Football is in the air in Europe – some great goals and intriguing games in the next 3 weeks – Great expectations in spite of some very unsavory scandals. However fans can expect some great goals and wonderful games as Europe’s 16 very best teams – some better than others obviously – attempt to win the championship.
The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2012, starts this coming Friday in Warsaw Poland .
With some unsavory match-fixing scandals still in the air in the months building up to the tournament – especially in Italy – some serious problems have overshadowed the actual football of Euro 2012. The Italian team has been under tight scrutiny since one of the defenders of the national team, Domenico Criscito, has been implicated in a match-fixing scandal.
Also fears of racist violence in host countries Poland and Ukraine, with accompanying videos of neo-Nazi thugs fighting in the stands have leant an air of political reaction to EURO 2012 which it does not deserve. Even some non-white players and their families from the UK are reported to have cancelled their plans to bring families with them.
The tournament has also been politicized and the tournament was threatened by a boycott caused by the imprisonment of one of the super-rich oligarchs and very suspect former Ukrainian P M Julia Tymoshenko.
It is the first time that either nation has hosted the tournament and has not been without controversy –http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/05/03/polish-president-bronislaw-komorowski-correctly-rejects-any-boycotts-and-says-euro-2012-should-and-will-go-ahead-in-both-poland-and-the-ukraine-by-ota-berlin-constituency-blog-contributor-filip-van/ and http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2012/05/ukraine-and-europe?fsrc=gn_ep
Germany enters EURO 2012 with more than just a ‘little wind in their sails’ and are seen by many as tournament favorites – however not according to their coach Joachim Löw.http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/3396/euro-2012/2012/05/08/3088890/low-spain-remains-favorite-for-euro-2012
Spain with its roster of international stars is hungry for a historic third straight championship and Holland will want to avenge their South African final loss and actually win a tournament – as they did in 1988. There could always be a surprise from an out-sider like Russia, Poland or the Ukraine and that would always be welcome if they play some exciting football.
The final tournament features 16 nations, and the qualifications were contested by 51 nations between August 2010 and November 2011- and 16 joined the two host nations in the tournament to form the present 16 teams.
OTA-Berlin, which rents short-term apartments in Berlin, will have many guests staying with them that will watch the EURO 2012 games in restaurants and cafes and bars all over the place in the areas of Berlin Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg and Friederichshain. As an intelligent alternative to Hotels OTA-Berlin knowledgeable staff can perhaps help unravel some of the complexity of EURO 2012 – and then again perhaps better to figure these things out for yourself!
OTA-Berlin -the intelligent Apartment alternative to Hotels in Berlin – feels that many of its guests along with regular blog readers will be interested in the games taking place in both Poland and the Ukraine.
To vote for your favorite teams please see the voting table to the right hand side of this blog you are now reading.
As of today the standings –according to our OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog readers from our ‘Who will win EURO 2012 POLL – is as follows-
WHO WILL WIN EURO 2012? VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE TEAM!
- Netherlands (21%, 101 Votes)
- Germany (14%, 66 Votes)
- Croatia (13%, 65 Votes)
- Spain (9%, 45 Votes)
- France (9%, 42 Votes)
- Ukraine (6%, 27 Votes)
- Russia (5%, 25 Votes)
- Poland (4%, 20 Votes)
- Sweden (4%, 18 Votes)
- Portugal (4%, 17 Votes)
- Denmark (4%, 17 Votes)
- England (3%, 16 Votes)
- Czech Republic (2%, 9 Votes)
- Republic of Ireland (1%, 7 Votes)
- Greece (1%, 5 Votes)
- Italy (0%, 4 Votes)
Total Voters: 485
The New York Post [what do they know!] say Germany will win the finals against last century’s rivals the Netherlands - http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/soccerblog/germany_win_win_euro_according_to_fuuuwG4lexf7zmqdU1KGcL
See also – http://world-soccer.yoexpert.com/world-soccer-general/who-are-euro-2012-favorites-30415.html
and http://www.planetfootball360.com/read-article.php?id=2164 and http://www.euro-2012-blog.com/
and from the BBC who know a lot about football if not a lot about politics – http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18091750
and from the US ………a very educated article from ESPN – http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/7306134/euro-2012-draw-favorites-underdogs-long
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This blog is brought to you by …..OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog’ is part of OTA-Berlin ‘……the intelligent Apartment-Alternative to Hotels in Berlin’. The views of the article are those of the writer Mr Filip v d Plas and not necessarily those of OTA-Berlin.
EURO 2012 – Football is in the air in Europe – some great goals and intriguing games in the next 3 weeks – Great expectations in spite of some scandals in the air – European Football Championship in Poland & Ukraine starts this week – take our poll and vote for your favorite Team – by contributor Mr Filip van der Plas from OTA Berlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany License. If you use this article or parts of it, please refer to http://www.ota-berlin.de.
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