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The sickness returns
June 9, 2008My wife had no idea it was coming. She knows the perils of football season (both from a work and personal aspect) and she is aware of March Madness.
April/May/June is Stars and Mavericks postseason. She gets that too.
Every four years is probably my sickest time of all -- the World Cup. But the last one was 2006, so she is aware that the soccer infestation is two years away.
Or so she thought. What she did not know was that ESPN has decided to televise all 31 games from the Euro 2008 Tournament, which started Saturday.
Like the previous World Cup, this tournament -- which consists of the top 16 teams in Europe -- is time-friendly for me. I get off work at 1 a.m., go to sleep, watch soccer from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m., then head back to work.
Can these next couple of weeks get any better? I do not think so. But I can see household productivity taking a severe plunge, too. Oh well.
Here are some thoughts on the tournament and the first two days:
*Both host countries may not get out of the first round: Switzerland and Austria are in some serious trouble after their weekend games. Both teams lost 1-0 (the Swiss to Czech Republic; Austria to Croatia) and both teams still have a really good team left to play in their group (Portugal and Germany, respectively).
Both host countries actually outplayed their counterparts, but failed to finish any chances. And the news is worse for the Swiss -- leading scorer Alexander Frei hurt his knee in the first half of the loss to the Czech Republic and is done.
*Portugal and Germany looked good: These teams advanced all the way to the World Cup semis two years ago, and I expect more deep runs in the coming weeks.
Portugal blasted Turkey 2-0 (and had three more shots hit the post), and Cristiano Ronaldo has been the best soccer player in the world this year.
And Germany, which clearly overmatched Poland 2-0, has plenty of firepower up front (Lukas Podolski scored two goals on Sunday) and a veteran goalie in Jens Lehmann.
*Another Group of Death: Today's action will be made up of Group C -- which has Italy, France and the Netherlands in it.
That means the '06 World Cup finalists must play each other, only Zidane will not be around to head-butt anyone. Can he make a ceremonial appearance anyway?
And Holland is usually pretty solid as well, so if you finish in the top two of this group (which also has Romania -- good luck guys), you will have earned it.
And a little off-task: Not tournament related, but I thought the U.S. soccer team played pretty well in earning a 0-0 draw against top-ranked Argentina.
Tim Howard saved the Americans with some huge saves in the first half, and the U.S. attack looked pretty potent for part of the match.
I did not get to see the England and Spain games (a 2-0 loss and a 1-0 loss), but it sounds like we played better in this one than in those previous two matches.
And I am glad to see that Freddy Adu has taken the necessary steps to become a dangerous player on the international level.
World Cup qualifying for the U.S. starts in a couple of weeks, and hopefully they can take the momentum they built Sunday with them.
I will continue to wrap up Euro 2008 on a daliy or every-couple-of-day basis on this blog.
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