The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2012, is now seven days old and there has been a lot fo good exciting football . I will be writing a daily blog article with the salient features of all the games. Please send us your thoughts and comments on the form below. – Filip v d Plas-
CROATIA- ITALY 1-1
It seems that all the talk about attacking football from Italy were somewhat premature because it seems to be going back to its old ‘park 3 buses in front of goal’ type of defensive tactics yesterday – the result it seems was costly- it only got them yet again only one point in their 1-1 draw with Croatia.
The Italian team with the attractive striker and personality of Mario Balotelli let their first half lead fall after going into the ‘defensive mode’ and are now in the vulnerable position [as is Holland] that it may need help from others to advance to the quarter-finals. However the Guardian reports today “Euro 2012: Mario Balotelli faces axe after poor form for Italy” http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jun/15/euro-2012-mario-balotelli-italy
Italy did have some chances from Balotelli, Claudio Marchisio and Antonio Cassano, but lacked the finishing finishing quality to actually make all the hard work actually count with a goal – again like the Dutch.
Croatia had less, but also had its chances as when in the first half Nikitca Jelavic got within millimeters of scoring – this had been very the best opportunity of the game thus far from open field play and not set plays.
Andrea Pirlo scored just before half time and gave the Italians the lead wonderfully put free-kick which Stipe Pletikosa, the very capable Croatian keeper had absolutely no chance of stopping in the 39th minute. However the Croatians are not ones to give up easily aware of their talents. And it was in the air that they would counter and indeed did just that when Mario Mandzukic was left unmarked for just an instant. He equalized for Croatia in the 72nd minute.
While I think the Croatian team are doing very well and play attractive football – the same cannot be said of some of its Neanderthal so-called ‘fans’.
Already being investigated for miscreant behavior in its first match, Croatian so-called ‘supporters’ – read stupid idiots – threw flares onto the field several times in the 2nd half. After Croatia scored, the smoke was so intense that Italian keeper Buffon that the match be briefly suspended which duly happened.
These people who throw these things should be given very short shrift.
The Italian team consisted of ; Buffon, Bonucci ,de Rossi ,Chiellini , Pirlo , Maggio , Marchisio , T. Motta , Giaccherini ,Balotelli , and Cassano
The Croatian team consisted of ; Pletikosa – Srna , Corluka , Schildenfeld ,Strinic, Vukojevic , Rakitic , Modric , Perisic, Mandzukic , and Jelavic
EIRE / SPAIN 0-4
There is really all that much to report and will ‘pass you over to the UK Guardian who do this type of thing much better than I can do.
Yes I know it is a bit of a cop-out……but what are you going write? 0-4???????? “Euro 2012: Fernando Torres and Spain end Republic of Ireland hopes”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jun/14/euro-2012-spain-republic-of-ireland
Best match report in German in Kicker http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/em/startseite/europameisterschaft/2012/2/1122674/spielanalyse_spanien-932_irland.html
Spanish team consisted of ; Casillas, Arbeloa , Piqué , Sergio Ramos , Jordi Alba – Busquets , Xabi Alonso Xavier Hernández i Creus, Silva , Iniesta and Fernando Torres
The Irish team consisted of ; Given, O’Shea, Dunne, St. Ledger, S. Ward, Whelan, Andrews, Duff, McGeady, Cox and Keane.
Follow all the daily articles. – http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/category/euro-2012-2/
Best place I have found to watch EURO 2012 in Berlin is at the PRATER beer garten on http://www.pratergarten.de/d/ on Kastanienallee 7 – 9 in Prenzlauer Berg. Very close to the OTA-Berlin Serviced Apartments buildings at Metzer Strasse and Schoenhauser Allee.
==============================================================================================
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 – Daily Report – DAY 7 – Italy tie again with a fiesty Croatia and Spain end any of Eire’s hopes – Later Today Sweden vs England & Ukraine vs France – by contributor OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog 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.
Tags: Andrea Pirlo, bbc.co.uk/sport/, CROATIA- ITALY 1-1, Croatian so-called fans are miscreants, EURO 2012 - Daily Report - DAY 3, EURO 2012 - Daily Report - DAY 7, EURO 2012 European Football Championship in Poland & Ukraine, Euro results day 7, euro-2012-blog.com, favorites for euro 2012 poll, favorites to win Euro 2012, Giovanni Trapattoni, Iker Casillas, Italy surprise Spain, Joachim Löw, kicker de, latest Euro 2012 poll, Mario Balotelli, Mario Balotelli faces axe, Mario Mandzukic, Nikitca Jelavic, OTA-Berlin Euro 2012 poll, OTA-Berlin Euro poll vote, pratergarten.de, Ribery soup, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, vote on EURO 2012 poll, who will win Euro 2012?
