Euro 2008 Final

After watching as much of Euro 2008 as possible, a few things stuck out.

There was much more attacking in the final with two aggressive attacking teams. This was much better than older teams like Italy and France who didn’t have enough goal scorers, so they played to a draw and tried to get a victory on penalty kicks in the knockout stage. I am convinced that the team who attacks and takes chances is rewarded in the shootout (Spain 4, Italy 2 on freekicks). France was embarrassing in this tournament without Henry and scored only one goal. No one wants to watch a team play for a draw, and this seems to happen in the quarter-finals of a tournament.

Russia was the most exciting team of the tournament and without them, Euro 2008 would have been painful to watch for the average fan. Turkey also impressed, especially in the late stages of the game. If Turkey was playing, it was better to wait until the 60th minute to start watching.

Announcers commonly criticized the refs in these matches by not allowing play to continue in the middle of the field, then criticized for not making calls inside the box. This was very true throughout the tournament. The refs would call everything outside the 18’s, and then nothing inside. It was painful to watch players flop all over the field and get a call, then actually get taken down inside or just outside the 18 with no call. Players writhe in pain all over the field if they get touched, then immediately get up and continue play. Soccer needs to take a page out of football rules and force a player to leave the pitch if he does not immediately get up after being knocked down. This will speed up play, stop some of the criticism of flopping in soccer, and end players acting as if they have broken a bone after every tackle. Sending off a player if he stays down too long is much better than giving a yellow card when a ref has to guess when a player flops.

USA Soccer Fails Again

The United States soccer team just completed its brutal three game friendly schedule by going 0-2-1 and finished on what can be called a high note, a 0-0 draw with Argentina. Argentina is considered the best or one of the best teams in the world right now, but a record of 0-2-1 and not scoring a goal will not be enough for the US team to advance from pool play in a world cup. While its ridiculous to think that the US would get a draw as tough as England, Spain, and Argentina, the team still failed to score one goal during the three matches. While Bradley believes this tough schedule will help his team, it seems like every other sport has tune-up games against an easy schedule before a important games such as the qualifiers for the next cup that begin shortly. While playing a soft schedule may have not been the best plan, playing teams on equal footing with the United States could have brought the best out in the team. They have had plenty of trouble scoring goals in the World Cup (2 goals in 3 matches in 2006), and facing some easier teams to work on finishing scoring chances could only have helped. From these matches, goalie Tim Howard has gotten the most practice so far.