The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2012, is now nine days old and there has been a lot fo good exciting football and a lot of stormy weather off the field. . 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-
POLAND - CZECK REP. 0-1
David Hytner writing for the UK Guardian in Wroclaw put it very well……“Only the hardest of hearts could not feel for Poland. They had surfed a wave of emotion in the buildup to this tie and they firmly believed that the fairytale script would play out and that on their turf, in front of their passionate supporters, they would march into their first European Championship quarter-final.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jun/16/czech-republic-poland-euro-2012
It had been called Poland’s biggest game since their World Cup group tie against England in 1986 when Poland just managed to get through to the next stage as the best 3rd placed teams. There were no such consolation prize this time.
While many will remember the swing of Petr Jiracek’s boot to score the game’s only goal, and it was indeed well placed- I will remember the outstanding play of Václav Pilař which was a pleasure to watch.
Václav Pilař was not only the best player on the Czech team- he was the best man on the field and definitely ‘man-of-the-match’. The 1. 69m small dribbler was a constant plague for the Polish defense and made threats constantly. The 23-year-old winger is a relative newcomer on the Czech national team- in June of last year, Pilar made his debut for the national team.
He plays with intelligent inspiration and has energy and speed. Watch out for Václav Pilař – he will play for Bundesliga VfL Wolfsburg next season.
Czech coach Michal Bilek used his team intelligently.
The Czech team took advantage of the historically excellent technique that most Czech players possess and they were a pleasure to watch. Poland’s coach Franciszek Smuda, dealing with a less competent team man-for-man overall [Lewandowski is world-class] had to try and maintain the momentum and rely more on his teams adrenaline rush levels instead of technique and in football this just does not work.
Only the hardest of hearts could not feel for Poland after their defeat from the tournament – and shows yet again if proof were needed that ‘Football can be a very cruel game’.
Polish team consisted of ; Tyton, Piszczek , Wasilewski ,Perquis , Boenisch, Dudka, Polanski, Murawski ,Blaszczykowski ,Lewandowski and Obraniak
Czech team consisted of ; P. Cech ,Gebre Selassie,Sivok ,Kadlec , Limbersky ,Hübschman , Plasil , Jiracek ,Kolar ,Pilar ,and Milan Baros
A good German summary of this game can be found on Kicker.de http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/em/startseite/europameisterschaft/2012/2/1122679/spielanalyse_schweden_england.html
Follow all the daily articles. – http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/category/euro-2012-2/
and if you read or understand German -http://www.transfermarkt.de/de/englische-presse-feiert-jungstars–hodgson-rooney-spielt-trotzdem/news/anzeigen_93609.html and http://www.11freunde.de/kategorie/em
RUSSIA – GREECE 0-1
After a 4-1 opening match against the Czech Republic, Russia was considered as one of the favorites for the European Championship e, but the team of Dick Advocaat stranded yesterday evening against a defensive and tough Greek side who knew what had to be done.
They duly defeated the Russians 1-0 and the defeat also meant their elimination from the tournament – and shows yet again if proof were needed that ‘Football can be a very cruel game’ – as the Russians and Poles now know from experience.
However Greek captain Giorgos Karagounis, scorer of the only goal in the game against Russia just before halftime, said his country’s troubles had acted as a motivator for the team.
In almost all their games the Greeks have conceded early goals, lost some key players to red cards or/and injury, and have lose concentration defensively for long periods of those games. Greece have struggled in its games thus far, having to come back from down one goal rallying in the end to draw with Poland 1-1 and then losing to the Czech Republic 2-1 in their next game.
Last night everything seemed to click.
“Everything is related to everything else” [V I Lenin] and perhaps Greek sucess on the field will change things back home – Greek elections today – “Euro crisis: use Greece as a springboard for change - Europe’s leaders could find the resources to reform the eurozone and advance the European cause “-http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/16/euro-crisis-greece
Russian team consisted of; – Malafeev – Anyukov , A. Berezutskiy , Ignashevich , Zhirkov Denisov, Shirokov , Zyryanov – Dzagoev , Kerzhakov and Arshavin
Greek team consisted of ; Sifakis ,Torosidis ,K. Papadopoulos, Sokratis , Tzavellas, Katsouranis ,Maniatis ,Salpingidis ,Karagounis, Samaras , and Theofanis Gekas
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 9 – CZECHS send POLAND out and GREECE also surprisingly sends RUSSIA home- Football can be a very cruel game! – Later today HOLLAND vs PORTUGAL and GERMANY vs DENMARK – 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.
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