Sixteen teams qualified for the Euro 2008 finals. They were divided into four groups. Group A consisted Czech, Portugal, Turkey and the host Switzerland from which Portugal and Turkey qualified for the quarterfinals. From Group B, Croatia and Germany moved to the next round. The group termed as the group of death had France, Netherlands, Italy and Romania. France and Romania were eliminated from the preliminary round and from Group D, Spain and Russia advanced to the next round forcing the defending champion Greece an early exit.
In the quarter final matches, Portugal played against Germany and was beaten. The second quarter final was the most dramatic match of the tournament which featured Croatia and Turkey. Both the teams could not score any goals in the regular time and thus the match was elongated for thirty more minutes. Just when the final whistle was going to be blown Croatia scored a goal and it seemed as if they booked a place in the semifinal. Not to happen though, Turkey pulled one back just in the edge of the second half of the stipulated added time. No one would have ever thought of this kind of dramatic come back. Eventually, Turkey went on to win the match in a tie breaker. The third quarter final match was also a shocking one for one of the favorites of the tournament. Netherlands were kicked off of the tournament by Russia, the team which has been coached by Guss Hiddink who has already taken Netherlands to the semifinal in the 1998 world cup and again took Korea to the semifinals in 2004. In the last quarter final, it was Spain who defeated the reigning world cup champions Italy in a tie breaker.
The semifinal featured Spain against Russia and Turkey against Germany. Spain thrashed Russia 3-0 in the same manner as they have done in the preliminary round. Germany narrowly defeated Turkey with a score of 3-2 , thanks to Lahm with the winning goal just before the final whistle.
The final showdown was now between Spain and Germany. The lone goal scored by Fernando Torres in the thirty third minute which was enough for Spain to be the champion. The final match was quite disappointing one from Germany’s point of view. The young, talented and well balanced Spain deserved to be the champions and after a couple of decades they finally won a big title.
The highest scorer of the tournament was David Villa of Spain with four goals which include a hat trick against Russia. The first goal scored in the tournament was the one scored by Mordich of Croatia against Austria via penalty and the last goal of the tournament went to Fernando Torres of Spain. Xavi Hernandez was the player who scored the 500th goal in the Euro Championship.
0 comments:
Post a Comment