Well… blah

A championship that ends in a bland 1-0 game does tend to affirm certain prejudices about this sport. And after the wild craziness of Germany-Croatia, Germany-Turkey, or Russia-Netherlands…

Oh, well, it was a fun two weeks anyhow. Congratulations to our Spanish friends!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 8:36 pm and is filed under A Fistful Of Euros, Not Europe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. John Says:
   June 29th, 2008 at 9:50 pm

   It was rather bla, but the Germans finally lost!

2. Jacob Christensen Says:
   June 29th, 2008 at 9:55 pm

   1-0. Yes. Bland? No.

   This was a great tournament which definitively had more exciting matches, with Russia-Netherlands as one of the most entertaining international matches (except if you happened to be Dutch) but as soccer finals go, this one was pretty entertaining. It didn’t even go to a penalty shoot-out.

3. Douglas Muir Says:
   June 29th, 2008 at 10:18 pm

   “didn’t go to a penalty shootout” is setting the bar kinda low, don’t you think?

   Bland: the expected team won by the expected margin in the expected way. Nothing about this game /surprised/.

   Doug M.

4. Anthony Says:
   June 29th, 2008 at 11:33 pm

   Bland? Not really. There were a good few shots on goal, mostly from Spain, and I was on the edge of my seat for the last 20 minutes, when Germany started getting their act together in midfield.

   Anyway, it has been a marvellous tournament overall, one of the best in recent memory.

   Sidenote: I saw some people in the FanZone (via BBC TV) waving the European flag, which is one way to ensure you have something to wave at the end of the evening.

5. Matthew Kimel Says:
   June 30th, 2008 at 2:04 am

   I thought it was a close game if you consider how bad Germany played and how many blown chances Spain had.

6. Noel Maurer Says:
   June 30th, 2008 at 3:05 am

   Senna won’t live it down for a while. Leastways, I don’t think he will.

   Doug, here I do in fact have the spirit of a convert. So you may wish to discount what I have to say. Which is simply that I agree with Anthony, with the caveat that the Spanish team did get crazy defensive and low-risk during that period.

   But not a bland game. A bland game doesn’t keep you biting your fingernails; this one did.

   Are you sure you like soccer? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.

7. Douglas Muir Says:
   June 30th, 2008 at 10:36 am

   I would say I’m trying to like it.

   Sometimes — Germany’s recent games against Croatia and Turkey come to mind — it’s easy. Other times, less so.

   Doug M.