Due to Lukas Podolski goals; Germany beat Poland 2-0 at the Worthersee Stadion, Klagenfurt.
Polish-born Podolski put Germany 1-0 when he made good use of Miroslav Klose's pass after 20 minutes. 18 minutes before the end of the match and when Poland was trying to draw, Podolski scored again.
23 year-old Podolski has scored 29 goals with the Germany National Team t-shirt. It was the first German victory in the competition since 1996 final.
The Lineups:
Germany: Lehmann; Lahm, Mertesacker, Metzelder, Jansen; Fritz (55. Schweinsteiger), Ballack, Frings, Podolski; Klose (91. Kuranyi), Gomez (75. Hitzlsperger).
Poland: Boruc; Wasilewski, Zewlakow, Bak, Golanski (75. Saganowski); Lobodzinski (65. Piszczek), Lewandowski, Dudka, Krzynowek; Smolarek, Zurawski (46. Guerreiro).
The Goals: 20 and 72 min; Podolski.
Monday, 9 June 2008
Lukas Podolski twice; Germany beats Poland
Friday, 30 May 2008
UEFA Euro Cup 2008 games, fixtures, dates and times
Here are the fixtures, games and standings of the UEFA Euro Cup 2008 in Austria and Switzerland. I am also including at what time each game-match is going to be. I am including Central Europe Time, London time, East Coast US Time, and Singapore time.
What I can see is that most of the games-matches will be at night, making it a bit difficult for our Asian friends to follow the UEFA Euro Cup 2008. On the other hand, for American football fans, it won't be that difficult, but they may have to miss some working hours as most of the games will be around midday.
Some games of course will be during the weekend, but the most interesting matches, the ones of the Group C with France, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania, will be during the week. Of course the final of the UEFA Euro cup 2008 will be on Sunday, at 20:45 in Austria.
UEFA Euro 2008 tickets
The UEFA just announced that more than 1 million tickets for the Euro cup 2008 will be sent in the next weeks from Austria to the fortunate ones who could get hold of them. The tickets were distributed by a lottery like system due to the overwhelming demand. If you applied for a ticket for the UEFA Euro cup 2008, you should have already received an email communicating if you got one or not. If you haven't, go to the official website of the Eurocup and log-in in the ticket portal tool they provide.
I can remind you of the official prices of the tickets according to the UEFA 2008 website:
Opening game Euro cup: Switzerland vs. Czech Republic at 18:00 in Basel, Switzerland --> from 70 euro to 250 euro
Euro cup group matches or Euro cup first round games ----> from 45 euro to 110 euro
Euro cup quarter finals -----> from 60 euro to 180 euro
Semi finals Euro cup ------> from 80 euro to 300 euro
Final Euro cup in Viena in Austria -------> from 160 euro to 550 euro
The tickets for the football games in the Euro cup include the transportation on buses and trains to and from the stadium. The stadiums will open 3 hours before kick off.
Spain and Germany ready for UEFA Euro 2008
Defenders of Croatia for the UEFA Euro Cup: Dario Šimić (AC Milan, Italy), Robert Kovač (BV Borussia Dortmund, Germany), Josip Šimunić (Hertha BSC Berlin, Germany), Vedran Ćorluka (Manchester City FC, England), Dario Knežević (AS Livorno Calcio, Italy), Hrvoje Vejić (FC Tom Tomsk, Russia). Goalkeepers of Croatia for the UEFA Euro Cup: Stipe Pletikosa (FC Spartak Moskva, Russia), Vedran Runje (RC Lens, France), Mario Galinović (Panathinaikos FC, Greece).
Last weekend the Spanish league "La Liga" and the German league "Bundesliga" were finished as Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, won their national titles respectively. Now we can say that Germany and Spain, just as Portugal, the Netherlands and Austria, can prepare for this summer's UEFA Euro 2008, as well as the international players that play in these national leagues.
However, we still have to wait for the Premier League in England, the Ligue 1 in France and the Serie A in Italy to be finished, and the major national teams and major national players can finally start thinking on their respective teams and the UEFA Euro 2008. I wonder if it won't have some sort of effect having so few time to rest for some players.
Cristiano Ronaldo for example, will be exhausted once he gets to Portugal, playing the Premier League and the Champions League final. Not to mention Ballack for Germany, and the rest of the international players in these football leagues. Today is 33 days to go for the UEFA Euro Cup 2008 and we still have some players who are 100% concentrated in the leagues with their teams.
Some European football teams are lucky. Today for example, Croatia and their national coach, Slaven Bilić, announced the final Croatian team for the UEFA Euro Cup 2008:
Forwards of Croatia for the UEFA Euro Cup: Mladen Petrić (BV Borussia Dortmund, Germany), Ivica Olić (Hamburger SV, Germany), Ivan Klasnić (Werder Bremen, Germany), Igor Budan (Parma FC, Italy), Nikola Kalinić (HNK Hajduk Split, Croatia).
Portugal and Netherlands, ready for the UEFA Euro cup
Portugal, the Netherlands and Austria are ready for the UEFA Euro cup 2008. Their national tournaments are more or less over with Porto as the total winner in the Portuguese "Liga" national cup; the PSV Eindhoven winning a fourth consecutive Eredivisie, or the national dutch title league, and the SK Rapid Wien football team winning their 32th national title in Austria.
Portugal players such as Bruno Alves, Ricardo Quaresma or José Bosingwa, can concentrate already in the Euro cup. From PSV, Dutch players Danny Koevermans, Ibrahim Afellay and perhaps Ismaïl Aissati, can already star thinking on the role they may have with the Netherlands national team.
On the other hand, the English Premier League is not over yet and players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Cesc, Fernando Torres, etc, may still have to wait some days if not weeks. It is the same case for the Spanish league and the German league. However, if Barcelona loses next week end and Real Madrid wins, "La liga" might as well be over.
It is almost 45 days to go for the beginning of the UEFA Euro cup 2008 on June the 7th, and we may have to wait a little bit to know which football players will be representing their countries in their national teams.
The groups and teams at the UEFA EURO 2008
94 days to go the the big event. The best football teams in the world, playing against each other during 22 days, to be the best Europe. Just as Greece, above, did in Portugal in 2004. France when Belgium and the Netherlands co hosted the event in 2000 and Germany in 1996 in England.
This year and this summer we will have 4 groups and 4 teams in each.
In Group A
Turkey
Czech Republic
Portugal
and Switzerland
Where I guess it will be very interesting to see Portugal playing against Turkey and the Czech Republic.
In Group B
Austria
Poland
Germany
Croatia
Here I guess the interesting games will be Germany against Poland and Croatia.
In Group C
France
Italy
Netherlands
Romania
This group is terrific!! All the matches will be interesting!!
And Group D
Sweden
Greece
Spain
Russia
Nike? Adidas? Puma? Umbro? Which brand is your football team?
Twenty years ago, this kind of question would be irrelevant. Today for some it still of no importance. However, if you think how much you will pay to buy a shirt of your favourite football team and how much these brands are willing to pay to provide the team with the equipment, the subject turns rather interesting.
It came out recently that Nike paid 320 million Euro (474 million USD) to be the supplier of equipment to the french team. This broke the relation that Adidas had with the french team during the last 35 years. Adidas almost lost to Nike to be the supplier to the german national football team. Even though Nike was ready to pay up to 50 million euro per year to Germany, they did not accept the offer, and went along with Adidas. The german brand offered 25 million Euro per year "only."
This is how, so far, the brands are distributed trough the football teams participating in the UEFA Euro Cup 2008:
Puma: Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland and Switzerland,
Adidas: France, Germany, Spain, Greece and Romania
Nike: Portugal, Russia, the Netherlands, Turkey and Croatia
Umbro: Sweden
Considering that England is going to carry soon the Nike logo brand on the shirt, as well as France, it seems that the German brands are loosing territory in the european football. In the world cup, Italy made Puma also a winner. Let´s see which brands ends up winning the Uefa Euro Cup 2008.