Alrighty, we’ve gone a full turn at Euro 2008. After one game for each side in the books, what have we learned?
Nothing. It’s only one game. It’s difficult to judge teams based on a single game. But that won’t stop us from at least discussing what's happened so far.
Here are some rambling thoughts:
Group A:
Portugal 2 Turkey 0
Surprise level: 0 Make that -1.
Portugal could have played this game each with each player holding a glass of porto in their hands. Of course, that would be against the rules and we know how stuffy refs can be, but they did what they had to do against Turkey. The positive here is that players are stepping up to support Ronaldo. Pepe was outstanding as was Carvalho. Heck, the whole team played well.
Turkey played to their strengths: Physical and bruising. They neutralized Ronaldo well. If they weren’t taking the fouls they were triple teaming him. The issue with Turkey is that they have an identity problem and striker Tuncay was lost (that kick and miss was one for the ages) as is usually the case when the mids don’t support the forwards.
Czech Republic 1 Switzerland 0
Surprise Level: 5
It’s hard to extract too much from this game. Switzerland deserved a better fate but the ultimate goal is to score and they didn’t. It will only get harder without Alexander Frei who went down to an injury. Barnetta really needs to step up now. The Czechs should be able to give more.
Group B
Germany 2 Poland 0
Surprise level: I arbitrarily pick -2.45
Nothing to see here. Move along.
The only story here is that Polish-born German striker Lukas Podolksi didn’t cheer after his two-goal performance out of respect to his native land. I’m sure Poland cares.
Poland couldn’t find the inspiration against their, um, rivals and lost the services of captain and best striker Maciej Zurawski in the process. It’s never easy to replace a captain. Ask Italy.
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