European Soccer Gluttony

The biggest country-level soccer competition besides the World Cup is probably the UEFA European Football Championship. Each matchday of qualifying — spread over two years — brings domestic league play to a halt. Its influence is felt worldwide, as countries outside of Europe tend to play their friendlies and tune-ups on the same day.

I caught eight such games in the last few days. Here are my observations.

First was Bosnia at Norway. Most of the matches I watched were on either FOX Soccer Channel or Setanta Sports. Generally speaking, they will take the production, graphics and all, from the country creating the broadcast and add English commentary from a studio somewhere.

Whomever was producing the Norway/Bosnia match — Norwegians, I assume — did the worst job. The first half clock graphic, rather than counting from 00:00 to 45:00 minutes, counted from 45:00 to 90:00 minutes, making me think the TV schedule was wrong and that I missed the first half. Also for most of the first half, it displayed a score of 2-0 Bosnia when it was actually 1-0. It took me a long time to figure out who was wrong — the scoring graphic, or the announcer.

It proved to be the only upset I watched, as Bosnia opportunistically went up 2-0 and hung on to win 2-1, though they were statistically dominated.

The win moved Bosnia into third place in Group C, right on the heels of the loser of the Turkey at Greece match in Pireaus. The bitter, warring historical rivals — on and mostly off the pitch — started the day in a tie for first in the group, and the top two from each group move on to the Euro 2008 finals.

Greece got a goal right out of the gate, and the stadium blew up ... and then Turkey scored four unanswered and embarrassed the Greeks in every phase of the game.

Much of the blame lay on the 37-year-old gray-haired goalkeeper Antonios Nikopolidis, who arguably could have prevented each goal, came off his line too much, except for the times he should have, and reacted very slowly to several shots.

Of all the matches I watched, this one had the most hooliganistic atmosphere, with the fans raining debris onto the Turkish players during every goal celebration and corner kick, I even saw one firework come down. When the Turks scored their fourth goal, the fans understandably turned on their team. It was then I learned that Greece is one of the countries where they boo instead of whistle.

I then saw no less than three matches from Group E. Presumably, FSC and Setanta want to highlight that group because it is England's stage.

I first saw another match between political rivals, complete with extra policeman on hand, between second place Russia and Estonia, who had yet to score a point in four matches. The home crowd gave Estonia some momentum, and the teams were square at half-time. But Russia's talent level was too great for the Estonians to overcome, even though Russia was playing a young, experimental side. One Russian defender, Roman Shishkin, looks about 14 (I looked him up; he's actually 20). The Russkies prevailed, 2-0.

That game was produced by the Estonians, and their graphics taught me a little bit of their mother tongue. If you read only one sports column this week that teaches you that the Estonian word for Russia is "Venemaa," let this be that column.

The worst-officiated game I caught was between a Group E-leading homestanding Croatian side, and a little-heralded but surprisingly talented Macedonia team. To start the first half, the Austrian ref seemed to only give calls to the Croatians. Then for the rest of the first half, he appeared to just be content to let both teams brutalize each other to their hearts' desire. In the second half, he reverted to favoring Croatia. In spite of this, Croatia has to come back from a half-time deficit to win 2-1.

As much as I emerged from the match admiring Macedonia and feeling they got the bum's rush, it must be said that the goal they scored was one of the flukiest I have ever seen. It was a direct kick in front ot the penalty box, and the scorer kicked it along the ground directly into the Croatian wall. But the Croatian defender it was headed towards instinctively turned 45 degrees to protect himself and block a ball in the air (as most free kicks end up airborne), and in turning, he allowed just enough room for the ball to slip through to the surprised keeper, who couldn't control it as it bounced off his arm.

The victories by Croatia and Russia put the heat on England to pick up a win in Israel, as the Lions entered the day in third place behind those two.

Israel's pretty fair in their own right, however, especially at home. In fact, with the emergence of Macedonia, I feel that Group E is the qualifying group of death and not Group B (France, Italy, Ukraine, Scotland).

Still, a legendary team like England should be able to secure a victory over a squad like Israel, but the game ended in a scoreless draw.

My thoughts for most of the game were with embattled England manager Steve McClaren. I have decided that there is no high-profile coaching job in the world with a shorter honeymoon (none, really) than England manager. McClaren seems to have no supporters at all among the pundits and the blogosphere.

To be fair, the haters have a point; the Israel game meant England had scored just one goal in their last five matches, their worst drought in over 25 years.

But I had to sympathize with him as I watched England employ a slow, patient, deliberate attack which involved a lot of passing around the midfield area. "Oh man," I thought, "the fans and pundits are gonna hate this." No matter what the sport, fans can only barely tolerate a boring style even if you are winning big with it. To be sketchy and boring, that's suicide to a manager. Sure enough ... do a Google search for "McClaren boring shite." If Euro 2008 began today, England, Italy, and Spain would all be out.

Wales at Ireland was fun. It seems I had read about Ireland struggling horribly, barely beating San Marino last time out and in the midst of some terrible nadir. The San Marino part was true, but I was surprised to find they were still in contention in Group D, and comfortably defeated a Wales squad with two Premier League megastars (Ryan Giggs and the hot-tempered, loathsome Craig Bellamy).

Finally, I caught two non-European friendlies. The first was Brazil vs. Chile in Sweden. Brazil was coming off a loss against Portugal and is in the unfamiliar position of not being No. 1 in the world (that's Argentina), but they seemed to shake it off with a 4-0 pasting of the Chileans. Near the end of the game, a fan rushed the field, approached Ronaldinho, dropped to his knees, and began to genuflect. As the police grappled with him, Ronaldinho reached in and seemed to give the man some dap. Classy touch.

I also watched Jamaica host Panama. Jamaica is an interesting case. As recently as 1998, they were in the World Cup. They have since sunk like a stone, failing to even qualify for CONCACAF's Gold Cup in June, which they could've earned with a top four finish in the Caribbean Cup that they hosted. Instead, they crashed out in the first group stage, including an ignoble defeat at the hands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The last time I saw them, they were getting thrashed by England 6-0 in a World Cup tune-up.

I mentioned how FSC uses the domestic production and airs it with their graphics. For this match, they even gave us the Jamaican audio. Thus I heard the promos and mentions of "Sportsmax," which is apparently the Jamaican ESPN.

The Jamaican announcers were as mellow and genial as you would imagine, which was nice. Really more like two agreeable analysts rather than an announcer and analyst.

Panama, who qualified easily for the Gold Cup and was runner-up to the U.S. last time around, were the favorites and scored right out of the gates, but Jamaica took control of the rest of the match, which ended in a 1-1 draw.

One notable game missing from my slate was the U.S. vs. Ecuador. which I forgot was this week and my DirecTV listings could not find despite keyword searches "friendly" and "international." (There's too much crap to wade through to search all soccer matches, with three 24-hour soccer channels on DirecTV.) I'm not making that mistake again. I resolve to always keep track and be sure when the U.S. Men's National Team plays. What? They're playing Guatemala right now?