Euro 2012 Final preview

As we regard the Euro 2012 final, it's
apparent that we will watch the tournament's two most irresistible
sides. Spain have for four years been the international game's
standard, a gestalt of tiki-taka, creation and industry. Italy, too,
have been utterly compelling; where Spain have over a dozen
world-class talents to call upon, arguably the Azzurri boast only a
handful – their achievement

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Cometh the hour, cometh Prandelli

While Mario Balotelli once again proved
he has enough talent to justify any of his off-field misdemeanours
and Gigi Buffon has intimated that all he's still the silent member of the
World's Best Goalkeeper club, the man most crucial to Italy's
semi-final triumph wasn't a player but their manager, Cesare
Prandelli.




Prandelli has achieved an Italian
harmony through measures
both regulation and

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On Tony Greig's Cowdrey lecture

Tony
Greig makes a lot of sense. Re-read that sentence because I probably won't type it again for a while – at least not while he
consistently forces rubbish memorabilia down our gestalt craw on the
telly. But, in his recent Cowdrey
Lecture on the Spirit of Cricket, the man in the panama hat spoke
passionately and – for the most part – incisively as to the state
of the sport and issues facing

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Euro 2012: On Spain and Popular Culture

When the immortal celluloid “Robin
Hood: Prince of Thieves” flickered onto my television screen last
year, I got quite excited. Carefree days of sixth grade came
flooding into my mind, so I decided a re-viewing was in order.




It was rubbish.






It was typical, arch Costner replete
with florid dialogue, a full-scale Swiss Family Robinson tree house
in twelfth century Britain and Brian

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When Cristiano Ronaldo isn't Portugal's main man

The European Football Championships
enter their final week. Fittingly, the confederation's four best
teams will contest the final matches of the tournament.




A joyfulness has been incorporated into
the Teutonic predisposition for precision, while Spain have eschewed
the previously successful “death by a thousand cuts” for “death
by a thousand paper cuts”. Italy's on-paper mismatch of

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What if Cristiano Ronaldo played for Australia?

http://dayhairstyles.blogspot.com



A relatively obscure fact about Cristiano Ronaldo is that he was once – a long time ago – eligible to represent Australia. His grandparents live in Perth, Australia's westernmost outpost, the most remote city in the world. It's not known if the Football Federation of Australia explored “recruiting” him, but it's highly unlikely given how passionately he

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Breaking down Forbes' Top 100 highest earning athletes

Forbes is perhaps the highest profile business magazine in the world. It certainly boasts as much clout as any, and an effective part of this has simply been their willingness to create reams of lists: the Best Paid Actors, the most overperforming stocks for 1955.  The internet loves this stuff.  These aggregations are easy on the eye - and almost as easy on the brain.  But because it's easily

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MLS: a taste of the Euros

Last
night I saw the Seattle
Sounders play Sporting Kansas City in a thoroughly enjoyable
MLS encounter. It started uneasily,  however, as on a very
pleasant Seattle evening we traipsed down to SoDo.

The
trip involved me fielding several obvious-but-unhelpful statements
from my companions, mutterings like “It's not like the Premier
League” or “I'd rather watch the European Championships”.



 

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My Favourite Cricketer: Victor Trumper by S.A. Rennie

My Favourite Cricketer sees the teams at Balanced Sports and World Cricket Watch invite the best cricket writers and bloggers to tell us who their favourite cricketers are - and, more importantly, tell us why they stand out.  Today's submission is by S.A. Rennie of Legside Filth.  You can find Legside Filth on the web at www.legsidefilth.com, or on Twitter at @legsidefilth



I
never saw my

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What happened to Holland?

Courtesy: thearmchairpundits.com



The Netherlands whimpered one final
time, threw up their hands and now stumble away from Northern Europe.
Three losses in a tough group has left the Dutch with fractured
egos, a burnished reputation and questions as to the continued
viability of employing manager Bert van Marwijk. Eviction from the
tournament was always a possibility, especially in a group

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Alternative XI: Euro 2012 Overachievers

As is usual for a major tournament,
Euro 2012 has allowed us to witness the full spectrum of players from
World's Best to those who walk a matter of metres to the ground
that's always been their home. This tournament, we've had the
opportunity to see players previously anonymous make a stamp on the
football world – in fact, many of the best performed players aren't
paid by Real Madrid,

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Simon Katich retired because Australia wanted him to

Simon
Katich announced his retirement from First Class cricket earlier
this week, ending a career that began when Mark Taylor and Paul
Keating occupied the most coveted offices in the country. He leaves
with a reputation as a hardworking player who moved up the order as
his career progressed, starting at six and finishing facing the new
pill.



Katich also leaves with a reputation
for spirit;

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Ukraine heat a portent of 2022 World Cup

While England
and France slugged out a draw in Donetsk, much
the same occurred two days prior some distance from the Ukraine. The
likes of James Milner appeared totally spent with temperatures
reaching 33o celsius in oppressive conditions.



On Saturday, the Australian Socceroos
played Oman in their first 2014 World Cup Qualifier. The match
was played in Oman, a hope, skip and Ashley Young

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Torres' role reduced again for Spain

The man they miss with the man whose form they miss
courtesy: worldcupblog.org


Spain manager Vicente del Bosque opted to start yesterday's match against Italy with four defenders and six midfielders. Ostensibly, Cesc Fabregas started up front – and indeed found himself forward more often than his midfield counterparts and scored his country's goal.



 It's unlikely Fabregas will start as

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Lookalike: Giorgos Karagounis

This is the kind of lookalike that could only come from a football-loving powernerd who boasts a vast familiarity with the works of deceased Gallic graphic novelists.

Greece captain Giorgos Karagounis scored the opening goal of Euro 2004, has captained his nation many times and is only four caps from becoming Greece's all-time leader in games played.  Despite advancing years, he's still the most

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Euro 2012: Easier to win than the World Cup?

Conventional wisdom suggests the
European Football Championships are harder to win than the World Cup.
There's reason behind this: despite increased familiarity with staff
and styles, all teams come from a strong FIFA confederation and this
means fewer easy wins and more Groups of Potential Fatality.



We can take a look at the final set of
FIFA World Rankings before a tournament to suggest

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Obituary: Remembering Charlie Sutton

Image: Wikimedia commons

Charlie Sutton, the only man to coach
the Western Bulldogs – née
Footscray – to an AFL
Premiership, has
died at the age of 88. A man whose life exemplified pride in
club and origin, he was born during the last of Footscray's
successful VFA years before entering the VFL. Recruited to the Dogs
from Spotswood Citizens, he embodied local and club spirit for seven
decades

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Liveblog: Rocky IV

Also known as Rocky IV: Jumping the
Shark.





Opening rehash: Eye
of the Tiger! In the first montage! The shiny
hammer/sickle and stars/stripes gloves are a really 1980s
idea, cold-war fuelled. Given that Rocky IV is notorious for it's
overt propagandist direction, there's symbolism in the hammer and
sickle glove exploding before the American one. I must admit to
missing the brassy opening,

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Graphic: The most efficient teams in Europe

Following on from our half-season efficiency studies, the following chart demonstrates the each team's offensive/defensive efficiency in a single measure and compares it across all four European leagues.

Each team's defensive stolidity is calculated by finding out how many shots they faced per goal, while offensive precision is calculated by the same means (how many shots per goal).  There's

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