Euro 2008

[marathondan]

I think everyone's being a little hard on the Greeks. It's not like they won last time with sparkling, flowing football. They were the unsophisticated underdogs, and they showed, as the saying goes, that the quality teams don't like it up 'em. Now, thanks to the Euro 2004 trophy and a solid performance in a fairly easy qualifying group, expectations are high, and everyone seems to have forgotten that they are a relatively weak team who can grind out results by hard work and nicking set pieces. (Neither of which were much in evidence last night.)

That's not to say that their tedious gameplan was fun to watch. I was reminded of Liverpool in the early 80s, before the backpass rule, who used to do just the same until their opponents abandoned their shape and gave them a way in. Of course the media loved it then, and called it "possession football".

Re the commentary - the simple rule is to mute the TV and put 5 Live on the stereo. Similarly, all arty-arsey titles, preamble, anal-ysis and reaction may be muted, to allow the viewer to form his/her own opinions instead. Shouts of "die, scum!" as the mute button is pressed are optional.