Germany (twice as West Germany) has won the European Championship in each of the decades since the seventies – 1972, 1980 and 1996. This is a last chance to keep the streak going.
How they qualified Germany was the first country to secure qualification through group play but finished as runners-up in Group D to the Czech Republic after drawing two and losing one of their last four games.
The Germans finished two points behind the Czech Republic but ten points ahead of the Republic of Ireland. Lucas Podolski scored nine times (five in one game against San Marino Nil).
In all Germany had twelve different scorers (plus an own goal) contributing to their total of thirty-five goals – the most by any country in the qualifying round.
The Coach The switch from World Cup boss Jurgen Klinsmann to Joachim Loew has been seamless – an improvement even. Given that the improvement came about from a willingness to experiment and to offer youth a chance means that Germany’s performances since Klinsmann moved on can be categorized under the heading of extremely impressive.
But with the improvement comes increased expectations and most German fans expect another European Championship this summer. A far cry from 2006 when the World Cup was being dreaded rather than anticipated.
Key Players Michael Ballack’s late season return to form is encouraging for Germany as an in-form and revitalized Ballack is pivotal to German hopes. The German defence looked wobbly in the early going of the 06 World Cup but matured into a solid unit.
Per Mertesacker (Werder Bremen) and Christoph Metzelder (Real Madrid) will be likely be depended upon at the centre of the defence although doubts linger as to the Spanish based players fitness. Bayern full backs Philipp Lahm and Marcell Jansen enter the tournament as German’s first choice full backs.
David Odonkor will probably play the role of speedy substitute once again while Mario Gomez, Miroslav Klose and Kevin Kuranyi will rotate through the two striking positions.
Great Euro Memory With three European Championships and another twice as runner-up there are no shortage of memorable moments for German fans. However, the 3-0 destruction of the Soviet Union in 1972 can be considered special given that it ushered in a period of dominance for German football.
Runners-up to England at the 1966 World Cup and a beaten semi finalist to Italy four years later the 1972 tournament was a break through win. A Gunter Netzer inspired performance destroyed England in the first leg quarter final at Wembley and Gerd Mueller scored doubles in the semi final win over Belgium and again in the final against the Soviets.
A World Cup win followed in 1974 and West Germany became the first country to hold the two trophies at once. At the club level Bayern Munich completed a hat trick of European Cup wins in 1974, 1975 and 1976 while Borussia Moenchengladbach won the 1975 UEFA Cup.
Synopsis What do you do if you are 3-0 up against Germany? Make sure you score another goal that way you will at least get a draw. Such is the never say die spirit of Germany a country never to be discounted in a big tournament.
Germany looks to have more fire power than they did two summers ago and have received a favourable draw – but don’t they always. And you know that if penalty kicks are needed that there are few teams that will fancy their chances against the Germans.
Coming Up in World Cup Qualifying Liechtenstein, Azerbaijan, Wales, Finland and Russia in Group 4.
Amazingly this will be Poland’s first appearance in the finals.
How they qualified Poland seemed to be suffering a severe World Cup hangover as they started with a home loss to Finland, a draw away to Serbia before a second half goal away to Kazakhstan gave them their first three points.
They then set off on a run of six straight wins before a three game stumble brought a loss and two draws. Nonetheless they recovered to win Group A and finishing a point ahead of Portugal and four ahead of third place Serbia and Finland.
Ebi Smolarek was Poland’s top scorer in qualifying with nine goals including a ten minute hat trick away to Kazakhstan after a power failure.
The Coach Leo Beenhakker broke an 85 year-old tradition of Polish born coaches when he took over from Pawel Janas after the last World Cup. For the sixty-six year-old Dutchman it is another stop on a road that has seen him manage more than twenty teams since taking his first coaching join in 1967 with Go-Ahead Eagles.
At the international level Beenhakker has coached the Netherlands and Trinidad and Tobago at 1990 and 2006 World Cups.
Key Players Ebi Smolarek spent time with Feyenoord and Borussia Dortmund before moving to Racing Santander in Spain last summer. However, Smolarek can be a temperamental character who has been known to lose the plot from time to time.
Celtic’s Artur Boruc is currently the starting goalkeeper while Beenhakker is able to leave Jerzy Dudek out of the squad all together. Premiership-based keepers Lukasz Fabianski and Tomasz Kuszczak are in the Polish squad.
Great Euro Memory Polish fans will be hoping that the best is yet to come.
Synopsis A lack of consistency and quality has hurt Poland in the past and it may strike again. The final group game against Croatia may require a Polish win if they hope to move on to the last eight.
Coming Up in World Cup Qualifying The Czech Republic, Northern Ireland, Slovakia, Slovenia and San Marino will provide the opposition in Group 3.
Update - the deal is done and has been announced. For those who can't be bothered hitting a link here is the article.
The Dutch Royal Family, through the lineage of the House of Orange, can trace its roots back to the 1500s to a man called William of Orange - aka William the Silent. He was called the Silent as he rarely spoke out on controversial matters.
However that trait didn’t stop him from instigating a rebellion against Spain that lasted eighty years before independence for the United Provinces was achieved nearly a century after his birth.
William the Silent is still known in the Netherlands as the “Father of the Fatherland” although sometime in the last five hundred years the Dutch decided that they liked the independence bit but silence was just not for them.
Just take a look at the in-fighting and public feuding that has been part of most Dutch national teams for good parts of the last thirty odd years. Some may speculate that a calmer more reasonable demeanor might have brought more success to a country that twice lost to home nations in the World Cup Final while flaming out in numerous European Championships and World Cups.
After all, a single European Championship win in 1988 seems scant reward for a nation that has not only produced some of the world’s greatest players over the last four decades but also some of the most entertaining teams.
However, it might also be argued – and what is wrong the Dutch would argue with a good argument – that it may be the Dutch characteristic of single-mindedness and an appetite to discuss and debate controversial issues that has actually allowed the Dutch game to grow and prosper not only nationally but internationally.
It is easy to forget that less than half a century ago Dutch football was an irrelevance. The country may have made it to the 1934 and 1938 World Cup Finals in Italy and France but the amateur footballers of Holland were there to make up the numbers rather than to compete for the trophy.
The turning point came in the mid-fifties as professional teams were sanctioned followed two years later by the creation of a national league. Even then there was no sudden improvement. In the early sixties the Netherlands lost at home to Luxembourg in the European Championship qualifiers – as it happens the last time the Netherlands lost at home in a European qualifying game.
Success came when the authoritative coaching skills of Rinus Michels crossed paths with the fabulous footballing skills of a young Johan Cruyff. Domestic dominance quickly morphed into European success as Ajax won three successive European Cups between 1971 and 1973. Michels became the first top class Dutch coaching export when he left to coach Barcelona after the first European win. Two years later Cruyff also arrived at the Nou Camp.
Both men joined the Los Angeles Aztecs of the NASL for the 1979 season although the spell was largely without success. After the North American sojourn Michels split his time between the Dutch national team and a couple of Bundesliga teams while Cruyff headed home to Holland after a brief spell with Levante in Spain.
Cruyff’s return was fortuitous as it coincided with the emergence of three players who would go on to become part of one of the late 20th century’s great teams – AC Milan. While Marco Van Basten and Frank Rijkaard came under Cruyff’s influence upon his return to Ajax it was not the same for Ruud Gullit.
Gullit had been approached by Ajax as a youngster but the deal was never done. Instead he joined Haarlem before moving to Feyenoord as a 20-year-old in 1982. A year later Dutch football was shocked when Cruyff turned down a contract extension at Ajax and instead opted to join their great rivals Feyenoord. At Feyenoord Gullit was to learn from the master-craftsman.
Later that decade, Van Basten, Rijkaard and Gullit played under Michels in the 1988 European Championship wining side and were signed by Milan’s ambitious owner Silvio Berlusconi.
Berlusconi saw in the three Dutch players a way by which Milan could again dominate Italy and Europe. It worked like a charm and the Milan side with the Dutch trio remains the last team to win back to back European titles. Before their arrival at the San Siro Milan had not won Serie A for almost a decade and the European Cup for nearly 20 years.
But as a player Gullit was never backward about coming forward and was never on Christmas card terms with Fabio Capello or for that matter #### Advocaat. In 1994 Gullit walked out on Advocaat’s Dutch squad just days before the World Cup finals in the USA in 1994.
Injuries took their toll on Gullit and he bounced from Milan to Sampdoria then back to Milan before finally arriving at Stamford Bridge in July 1995. It was a move that reinvigorated the Dutchman and at 33-years-old he was still good enough to finish as runner-up to Eric Cantona as the Premiership Player of the Year.
Glenn Hoddle, the man who signed Gullit, resigned to take the England job in 1996 and the Dutchman was appointed as player-manager to replace him.
The first season in charge brought Chelsea a FA Cup and Gullit became the first non-British manager to win a major English trophy. The year after with his side sitting second in the league and in the last eight of two cup competitions “cuddly” Ken Bates sensationally fired the man who had brought silverware to Stamford Bridge for the first time in 26 years.
To this day it is still unclear as the reasons behind Bates’ actions.
A brief and largely unhappy stint at Newcastle ended after he benched local legend Alan Shearer. Even so Newcastle still made it to the FA Cup Final during his time there only to lose 2-0 to the treble winning Manchester side of 1999.
A period of five years then lapsed before Gullit again took the managerial reins, this time he returned to Feyenoord for the 2004/05 season but a fourth place finish was much below expectations.
So what can the LA Galaxy and fans of MLS teams expect from Ruud Gullit. First of all they are getting a man with the sort of instant credibility that comes from being one of the great players of his generation. His strength, speed, power, skill and tactical acumen made him the consummate modern player. As a player he was recognized around the world.
Some may describe his managerial record as poor or mediocre but that would be harsh. He won the FA Cup with Chelsea (in the days when Chelsea never won anything) and they were well positioned when he was fired. When put in the context of the time his spell time at Chelsea was a success.
The Newcastle job chewed him up and spat him out. The halcyon days of Kevin Keegan had given way to a brief spell under Kenny Dalglish that finished acrimoniously. Under Gullit Newcastle still reached the FA Cup Final (the only team to reach two consecutive finals and lose both times to teams that completed domestic doubles) but a poor start the following season combined with issues in his private life brought his time to an end after only a year. Although Newcastle could not be considered a success it might be more accurate to describe it as a work in progress prematurely terminated.
Certainly the return of the prodigal son to Feyenoord failed to achieve instant success. The Galaxy will be getting a coach that has had some short sharp managerial lessons administered but by now they should have sunk in.
They’re getting a man who can relate to the Beckham circus having been regarded as a god by Milan fans during his playing days and one that is media savvy.
Probably most importantly they are getting a manager who will not be distracted by the media focus on the Galaxy’s most important investment and who understands that no matter how much media attention, the Galaxy, like every other professional sports team, is in the results business.
It will also have not escaped Gullit’s notice that he will be following in the footsteps of two giants of the game who have also been two of his greatest influences - Michels and Cruyff.
Twenty-eight years ago the Dutch duo joined a league that was hemorrhaging money and was destined for extinction. Even though Michels was a pioneer who showed the world what Dutch coaching could offer, nothing registered in North America.
But the rest of the globe took notice and you have only to look at the 2006 World Cup in which Leo Beenhakker, Guus Hiddink and #### Advocaat all coached other countries to understand how highly valued and appreciated Dutch coaching is.
But with the exception of Thomas Rongen, MLS has to date not fallen under Dutch influence. Now Gullit, a Dutch football Crown Prince, has been presented with a chance to resurrect his managerial career and to perhaps leave a mark on the game in North America in a way that his royal footballing forefathers could not.
The Ruud Gullit File Born Sept 1, 1962, in Amsterdam.
Club Career Haarlem 1978-1982 Feyenoord 1982-1985 PSV Eindhoven 1985-1987 Milan 1987-1993 Sampdoria 1993-1994 Milan 1994-1995 Sampdoria 1995 Chelsea 1995-98
471 games, 174 goals.
International Career Netherlands, 66 caps, 16 goals.
Honours Dutch Second Division 1981 Eredivisie 1984, 1986, 1987 Dutch Cup 1984 Serie A 1988, 1992, 1993 Coppa Italia 1994 Italian Super Cup 1988, 1992, 1994 Champions League 1989, 1990 European Super Cup 1990 Intercontinental Cup 1990 FA Cup 1997 European Championship 1988
Managerial Career Chelsea 1996-1998 1997 Won FA Cup; 6th in Premiership. Newcastle United 1998-1999 1999 FA Cup Runners Up; 13th in Premiership Feyenoord 2004-2005 Finished 4th in Eredivisie
Paraguay's captain Carlos Gamarra put through his own goal with the game just underway and it turned out to be the only goal England needed.
English fans who expected a win and an entertaining performance. (Historical note - when England won the World Cup in 1966 Alf Ramsay was absolutely slaughtered for England's performance in the their first game a 0-0 draw with Uruguay).
Anyone Swedish and in particular Lars Lagerback the Swedish coach. Lagerback makes Sven look like a maverick.
It was a good day for....
English fans who were happy just to win and to start the World Cup on the right foot.
All of Trinidad and Tobago who pulled off a stunning draw against Sweden despite playing almost all of the second half with 10 men after left back Avery John collected a second yellow card.
Leo Beenhakker the ####mp;T coach who reacted to John sending off by pulling off an attacking player (Collin Samuel) and replacing him with Cornell Glen, another attacker. Glen then proceeded to rattle the crossbar and almost win the game.
Juan Roman Riquelme who set up both Argentine goals in their win over the Ivory Coast.
And the most overstated fact of the day...
Trinidad and Tobago is the smallest country ever to reach the World Cup.
I am the soccer analyst for the Fox Soccer Report and appear twice a week - every Monday and Friday at 10:00 EST. I have also been a regular contributor to the Fox Soccer Channel website since the summer of 2004. Over the last twenty years I have contributed to various radio and television programs throughout North America as well writing about the game for newspapers, magazines and websites.
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