Best goal
Russia’s second goal against Sweden scored by Arshavin created by Zhirkov.


Best free kick goal (possibly the only free kick goal)
Michael Ballack’s rocket against Austria.


Players of the Tournament
 1. Xavi Hernandez, 2. Marcos Senna, 3. David Silva, (All Spain).


Euro 2008 - the Best of (4-1-4-1)
Buffon (Italy); Anyukov (Russia), Puyol (Spain), Chiellini (Italy), Zhirkov (Russia); Senna (Spain); Xavi (Spain), Ballack (Germany), van der Vaart  (Netherlands), Silva (Spain); Villa (Spain).


Second Team (4-1-3-2)
Casillas (Spain); Corluka (Croatia), Tamos (Romania), Simunic (Croatia), Rat (Romania); Aurelio (Turkey); Sneijder (Netherlands), Deco (Portugal), Poldolski (Germany); Arshavin (Russia), Torres (Spain).


Officiating
Group stages – fair to good.
Knock out rounds – very good to excellent.


Comments of the Day
“For whatever reason, Spain excels at producing pint-sized pass-happy pixies: Xavi, David Silva and Andres Iniesta are all in the same mould, creative little fellas who can pass the ball to death. The problem is, you can only fit so many of them in your team.” – Gabriele Marcotti writing back on the eve of the European Championship.


“But the limiting of his participation has not prevented the Arsenal man (Cesc Fabregas) from confirming that he is not simply the most creative architect of penetration available to his country but conceivably the ultimate practitioner of the art in all of football today. And he is as brave as he is talented, constantly displaying not just the physical version of courage but that rarer form so often lauded by Sir Alex Ferguson, the kind that makes a player eager to embrace responsibility, to think always not of what will make him look good but what will benefit the team. As it happens, Fabregas’s innate style almost invariably causes him to look good whatever he does.” – Hugh McIlvanney.



Predictions

Geniusatwork takes the prediction league with 44 points out of a possible 64 points - congratulations.

Top 20
1.    Geniusatwork                          44
2.    Liverpoolfc73                           43
3.    sheehyCFC                              42
       Alwaysinthekop                       42
5.    RVN17 9                                   41
       Natty Red                                  41
       Sounderfan                              41
8.    Redfan4ever                            40
       Ernesto M                                 40
       stoehrst                                    40
       Anti-Madridista                        40
12.  LosAngelesChelseaFan      39
13.  Gallipan                                   38
        BostonGunner                        38
        sMuAnNuUy                            38
        sleeksokerpunk                     38
17.  Mz barca fan                            37
        Spainrules                              37
19.  Cpinkhouse                            35
        Marek6404                              35

Average was 27 points which was 42% of the possible points. The lowest points total achieved was 12.

Points range
0-9           0
10-14      4
15-19    13
20-24    33
25-29    22
30-34    13
35-39    10
40-44    11

Thank you to all that participated and the cast of thousands identified by daFootbllas who were apparently responsible for tabulating the results for me.


Blog wisdom and mirror time
Pride of place goes to the following posters for their insight and willingness to critique others choices without posting their own predictions.

OCbabelovesepl – “whoever seriously picked SPAIN to win, is retarded. Spain never pulls through, with or without Fernando Torres. That’s the way it is.”

Bman87 – “How funny, in your predictions Germany always beats the Czechs (by the way Czechs beat Germans twice in last three games) or Portugal and Spain are beating everyone else. Unfortunately these two losers will choke again. The final will be Holand (sic) – Czechs, Any m@ron understand that these two teams are playing the most entertaining football.”

No doubt we can look forward to more insight from these two clowns in four years time.


Next up
Draws for the first two qualifying rounds of the 2008/09 UEFA Champions League will be held tomorrow, July 1.