The days are being counted as are approaching the Euro 2008 which is definitely going be the blockbuster tournament of the year. The UEFA Euro 2008 will be hosted by Switzerland and Austria. The opening match will be held on Saturday 7th June 2008 at St. Jakob-Park in Basel. Sixteen teams will battle it out in the ultimate tournament with only one goal in mind, the Euro 2008 Cup. The teams are from Switzerland, Czech Republic, Portugal. Turkey, Austria, Croatia, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Italy. Romania, France, Greece. Sweden, Spain and Russia.
The teams qualified for the Euro 2008 tournament went through tough qualifying matches to reach to the top spots in their standings. The teams divided into seven groups, with the top two in each section going straight into the finals. The qualifying system was simple enough, but still very few sides found it to be plain sailing. Greece being the team with 31 points had to face the most humiliating defeats in their history. After Germany’s Otto Rehhagel failed to make it in the FIFA World Cup in his home country, he was then determined to make a statement in the UEFA Euro 2008 qualifiers but his team had to face a terrible defeat in his own home against Turkey in the most memorable Group C Euro 2008 qualifiers game. Even though Germany made an early goal but Turkey’s play tempo did not let Germany keep up with them.
Turkey managed to achieve the runner’s up place in the Euro 2008 qualifiers table after their final struggling match. England faced many defeats in the qualifying matches but with much struggle managed to steal one victory from Israel putting England last position in Group E of Euro 2008 qualifiers. England did recover from the early defeats in the tournament when they followed a 0-0 draw at home against F.Y.R. Macedonia with 2-0 defeat in Croatia. However, two second-half Roman Pavlyuchenko goals saw Russia make a comeback after the 2-1 defeat in Moscow which then let them only to win their remaining games against the already eliminated Israel and Andorra. Omer Golan’s late goal saw Israel beat Russia 2-1, and then handed the initiative back to Steve McClaren’s England to face Croatia for a spot at the Euro 2008 but unfortunately faced a tie against group winners Croatia. At Wembley a qualification was expected only if the match drew but they lost 3-2 making big errors during the game and let Russia move on 1-0 win against Andorra. Russia’s coach did not expect it to end this way. Other worthy matches of the Euro 2008 qualifying tournament included Denmark-Sweden tie which was finally called off when a pitch invader attacked referee Herbert Fandel for dismissing a Denmark player and awarding the away side a penalty.Don’t forget to catch live UEFA Euro 2008 tournament matches on your PCs. It isn’t worth missing it.