two favorites along with the Netherlands. Cristiano Ronaldo looks inspired, trying to make it a triple after capturing the Premier League and Champions League titles earlier this year. And he might even be trying to show skipper Luis Felipe Scolari that he’ll have his fair share of headaches dealing with Cristiano as manager of Chelsea next year. It’s pretty funny that the English side’s foremost contribution to this competition is attempting to distract the Portuguese by announcing the hire of Scolari during the group stages. It really doesn’t feel like a European championship without England.

I’m pulling for Spain – who happens to bear a lot of similarity to my Lakers, perhaps in a very superficial sense. They are a brilliant passing team, and their striking tandem of Fernando Torres and David Villa has to strike fear into the heart of every opposing defense. Villa’s already got four goals – with a hat trick – in two games. Unfortunately, they seem vulnerable to a team that can effectively hold possession because the Spanish are SO bad at taking away the ball. Their back line is still suspect with Puyol out and Ramos playing awfully, and Iker Casillas needs to be more of a force in goal. Throw in the fact that Spain hasn’t won a major international championship since 1964 and it doesn’t look to be the time for Aragones’ side. Sure, they look good in the group stages but they ALWAYS do. Exhibit A: last World Cup.

But, you have to think the best story of this Euro so far – even more surprising than the elimination of 2004 champion Greece after two games (let’s face it, they were pretty lucky four years ago) is the crappy play of the 2006 World Cup Finalists: Italy and France. Granted, it’s the “group of death”, but both of them got a three-goal butt-whipping from the Dutch. Totally uncalled for two of the best teams in the world. So much talent on France – Henry, Govou, Ribery, Makelele, Malouda, Toulalan, Sagnol, Evra, Thuram, Viera…the list goes on. And the Italians always figure out how to win. I miss Totti. No one showboats quite like the Roma man. He’s good, especially for an Italian.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Dutch approach their last game. The Netherlands is already assured the top spot in group C and have every excuse to rest their starters, but a loss would knock out both Italy and France, and you know that Italy will be crying about a conspiracy if that happens. Those match-fixers know a set-up when they see one. And it would definitely be to the Netherlands’ advantage to keep France and Italy out of the knockout rounds, given that both teams seem to get better as the competitions progress. Still, I’m thinking the Dutch at least manage a draw with Romania. I know the Romanians are supposed to be good – they have managed two ties against the aforementioned teams – but I’m going to chalk that to bad performances from Italy and France. This French-Italian clash tomorrow will be GREAT. You can bet that these guys will play the full 90 minutes because a draw ain’t gonna do nothing for them.

As far as the next two days go, I’ll take Romania and Sweden to advance to the quarterfinals. That doesn’t mean much, though – you should’ve seen my World Cup bracket. AWFUL.