A Semi-Educated Euro 2008 Preview, Part I

I'm not Avram Grant or anything over here,



but I'd like to think I've picked up a thing or two about soccer in the past couple years. And, of course, I think we're all looking forward to the Euro 2008. So, here's a stab at a multi-part preview of next month's tournament.

Let's go in alphabetical order.


Group A

Czech Republic: This team is always ranked something ridiculous--right now they're 6--and, though, they haven't won big at the tournaments, they're always a threat to get to the Semi-Finals. This team strikes me as a little old, though. Jan Koller is probably a grandfather and Pavel Nedved doesn't even feel like making the trip. Tomas Rosicky is out, and he wears the number 10 jersey for them. Not a number you want missing. The Czechs are good enough to make things interesting, but they're not dynamic enough to really do anything serious this go-round.

Portugal: They were runners-up at the 2004 Euros, they finished fourth in the 2006 World Cup. This really could be their year. They have the best player in the world in C. Ronaldo, but they are also loaded at nearly every other position. Roberto Carvalho, Ricardo Quaresma, Jose Bosingwa, Deco, Nani; Portugal's got some straight-up ballers. Maniche, maybe their most consistent player in 2006, didn't even make the cut. Anything less than the title will be a disappiontment to this crew.

Switzerland: While not as pathetic as Austria, it's safe to say the Swiss might not have made the Finals if they weren't hosting it. They put together some nice defensive performances in '06, but since then, they haven't been up to much. I guess. I haven't really been checking the Switzerland box scores. Prove me wrong, boys!

Turkey: From what I've seen of the Turkish diaspora in the European leagues, they are some tricky dudes. And a dozen of them play for the same two club teams back in the homeland, so they got the whole familiarity thing going for them. They also came out of nowhere to grab 4th place at the 2002 World Cup. Good enough for me.

My Prediction: Portugal is just gonna slap everybody around. Everybody is gonna slap Switzlerand around. So it'll really come down to the Turkey-Czech match, by my calculations. Unfortunately for the old-ass Czechs, that's the last game of the round. So those speedy young Turks could prove too much in that fixture and sneak into thequarterfinals.



Portgual and Turkey advance.

Group B

Poland: This team lost 3-0 at home to the damn Americans. That's pretty much the absolute worst way for a team to prepare for the Euro Cup. Still, word on the street, is that the Poles can put some numbers on the board, when they're so inclined. But, seriously, the U.S. national team in Krakow.

Austria: Austria may be the worst team to ever qualify for the Euros. How bad are they? A proud Austrian dude I know advocated this idea: Forgo the traditional obligatory host entry and let another team have the spot. England, Serbia, Scotland, Iceland Faroe Islands; there's gotta be some other team that deserves to be in the tourney just a bit more.

Croatia: This squad is gonna be a popular darkhorse pick in this tournament. You gotta love how they just marched into Wembley and cold-bloodedly smashed England's dreams. The loss of Brazil-born Eduardo is sure to be a blow, but they got enough firepower to blast their way intot he next round.

Germany: If I were a betting man, my money might ultimately be on Deutchland. They got as much talent as anyone, they finished 3rd in 2006, their players seem to be just the right age, with Michael Ballack they got one of the premier leaders in world football and they're playing just around the corner in Austria and Switzerland. Once the hosts get eliminated, all the drunk, neutral, German-speaking fans will instinctively root for guys named Bastian Schweinsteiger and Torsten Frings. Add on four or five outright scoring machines and this team is as dangerous as it gets.

Prediction: I guess Poland could make it interesting, but, really Germany and Croatia should advance fairly easily. The real drama in this group will be guessing Austria's goal differential. I'm going with -10.



Germany and Croatia advance.

Peace, Suns!

I realize I'm late on this but I just felt I had to say "later" to the Phoenix Suns.

I don't want to bite an ESPN writer but I saw a headline when the Shaq trade went down that really is the best way to describe it. It might even have been the way I would describe it if I were a headline writer for the Worldwide Leader.

The Suns sold their soul for the chance of an NBA title.

I know I'm in the minority, but I believe Steve Kerr when he said that D'Antoni was a bigger proponent of the Shaq trade than he was. I can just see Mike D sitting there year after year losing out to Duncan and the more traditional halfcourt Spurs big man system and getting frustrated. Not giving a damn anymore about fun. He had that back in 2005 and 2006. He just needed to, finally, win the title before Nash gave out. And fun teams don't win the title these days. Since the Jordan era ended, the title has gone through only Duncan, Shaq and Larry Brown. (Prove me wrong, Kobe! Prove me wrong!)

So, D'Antoni finally succumbed to this and, along with Kerr, he gambled. And they lost. And now he has to leave. Kerr hasn't fired D'Antoni because he understands this. Both are former multiple-time champions in different settings, chasing the ring again. And its not a question, of can D'Antoni do do this job anymore. Of course he can. He's still a great coach. he just can't go back. What he used to have has burned down. He needs a find a new home.

Really, its all been downhill since the Spurs beat the Suns in 2005. Within months, Joe Johnson was gone and Amare Stoudemire was micro-fractured. Yes, Black Jesus has made a spectacular recovery, but do you remember what he did in the 2005 playoffs?

In a simpler time, in a distant land, I wrote this after the 2005 Western Conference Finals:

Amare Stoudemire rules the world. Check these stats for for the recently-concluded 5-game series against the Spurs:

37 ppg . . . 9.8 rpg . . . 1.6 bpg . . . 55% fg . . . 84% ft

And, of course, these numbers were compiled playing out-of-position and going up against Tim Duncan, one of the best defensive big men ever. And look at that free-throw shooting. This dude is ice-cold. It's obvious that he relishes pressure and big games. Even though the Suns lost and even if the Spurs win it all, I think we'll all remember this postseason as the time when we really learned that Amare will dominate the league for years and years and years. We already know how great Duncan is, but Amare showed the world that he has the potential to be even better and have a more iconic and electric career. Either way, I look forward to watching these two duke it out for the next 5-10 years.

Amare was vaulting up to a level we had never imagined. While he is still really really good, great, Hall of Fame-caliber, a monster, you wouldn't say he's the G.O.A.T. In June 2005, I was just about ready to.

Throw in more losses to the Spurs, injuries, more trades, Boris Diaw, etc., etc., and the Suns, as they ended this season, aren't in the same ballpark as the 2004-2005 Suns. They're not even playing the same sport.

D'Antoni fiddled around with the basic formula until it was broke. Grant Hill might've been the last straw, but trading The Matrix for Big Diesel just put a damn blowtorch to the smoked-out ruins, if you'll allow me to mix metaphors.

The Suns go into next year with as old and as slow a team as anyone in the league. Watching them play the Spurs, they seemed like just a normal, grind-it-out team. But the Spurs are the ultimate grind-it-out team. That was never going to work.

Nash, Shaq and Hill are seriously old. Tony Parker going up against Nash wasn't even a contest. I really wouldn't have done much worse checking Tony. The only way to mask that definiency is to run the other team to death. Something you just can't do with the Big Cactus taking up $20 million of your salary cap.

D'Antoni just can't face this anymore. I can't either.

Goodbye, Suns. Keep in touch.

Let Me Put You On The Game

I've heard this Woodsonian Family Parable several times. I think it bears repeating:

Way back in the day, there was a young boy who got a nice, shiny, expensive football for Chistmas. Of course, as any young boy would, he wanted to go right outside and play with it.

So, he took his younger brother and went to the backyard that Christmas morning and they threw the leather ball around. It was fun.

One of the older brother's spirals, which were exceptionally strong for a kid of his age, happened to go through his brother's hands, strike a tree and then fall to the cold hard ground.

The older boy ran over to fetch it up. He examined the ball, worried about what he might find. And sure enough, he saw it. A tiny little smudge on the tip of the ball. Just a little scratch, probably, from the tree bark.

To anyone else's eyes, this wouldn't have looked like anything but a nice, shiny, expensive, new football. Just a little smaller then regulation.

To the boy, though, it was tarnished. He had to act fast and clean it up. So he ran inside and found a rag, put some rubbing alcohol or whatnot on it and scrubbed the scratch.

Only the scratch didn't come off and didn't get better. It turned to a dot of beige discoloration on the brand new football on Chistmas morning.

Still, it was only a tiny dot. The boy could go out and throw the ball around with any football fan, young or old, and they would think nothing of it. Even if they did, it was a damn football from the untamed streets and backyards of North Jersey! Of course, it would have a scratch or two on it.

But, in the boy's mind, it could still be salvaged and still be the best, shiniest, newest football of any street or backyard in the whole world. So he scrubbed some more, thinking the dot would magically turn back and be perfect. But the dot, of course, got bigger and bigger and bigger.

Soon it wasn't just a dot and was, instead, the whole front quarter of the football.

At this point, though, the boy then decided that it would make more sense to just keep scrubbing. Instead of having a football that was three quarters shiny and new and one quarter scratched and discolored, it would be better to have it all one way. And the football couldn't be un-scratched or un-discolored, he reasoned.

So he went about rubbing even more color and leather gripping off the ball, until, it was uniform and, effectively, ruined.

It wasn't long before he realized that he had overreacted to the initial scratch. But there was nothing he could do now.

Game over.

This being a family parable, I can relate to the young boy's struggle. And I would imagine that most people can, to some degree.

Peace, Kidd!

As one of the eight New Jersey Nets fans on this planet, I'd be remiss if I didn't spare a few words about Jason Kidd moving on from the Swamp.

I remember the Marbury for Kidd swap like it was yesterday. It was a summer night, I was out at a friend's house and I got a call from my homeslice Reason informing me of the trade. At first, I wasn't too happy.

It was just a month or so after Allen Iverson led his Sixers all the way to the NBA Finals. Moody shoot-first point guards could lead their teams to the promised land, I thought. But, a poor-shooting, wife-beating Magic Johnson wanna-be? No way.

Of course, I had yet to be convinced of the genius of Rod Thorn and less than a year later I was bounding around my dorm room as Ason dropped clutch-shot after clutch-shot against Reggie "Dunk Machine" Miller and his Indiana Pacers.

From then on, I was a true Kidd believer. I let his glaring character issues roll off right off my back. As long as he was clocking triple-doubles, he was the face of my proud underappreciated franchise.

But, before long, all of his bagge--the numerous trade requests, nightclub gropings, odd cliched press interviews, continual wife-beating allegations, T.J.'s freakish head--was too much. Just get this damn guard out of Jersey. And now, mercifully and with the help of the boy Keith Van Horn, Rod Thorn has.


Respect

But this trade comes at an unforseen juncture in my life. Like the aforementioned Starbury, I don't have much use for the NBA this year. I know that it's about as competitive a league as it's ever been. LeBron is the player nobody even dared to dream could exist. Nate Robinson is throwing cups of water in the face of fat self-destructive power forwards. And my Nets are flush with cash, draft picks and cute young point guards. Yet it's just not clicking anymore.

The new-look Lakers and Suns are tipping off in 45 minutes and I'd rather go swimming at the Y in Park Slope and watch The Bourne Supremacy.

I can't explain it. I'm sorry.

The Passion of Marshall Mathers

I stil remember the day I first heard The Marshall Mathers LP. I can't say that about too many (or maybe any) other albums. As a male suburban teeanger in the 90s, I was, of course, a connoisieur of objectionable lyrics. But "Mathers" was the apex of it all:


"You god damn right BITCH, and now it's too late
I'm triple platinum and tragedies happen in two states"

More than that, though, it was the work of true passion and genius. Jokes are fun and all, but let's not forget, a year after this came out, he performed with Elton John at the Grammys.



Now reports are fliying left and right that Em is over 200 pounds, sitting at home all day eating steak and hanging out and playing video games with what's left of Ronald Dupree's crew.



Even Bizarre is like, "Nah, I'm not really fucking with Em anymore."



Is this the price that it costs to put out something like Marshall Mathers?

It's like studying the long-term effects of some new form of medical treatment. It's not knowable. There's never really been a case study like this. The article above compares Em's plight with that of Elvis.



While their downfalls, on the surface, seem to be similar on many levels, Elvis never put out an album as inflammatory and personal as Eminem did.

Of course, Elvis' music was pretty cutting-edge and controversial at the time and his overall fame volume was greater than Eminem's will ever be, but he wasn't part of your family. He ate lots of fried banana sandwiches and shot guns at TV's and took pills. Did the average person know a whole lot more than that about the King in the 70s?

Also, I don't think his mom ever sued him.

Maybe if Em held back just a little on something like "Kill You," "Stan" or "Kim" he could've held on to a little more of himself.

That would've denied us all great works of art, but maybe, now, 10 years later, he'd be able to put pen to paper. Maybe he wouldn't be so scared of what words will come out and what they'll do to, not only his millions of fans, but also his friends and family. I can't think of an entertainer, dead or alive, that has stakes as high as Em's.

Is it worth it? That's not for me to decide right now.

Argentina

The Best American XI

I guess you could say I'm more into soccer than any other sport these days. That could all change once the Roland L. League of Champions starts up, but these days, I'm more intrigued by names like Cesc Fabregas and Lionel Messi.

To be a soccer fan in the U.S., though, is a kind of futile endeavour. We could win the World Cup before I'm 80, but it's not too likely. The biggest obstacle, of course, is that our best athletes will always play another sport. Football, basketball, even baseball; if you're a true athlete in America and you don't have a wacky dad from Italy who hits on high school girls at family parties, these are the sports you'll go for.

But don't take my word for it. After losing to a Brazilian team filled with the likes of Ronaldinho and Kaka, some of the most graceful pure athletes in the world, and thugs like Alex and Gilberto Silva, tight ends in the NFL if they were born in Akron and took HGH, Landon Donovan had this to say:

"You just saw the best 18 athletes in Brazil, probably, playing. We might have Nos. 75 through 100 of the best athletes in America, if even that. The others are playing other sports."

Thanks, brah.

So this got me thinking, if the best of what the U.S. had to offer had grown up with a soccer ball at their feet instead of a football, basketball or steroid needle/baseball in their hands, who would we trot out there against Robinho and Afonso Alves?

Here's my starting team and some top subs, playing in a 4-4-2 formation:

Goalie: Tim Howard

I'll give it to the Everton keeper in this case. Howard's one of the best in the world, by any account. He's played solidly in the Premier League for many years. He's big, tough, smart and a good leader. I really have no basis to say Shawn Marion or Ben Wallace or etc. would actually be a better option. This job is yours to lose, Timmy.

Center Back: Roy Williams

Just the fact that I'm putting a Cowboy on here should let you know what I think about the King of the Horse Collars. He is a truly intimidating player who always puts his stamp on a game. Not that this team will really need it, but he'd be the enforcer, the last dude back who'd die for his goalie.

Center Back: Raja Bell

I was tempted to put Ron Artest back here, but he may be a smidge too tall for a soccer field. Raja is pretty much the perfect size for a center back and, most importantly, he just loves to defend. Like Roy, he'll also mix it up, but with his height and ability to score, he can also push up on corners and whatnot.

Side Back: Bob Sanders

His lack of height, obviously, won't hurt him on the soccer field. He'll just stay in his winger's face for the entire game, win balls and always look for a way to move it upfield. I'm sure you could replace Sanders with many other safety or cornerback in the NFL, but I'm not watching any of them on TV right now.

Side Back: Brian Westbrook

I know he's not a defender, but something about his build makes me think he'd be suited for moving up and down the wings. Although he's comfortable scoring and making the big play, he's not the flashiest dude and he'd absolutely excel at any type of supporting role. With his speed and strength, he'd be tough to get past.

Left Wing: Allen Iverson

On his club team, AI would be the focal point of the attack, but I'd like to think he'd fall back and play on the wings for my squad. He's faster than almost anybody in the world dribbling a basketball, so it's not a stretch to see him doing the same with a soccer ball. He'd be a natural on either side of the midfield making the most of the space on the wings and then cutting in or even delivering a cross. His underrated passing ability would be on full display.

Right Wing: LaDanian Tomlinson

LDT could pretty much play any position on a soccer field or, for that matter, a football field or a basketball court. Putting him on the right side of the midfield is basically giving him carte blanche. Give him space and let him operate. If he wants to shoot, pass or just dribble for a bit and tire out whomever is defending him, he really can't do any wrong.

Holding/Defensive Midfielder: Jason Kidd

In his younger years, Kidd was Zinedine Zidane. The maestro of any attack and the undisputed leader of whatever team was on the field with on the field. In his later age, though, I see him in more of a Patrick Viera role. The backbone of any attack, the older, calming influence of what will certainly be a frenzied attack and brutal defense from these upstart young Americans. Kidd would be the eye of the storm.

Attacking Midfielder: Dwyane Wade

Wade would be perfect for this role, just setting up/cleaning up for the strikers up top. In the Association, Dwyane can begin or end any play, no matter what situation or what player may be in front of him. As the team's number 10, he'll be a consistent and tireless attacker who always knows when to take a long-range shot, sneak up and steal a goal or fall back and let his strikers or even Kidd, his partner in the center of the field, take over a play.

Striker: Chad Johnson

Chad actually played soccer back in high school and, if I remember reading the article correctly, he could've gone pro, but the money in the NFL is a little bit better than the MLS. Didier Drogba is his favorite player and I see him filling a similar role on this squad. He's got the height and strength to dominate any defender and score in many ways, but he's also got the skill and grace to play off the other attackers.

Striker: Kobe Bryant

We all know he can jump so at the very worst he'll be Peter Crouch with a much better work ethic. But with his skills and intelligence, not to mention pretty ridiculous size, a supernatural athletic ability and a genuine love of scoring, he could be one of the best soccer players we'd ever see. You could say his height may work against him, but Kobe's the type of athlete that would make that work for him. He'd be able to post up and shield smaller defenders and on many plays, just act as a decoy and let dudes like Wade or LDT run around him. And on corners and crosses his jumping would be impossible to defend.

Let's take a look at this:

--------------Bryant----C.Johnson---------------
--------------------Wade------------------------
----AI--------------------------------LDT-------
--------------------Kidd------------------------
-----Sanders--------------------Westbrook-------
-----------R.Williams-------Bell----------------
--------------------Howard----------------------

Not bad, eh?

Top Subs:

Devin Hester

He'd be your instant offense in a tight game. I'm pretty sure that nobody in the world can catch this guy. You could put him on the wings or even take out a side back for him and just watch him go.

Amare Stoudemire

If you're really desperate for a goal, Amare could be your guy. Over a full game, his height would be a liability, but in short bursts, I'm sure he could get it done.

Brian Dawkins

He'd be a pretty suitable replacement for Williams or Bell in the back.

Chris Paul/Deron Williams

These two are in the running for the Jason Kidd role on the team once he inevitably retires from international competition. Deron would have the size to be more of a defensive option whereas Paul would be a tricky center midfielder like Riquelme or Deco who can control the game and make opponents hate themselves.

Reggie Bush

Like LDT, I could also see him play in any position on the field. He's more of a natural in terms of attacking, but on a team like this, his athleticism could be more valuable on defense.

Marvin Harrison

I probably wouldn't think of him if I weren't watching the Colts right now, but he'd be a good option in the midfield if you're looking for a change of pace from dudes like Wade, LDT or AI. He's steady, smart and would know what to do with the ball.

Antonio Gates

With his great hands, size and overall athletic ability, he'd be a suitable backup for Tim Howard.

That's my squad. Who did I miss?