Home > Football > Euro 2008: It's party time as Holland and Spain lead the race for glory
by Patrick Cook on 12 June 2008
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All nations have now played their first match of Euro 2008. From the eight games so far there has only been one draw, which bodes well for the rest of the tournament.
Sixteen goals have been scored so far, which is an average of two a game - and it would have been more if it weren't for France's bore draw with Romania. Russia are the only team to have scored a goal and not have any points so far.
In Group A there weren't any surprises. Portugal dealt with Turkey 2-0 and the Czech Republic scored a 70th-minute goal to beat Switzerland. Portugal and the the Czechs face each other in the next round. If one of them wins they'll gain qualification to the quarter-finals. Conversely, if Turkey or Switzerland lose their match they will have no chance of making it out of the group stage.
In Group B, favourites Germany and Croatia beat Poland and Austria respectively. Germany ended up winning comfortably against their fierce rivals 2-0 in a match that could have become very heated - and did for several supporters outside the stadium.
Croatia beat Austria 1-0 but having feared their team would be humiliated, the Austrians almost stole a point or more after conceding an early penalty and played well enough to suggest they may well get points out of their next two games.
In the A-B section it looks likely that favourites Portugal and Germany will end up facing each other in the semi-final. I don't think Croatia can gun down the Germans, while Portugal seem to have the right mix between being creative and clinical and should top their group.
Group C - or the "Group of Death" as it has become known - turned up the most curve balls. Holland beat Italy 3-0 in a controversial encounter which is to date the tournament's most exciting match. Despite the one-sided scoreline the game was always tense. The skill and technical ability of both sides was good for most of the match, the pace was good and there were some great go - although the referee was questionable.
In the other match France drew 0-0 with Romania in the most boring match of the competition. France v Holland in the next round of games will probably be another thriller as the Dutch seek qualification and France go after the three points they now desperately need to stay alive.
In Group D, Spain started in great fashion beating Russia 4-1, while Sweden collected the points against Greece with a 2-0 win, meaning almost half the tournament's goals have come from this group alone. The Spaniards look good to top this group, Greece are already in real trouble and Russia will probably need to beat Sweden in the last group game to progress.
In the C-D side of the tournament, Spain and the Netherlands have made impressive starts and should have enough to get three more points from their last two group games and progress. Romania, Italy and France all still have very real chances of progressing from Group C, while Sweden are probably favourites to progress with Spain from Group D.
Standout performers so far are Spain's David Villa (obviously), Dutch keeper Edwin van der Sar, Germany's Lukas Podolski and Portugal's Pepe - I'm not sure whether he was playing central defence, midfield or as a striker, but he popped up pretty much everywhere and scored a goal.
Comments (1)
by Simon Stefani on June 12, 2008
Spain looked strong. The so called English "Football Experts" must have missed that before the EURO... http://www.footbo.com/Competitions/Euro
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