When it comes to International football competitions, I definitely prefer the Euros over the World Cup. Yes the WC has more matches, more exotic fixtures and boasts the likes of Brazil and Argentina, but for overall quality of football and excitement the Euros beats it hands down.
Look at the last instalments of each competition. how many truly great games were there in 2010? Uruguay-Holland, Germany-Argentina, Cameroon-Denmark, Slovakia-Italy, possibly England-Germany and Ghana-Uruguay. But we're talking about 1 in 10 matches, whereas at Euro 08 we had classic matches aplenty. Holland v Italy, France and Russia. Germany v Portugal, Croatia and Turkey. Turkey v Croatia, the Czechs and Switzerland, plus numerous other open and interesting games. Looking at the results, you could make a case for over half of the games being memorable encounters.
It's a similar story if you go back over the last 15 years, you have to go as far as the dire Euro 96 for a poor Euros, and even that is viewed through rose tinted spectacles thanks to England's excellent demolition of Holland and run to the semi finals. When it comes to World Cup's, they've all been average at best since the superb Mexico 86, and the last running of the event in South Africa was full of low scoring, slow games in very hot conditions. You also get a lot of lop sided encounters in the World Cup, as having 32 participants inevitably means there are a number of weak teams involved. In contrast, the Euros are very open and the majority of fixtures are hard to predict.
No, the Euros is the one for me. Some of my favourite sporting moments have occurred in them. I was at the Sweden - Italy encounter in 2004, a brilliant match topped off with an absurd back-heel volley of a goal from a young Zlatan Ibrahimovic. A couple of days later I was in the main square in Porto with thousands of delirious locals watching the Portuguese progress after a victory over Spain. That 2004 competition also included one of my favourtie ever matches - the epic Holland v Czech Rep encounter that saw the Czechs come from 2 down to grab a late winner.
4 years later, I was in Vienna with around a million Austrians, who greeted their last minute equalizer against Poland (from a very dubious penalty) as if they'd just won the tournament. Expectations were very low and the fact they got a point caused much rejoicing.
All of which means that I can't wait for the 2012 instalment of the competition to begin. Sadly, I won't be going to the competition but I will be watching almost every match. So, I will be writing a daily update on the competition - my thoughts on the matches, the TV coverage and my predictions for the competition.
The Group stages have thrown up a number of fascinating fixtures, not least over the first weekend of the tournament. I can't recall a Group stage that has thrown up a quartet of fixtures as attractive as Holland-Denmark, Germany-Portugal, Spain-Italy and Eire-Croatia. Follow that up with France-England on the Monday and you've got a compelling set of matches that will go a long way to deciding who progresses to the second round.
Even the less attractive fixtures are tricky to predict. Day one sees the relatively weak teams from Group A go head to head. It's extremely tough to pick winners from Russia-Czech Rep and Poland-Greece. All 4 are hard to beat but have problems finding the net. I can see 2 draws to start the competition.
It's not only the matches that are difficult to predict. Most of the top teams have tough decisions to make over who will start up front. Teams like Spain, Germany and Holland have top quality strikers aplenty, and some are going to miss out. The likes of Italy and France also have tricky selections to make and even England have a few options as to who will start upfront.
Talking of predictions, I've already had a few punts on the top scorer and other markets. My wagers so far are:
Top Scorer: Giroud, Lewandowski, Ibrahimovic, Benzema, Llorente
Final - Germany v Italy
Group winners: Russia, Germany, Italy, France
However, given my gambling prowess I wouldn't rush down the bookies to copy me if I were you!
So where does this blog fit in with all of that?
There are going to be countless blogs, articles and opinions during the competition, so I thought I'd try and do something a bit different. I recently went to an Improv Comedy night and it gave me an idea. I want to write an article on each of the 31 matches of Euro2012...but write in a different way for each one! For example - website esque "Minute by Minute"reports, completely biased reports, analytical reports, tweet based reports, reports on the TV coverage and so on. The day before each match I'll pick at random the writing styles I'm going to deploy and then write my reports during/after each days play. Some of the methods will be light hearted, some will be serious, some will be complicated and some will be just plain stupid.
Confused? Well, I'm going to kick things off on Thursday by revealing the 31 different styles I'll be using as well as picking the first 2 methods I'll be using! It might work...it might not...but either way I want to give it a bash! Who knows, Improv Football Writing might just take off!
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