Euro 2008: Team Profiles
Jun 05
Goal.com has put up some really nice team profiles for the upcoming Euro 2008 games.
Team Profile: Switzerland
Switzerland is home to football’s governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA, but looking at the competition, Salvatore Landolina, believes it’s unlikely the host nation will get near the trophy this summer.
However, coach Kuhn is a genius at organising his side and he prefers to use a 4-4-2 diamond formation with Udinese’s Gokhan Inler playing the holding role which is identical to that played by Andrea Pirlo at Milan. The formation has worked well in the past. Last year Kuhn’s side beat Holland 2-1 and they held Argentina’s superstar’s to a 1-1 draw.
He has shown that it can work but that all depends on how his side cope with the pressures of a major tournament as this is no friendly competition.
Team: Germany
Germany have by far been the most successful side when it comes to the European Championships, the Germans won the European Championship three times: 1972, 1980 and 1996. Germany had a miserable Euro 2004 campaign where they failed to register a single win and went out of the competition in the group stages itself. The Germans will be keen to make up for their disappointment in Euro 04 and win their fourth European Championship title.
German Captain Michael Ballack is tipped to be key player for the Germans but one cannot forget star striker Miroslav Klose who has been exceptional for both club and country. Another potential star of the Euros is 22-year old striker Mario Gomez who has been on a goal scoring spree for his club VfB Stuttgart scoring 19 times in 25 matches and he was named German player of the year in 2007.
Team: Netherlands
Despite dominating Europe on club level in the ‘70s and claiming four successive Champions League titles, up until 1984 the Dutch national side had only managed to qualify twice for the final phase of a European Championship. However, look out for soccer star Ruud van Nistelrooy who will definitely play up front as the sole striker, Ed van der Sar, the hero of the Champions league, Rafael van der Vaart, Wes Sneijder, even 22-year-old Ibi Afellay are rightly considered as top-class play-makers.
Team: Sweden
Euro 2008 therefore represents the final chance for a talented generation of Swedish players to make their mark on international football as their fore-runners did such as the team of the fifties that made it to the latter stages of the World Cup in both 1950 and 1958 or the team of 1994 that finished third at the World Cup in the USA.
Sweden can’t quite be discounted, but another second-round finish might befall them. After all, even if they emerge from their group they will face a ‘Group of Death’ member in the next stage…
Team: Greece
The slogan for Greece’s Euro 2004 squad was quite simple; ‘Ancient Greece had twelve Gods. The modern one has eleven.’ No other line could describe better what the Greek fans thought of their boys.
Claiming that Greece can repeat the same feat twice would be too far-fetched. However, if we learnt something from Rehhagel’s boys, it is that never say never or nothing is impossible. Advancing, though, from the group stage must be their primary objective. Qualifying further into the tournament won’t be a miracle, but it will be tough. They do after all have Antonis Nikopolidis, Captain Giorgos Karagounis, defender Fanis Gekas. So it might just work for them.
The Euro 2008 starts Saturday 7th June, and we have already posted the complete channel timings for Indian television.
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