The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2012, is now 15 days old – we are at the end of round one -and there has been a lot fo good and exciting football with 2 more teams through to the next phase . 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-
CZECH - PORTUGAL 0-1
Cristiano Ronaldo puts Portugal past a brave Czech Republic and Portugal thus became the first team into the Euro 2012 semi-finals after a deserved 1-0 win against a talented young, brave and but sometimes naïve Czech team.
Long stretches of the first half were initially uneventful for the Portuguese who did everything but score- the Czech goalie Petr Cech at this point kept them in the game.
The Czechs did not have too much to offer as an attacking threat – with only Milan Baroš up front the Czechs presented a rather supine and flaccid offense. While it was true his job was a tough one alone up front……….it seems he really still could have done a lot more than he did.
Of the Czechs Václav Pilař was the most dangerous and he was a pleasure to watch - the best player on the Czech team a sort of Messi type of playing with intelligent inspiration and has energy and speed and not too lazy to come back and defend when required. He will be a great addition to Bundesliga team Wolfsburg this season.
The very young and capable Vladimir Darida did what he could do but on the evening but he was not able to replace the injured Tomas Rosicky in mid-field .The Portuguese did what they had to do to beat Czech resistance and their attacks became more and more frequent and being supported by more and more players including defenders.
That is until Cristiano Ronaldo hit the post twice both before and after half-time caused dramatic moments and then finally scoring in the 79th minute – it took that long to break the gritty Czech team.
As the game progressed a Portuguese goal seemed inevitable and the goal did come, Ronaldo’s 3rd of the tournament so far .
However in future Portugal’s exclusive reliance on him cannot be all that healthy- however the team is through and Portugal can celebrate as first team through to the semi-finals – CONGRATULATIONS!
If you read German from Kicker DE – as usual a very good acccount of the game - http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/em/startseite/europameisterschaft/2012/4/1122681/spielbericht_tschechien_portugal.html
Kevin McCarra at the National Stadium in Warsaw writing for the UK Guardian wrote – “Cristiano Ronaldo’s hunger is as great as his talent. His persistence in Portugal’s cause was inexhaustible until he scored the only goal of this Euro 2012 quarter-final when there were only 11 minutes remaining. Czech Republic are not without skill but they were eventually pinned down by opponents who now face France or Spain in the last four.” and that about sums it up for last nights game! - http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jun/21/euro-2012-czech-republic-portugal
See previous OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog EURO 2012 articles – http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/category/euro-2012-2/
The Czech team consisted of ; P. Cech , Gebre Selassie , Sivok , Kadlec ,Limbersky,Hübschman , Plasil, Jiracek , Darida ,Václav Pilař , and Milan Baroš
Portuguese team consisted of -Rui Patricio Joao Pereira, Pepe Bruno Alves, Fabio Coentrao, Raul Meireles, Miguel Veloso ,Joao Moutinho ,Nani ,Cristiano Ronaldo and Helder Postiga
What did you think of the Refereeing at the EURO 2012? Please let us know and vote for or against what you thought about the REF – http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/06/19/euro-2012-best-and-worst-wurst-referees-at-euro-2012-poll-by-contributor-ota-berlin-constituency-blog-contributor-mr-filip-van-der-plas/
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 15 Cristiano Ronaldo heads Portugal past a brave Czech Republic – Later today GERMANY vs GREECE in 2nd semi-final matches- 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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