EC 2008…

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

2008 Portugal

Posted from  Canada

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

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.

It’s good to see some people agree and others don’t :-).

We need more debate!

Posted from  Australia

michel had 9 goals

Posted from  United States

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

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

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.

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

If you thought Florida was bad wait until South Africa! Yeesh that is going to be hot…

Posted from  Republic Of Korea

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

hey, dont forget the USA in 02! and also senegal, how can bwe forget them after beating france!

Posted from  United States

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

Posted from  Canada

Can someone explain the Bosman rule to me, I never really got it.

Posted from  Canada

Basically; when your contract ends, you are free to leave for another club.

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

@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

@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