EC 2008…

April 17th, 2008 | By: Jan | 19 Comments »

oranje88.jpg
Theo Reitsma: “A good bunch, this…”

Less then 70 days to go and – according to some – the most exciting tournament in pro football is about to kick off. The most exciting tournament, because in the WC tournament, the usual suspects normally end up in the last four, but the group matches can be boring, with Samoa playing Chili or Equador playing Iran… Let’s just say that the next upcoming tournament is the most exciting… So, now let’s get all geared up for the EC!!

To take you back into history a bit, these are the former winners:

1960 USSR
This tournament was basically just four teams. The USSR won the finals against Yugoslavia after Spain had forfeited for political reasons.

1964 Spain
Same set up as in 1960 with Spain defeating the USSR.

1968 Italy
Remarkable tournament with a semi finals (Italy vs USSR) being decided by a coin toss!

1972 West-Germany
Won against again the USSR. This West Germany team would also win the WC in 1974, as we will all remember…

1976 Czeckoslovakia
The Cechs won this by a Panenka chip penalty, later called “the Panenka”. Holland was part of this four team tournament and after the applause in 1974 Holland reaped shame with Van Hanegem and Neeskens being red-carded.

1980 West Germany
Won again in this version, with 8 teams competing.

1984 France
One of the best tournaments with an impressive Spain, Denmark and Belgium. France won thanks to a Platini on fire.

1988 Oranje
How well do we remember this tournament? Kieft’s late goal vs Ireland, Van Basten crushing England and Germany. Van Breukelen refusing the Russians a penalty goal.

1992 Denmark
Denmark taught the world that relaxing on a beach could be the best preparation for an EC win. Holland outplayed Germany with Bergkamp on fire but forgot to punish the Danes.

1996 Germany
The horror… Oranje being trashed by the English and Davids finding De Boer and Blind with their heads up Hiddink’s arse… The most boring Germany team won.

2000 France
When Oranje forgot to put ten men of Italy away (how many penalties did we miss again??), France put the Italians in their place.

2004 Greece
Tactical discipline, hard work and some luck can win you a title. Infamous in Holland for the Robben – Bosvelt change…

Patrick Kluivert takes the third spot of all time goal scorers with 6 goals, behind Alan Shearer with 7 and Michel Platini with 8 goals. Marco sits on spot number 4 with 5 goals.

In the next weeks, we’ll check out the participating nations of the upcoming event in Switzerland and Austria…



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Comments
Username By Rob | April 17th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
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Well, I guess exciting is one word for it with the group Oranje have! Looking at some of the other groups, though, I’d rather have the World Cup format – at least you tend to get the big teams playing each other at the right times. At least we’re guaranteed 3 good games I suppose.

Posted from Japan Japan

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Username By AJ | April 17th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
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2008 Portugal

Posted from Canada Canada

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Username By Mark | April 17th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
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samoa has never been in a world cup, and ecuador vs. iran can still be exciting. Ecuador beat poland 2-O in the world cup, a european championship although exciting, lacks the quality that comes with diverse styles of play…its nowhere near as good as the world cup, in either quality or excitement

Posted from United States United States

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Username By alaa | April 17th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
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euro is more exciting and has a higher level that wc, i agree with you jan. it is like the essence of teams, or the enhanced version of the world cup.

mannnn, i just wish our oranje can go back to the spectacular soccer we used to see them play.

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Username By Jan | April 17th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
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It’s good to see some people agree and others don’t :-) .

We need more debate!

Posted from Australia Australia

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Username By Eric | April 18th, 2008 at 12:22 am
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michel had 9 goals

Posted from United States United States

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Username By Larry | April 18th, 2008 at 12:36 am
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Euro is like a world cup without Brazil and Argentina. I agree with Jan in that the group stage matches are more exciting, but the world cup has better overall quality, considering half the world cups have been won by non-european teams. All teams in Europe compete in both euros and world cup, the only difference being that a higher number of competetive teams compete in teh world cup as well. Overall world cup is harder to win as there are more contestants

Posted from United States United States

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Username By goose | April 18th, 2008 at 2:40 am
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The WC used to be more exciting but FIFA, our little facist body, still wants to grow bigger and have more teams at the WC…who cares about Iran, Trinidad etc.? its also more difficult to qualify… ofcourse a WC is always great but its not like im gonna watch all those games

Posted from Netherlands Netherlands

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Username By simon | April 18th, 2008 at 2:41 am
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I think the EC’s is generally a lot better than the WC’s. Euro 88 was far better than World Cup 90, Euro 92 was a bit better or at least on pair with WC94, Euro 96 was definitely worse than WC 98 but Euro 00 was the latest really good championship, a lot better than WC02 that was interesting in a way but not particularly good. Euro 04 and WC06 was a bit like eachother except for Greece who really destroyed Euro 04.

I think European football is declining rapidly though, most of the teams is actually worse than they were eight-ten years ago, probably due to two reasons; the players dont come up in generations in the same way any longer, like Portugals golden generation or our who all kind of grew up together. With the arriving of the Bosman rule, that’s not happening today. Secondly, football is no longer the number one spare time activity, so a lot of talent rottens away in front of computers.

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Username By Jan | April 18th, 2008 at 4:42 am
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True words… I think for me the WC was always a bit distant due to the time difference… Euro tournaments were always in the evenng. The WC in the US and the WC in Korea/Japan was a bit too distant I guess. But now I’m in Oz, everything is different. I watch CL matches at 4.30 in the bloody morning!!!

I remember the FIFA’s decision to play the US WC at times that were good for European tv, meaning we played our matches in stinking hot Florida at midday!

I also remember the Argentine WC as being a tad difficult, with the height and all. Spain 82 was pretty good, quality wise.

Posted from Australia Australia

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Username By Bruce | April 18th, 2008 at 4:58 am
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If you thought Florida was bad wait until South Africa! Yeesh that is going to be hot…

Posted from Republic Of Korea Republic Of Korea

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Username By ferenc | April 18th, 2008 at 4:58 am
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actually i think the bosman rule killed the true spirit of football. and it killed clubs too. sometimes people say that they don’t want to see any more porto-monaco cl final. why? it was a quite good game. more interesting than some highly anticipated ones (milan-juve,bayern-valencia,etc). this rule is one of the reasons of ajax’s decline. every great oranje was followed by a great ajax: early seventies,mid 80s (great ajax and great psv as well),late 90s. but fortunately the ec-s are different – greece won it,danemark won it,etc. i always like this kind of “fresh air” and not the “usual suspects”. european football is in decline because of the champions league,the only profit-oriented mentality. hope that platini will fo something against it. but unfortunately he’s not strong enough for it. btw people say that zidane is all time best french player. i think they should have seen platini (especially in 84) and they immediately would change their mind. Simon: in south america football is still the number one spare time activity and this is one of the reasons why argentina is far better than any european countries and with a good team manager (bilardo was their last one) they will be the big-big-big favourite of the wc 10. but back to euro 08: evidently more exciting than the wc. wc should be played with 16 teams as well and at least 10 european in the 16. fifa is boring with their policies: 5 african,4 or 5 asian, 3 or 4 from the concacaf. and this teams never reach the last 8 (except cameroon in 90 and south corea – with the help of several referees – in 02). anyway it will be a great ec and hopefully ranje will play an important role. if we survive the group stage anything could happen. italy seem a little bit old and key players are not at their best this season: zambrotta,cannavaro,gattuso,pirlo. the same with france. with good luck we can reach the quarter final. and in the quarter final we won’t meet france and italy caliber teams.

Posted from Hungary Hungary

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Username By sam | April 18th, 2008 at 10:08 am
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hey, dont forget the USA in 02! and also senegal, how can bwe forget them after beating france!

Posted from United States United States

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Username By Caleb | April 18th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
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I don’t understand some of your guys’ sentiments.. people saying that the WC is boring because it’s always won by the “usual suspects”, but at the same time you want to make the WC smaller (less teams). That would make it even more probable that the usual suspects will win it… (I definitely don’t think we should make it any bigger though.. there’s just not enough talent out there to make it any bigger, it would just be a money grab by FIFA).

It’s hard for me to choose between the Euro’s and the WC. I think in the end I like the WC better though because of all the diversity. Sure, some of the teams are not at the same level as others, but it leaves a chance of upsets. And you can’t beat the multi-cultural atmosphere that develops at the WC.

sam – we all like to forget about the USA on this blog :-P

Posted from Canada Canada

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Username By dirk v.d berg | April 18th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
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Can someone explain the Bosman rule to me, I never really got it.

Posted from Canada Canada

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Username By simon | April 18th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
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Basically; when your contract ends, you are free to leave for another club.

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Username By Jan | April 18th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
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In the olden days, clubs could ask for money after a contract ended. Now, players sign on for clubs and let their contracts run out so they can go “for free” to other clubs. That “for free” means basically that the club where the player played doesn’t get any money (apart from some development costs) but the player will demand a signing fee. So, instead of paying a club 3 Mio euros for a player, that same kind of money will be paid but to the player instead.

This means that most young talents will sign 3 year contracts and will leave his club after that so he can bag gazillions. The time for Van Gaal type managers to build a team with youngsters over 4 or 5 years is over. The only clubs who can still do that are the Arsenal’s of this world, who can offer a lot to youngsters to stay.

Some clubs in Holland don’t want to invest to heavily in youth development anymore because the income has vaporized from developing talent and selling them for a big fee.

Sometimes, players kill their own career by following the money too early (Rigters? De Ridder?). It’s also the management of the players pushing them into new contracts somewhere else.

Now, clubs will have to commit themselves to players for a long period, in the hope that during that time (see Sneijder) a big club wants them and is willing to pay top dollar. However, long term contracts are also a big risk for clubs, because they commit to paying big salaries for, say, 8 seasons while the player could be useless. (See Lazovic at Feyenoord, or that Irish dude that Feyenoord signed from Excelsior. He failed at Feyenoord, but was the highest earner in the club. Not even sitting on the bench! And when other – smaller – clubs wanted to sign him, he basically said no (”I’d rather become rich sitting on the stands, thank you very much”).

Posted from Australia Australia

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Username By Jan | April 19th, 2008 at 1:55 am
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@Eric…. now I see what you mean :-) .

Michel had 9, you mean Michel Platini! I actually thought you meant Michel the Spanish Real Madrid midfielder… I’ve been looking and searching :-) .

Posted from Australia Australia

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Username By tiju | April 20th, 2008 at 7:28 am
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@larry are u new in this blog?
in most of the world cup non european teams they faced average leavel teams of europe.(includes germany,italy ,england etc)
i would say holland czec rep,protugal are real opponents for them rather than italy ,germany etc
but structure of wc allowing clashes of more euro teams,so luckly and fluke brazil won several times

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