Euro Round-up

I forgot I was going to write this post. The Euro 2008 was a fantastic tournament, with great goals galore, heroes, goats, underdogs, last minute wins, awful defending, worse refereeing, and in the end, a worthy champion. ¡Viva España! God I love watching their creative, attacking play; I hope you got to see at least some of it. As a side note, it is a sin in Spain to be boring; club side Real Madrid have twice fired their manager for being boring despite him winning the Spanish title in his first season!

I loved the small stadiums of Austria and Switzerland because they really held in the crowd noise, especially for the awesome Turkish fans. They had all the passion of an Asian fanbase, without the creepy chanting in unison. I best remember when the sent up an incredible, passionate song to rally the team when they were down 2-0 to the Czechs. Really, why don't all fans do this? When you're losing the game, that's when you need the positive energy of the fans the most! I still feel Turkey never would have won the game without them.

My predictions reached an all time low. I picked neither finalist, and one of the four semi-finalists. I predicted Portugal to win it all, and for them to beat the Dutch. And my group stage predictions were just as bad. Shows what I know, which isn't as much as I'd like.

Here is the Spanish call of the winning goal, an odd delight. There's the usual screaming of ¡Gòl!, also some weird undulating background noise, and then a cheesy Japanese game show type music celebration. And then the guys screaming in the background! Are they always there? Do they just comment as the game goes on, like guys in a bar? Do they only scream for goals? I wonder.