It is amazing the things you find by accident. I hit the page down button on my Foxtel remote and discovered three new sports channels.
What was on? The Euros. I had almost forgotten about them. So I thought I would watch a bit and report back to The Roar faithful on whether they are worth following.
For those who don’t know, this year’s Euros are being held in France. So far it has proven to be a good choice. At all the stadiums the fans are right on top of the action, which looks great on TV. And the fans have turned out in force giving the matches a cracking atmosphere
The matches have been fast and there is plenty of skill on show.
What happened in the Euros overnight
» France vs Albania
» Romania vs Switzerland
Also on show has been plenty of ink. It seems as though every body has caught some kind of rare skin disease and the range of tatts has been staggering. It makes my ‘I Heart Mum’ tattoo look so dated.
There have been some great images on our screens. One of my faves is Croatian defender Vedran Corluka who spilt plenty of claret and was bandaged Basil Fawlty style. Unfortunately the bandages were like the two-ply toilet paper you buy at Aldi and the medical staff had to reapply them a few times.
There have been some great goals, Luka Modric’s volley for Croatia, Gareth Bale’s free kick for Wales and a well struck volley by Emanuele Giaccherini of Italy all made good viewing. But sometimes it is the personalities that give the added value to a sports telecast.
And as far as personalities go, don’t you just love Cristiano Ronaldo? I mean the guy is hot looking, buffed like an Adonis and can play a more than decent game of football. He’s rich, stylish, drives a really nice car… not that I’m jealous or anything. When I told my wife that I used to play football she said, “well you are no Ronaldo.”
One of the great things about his larger-than-life personality is that the slo-mo camera focuses on him every five seconds. You can see just about every human emotion possible when Ronny is playing. There is the spoilt brat, the innocent child, Mr angry pants and the ‘I am pretty good aren’t I?’ versions of the Ronalda persona. It is great viewing, better than all those snivelling contestants on The Voice or Master Chef.
Iceland. Now there’s one cool team. I thought Iceland was a frozen, volcanic wasteland with a few walruses waddling down the main street. But at their match against Portugal the other night there were thousands of Icelanders and not a walrus to be seen.
There were more Vikings in France than at any time since the early middle ages. My sketchy knowledge of history tells me that the Vikings pillaged above their weight. I am hoping that these bearded blokes with names ending in ‘son’ will do the same in a footballing sense and bring back the European Championship trophy as booty.
The grit they displayed against Portugal was brilliant.
The super slo-mo replays have made for some great viewing. There is more interest this year since the use of video technology has been mooted recently. What I love is some of the contact you see. Some times you can see the painful stamp of studs on a players ankle or knee and you think, ‘ouch.’
Even better is when the slo-mo catches out somebody play-acting. When a guy gets a light tap on the leg and writhes around holding his spleen, his charade is being played out on 300 million television sets in super slo-mo ultra high definition. The fans are onto it. I think some of the players get a bit embarrassed now.
It is nice to see teams not always kicking the ball out when someone goes down. I especially love it when the player’s own teammates keep playing on. Eventually the guy will get up when he is needed to join in an attack. I was in shock when I actually witnessed a contested drop ball.
The referees have done a good job so far. Generally they have made good use of the advantage rule, letting the game flow and not getting carried away with the yellow cards.
In the group stages at least, the Euro matches are probably more intense than the World Cup. You don’t get that many Europe versus Europe games in the early stages of the World Cup, but in the Euros every game has a derby-like atmosphere.
It’s wonderful to watch all these fans in the stadium chanting in unison. How do they do that? Over here it’s ‘Mag-pies’ clap-clap-clap ‘Mag-pies’ but over in Europe they all know what to sing. Man that is just crazy. The good kind of crazy that is. For most part the fans appear to be good crazy and the atmosphere in the stadium is electric.
However, the actions of fans at the match between England and Russia in Marseille show that Euros can also attract the bad crazy fans as well. And what about that Russian minister? Encouraging the fans to fight. That’s a crazy kind of crazy. I can’t wait for the next World Cup in Russia – it’s going to be a hoot.
Speaking of fans, don’t you just hate those pitch invaders. I was watching the game between Austria and Hungary and I said to my wife, “look at that stupid pitch invader, crikey he must be 60 years old and looks like he got his pants from Lowes. Why doesn’t security chuck him out?”
My wife said, “you buffoon, that is the Hungarian goalkeeper, Gabor Kiraly.”
“Oh.”
At 40-years-old, Gabor Kiraly is the oldest player in the tournament. His hair is short, not because of some hip fashion statement but because he has gone bald. He is stocky, a bit rough looking. In fact you wouldn’t want to invade any pitch he was on.
The story behind the tracksuit pants goes like this; when he was 20 he had to wash his black track suit pants and was given some grey ones. He had some success wearing them and has kept the same pair ever since. They are so old and tatty, Vinnies would just stick them in the dumpster. But the guy can play. He made one fantastic diving save against Austria.
It reminded me of the goalkeeper in my men’s team many years ago. I can’t remember his real name but we called him ‘El Loco.’ Generally he would position himself in front of the back four. And he would only play one week in three because he would be suspended for crash-tackling an attacker around the half way line.
It’s common knowledge that goalkeepers are a bit unstable. They are to a football team what a drummer is to a band. Still, with keepers like Kiraly and El Loco you can’t help but like them.
There has been lots to like in this version of the Euros. Although I was against the idea originally, I think the expansion to 24 teams has worked really well. It is great to see teams like Albania, Wales and Iceland playing big games in great stadiums.
The only thing I don’t like about the coverage are the preview/review shows – give me Santo, Sam and Ed any day. Apart from that, the Euros on TV gets a big thumbs up from me.
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