Monday, June 9, 2008

Starting Eleven Football Blog Roundup


If it's Monday, it must Day 3 of Euro 2008 and it must be blog roundup day. Today's is G.O.D. day at Euro with France and Romania squaring off, as are Italy and Holland. Should be a blast. Anyone else find it ironic that France coach Ray Domenech sounded scared of Romainia in yesterday's presser? Well, I digress. Here's our weekly jaunt around the footballing blogosphere, with a decidedly Euro 2008 flavor, with a little U.S.-Argentina tossed in for good measure.

FightingTalker is a little underwhelmed by the first two days of Euro, especially by yesterday's performances in the Axis Powers group, also known as Group B. Go Germany. Go Croatia. Go to sleep little baby, don't say a word...

Speaking of Croatia, if you're a supporter, you cannot be encouraged by coach Slaven Bilic's reaction to yesterday's less-than-inspiring 1-0 win over Austria. BalkanInsight reports Bilic as saying his players gave in to the moment and were happy to get away with the win. What a motivator.

Soccerlens has a tidy bunch of video recaps of yesterday's action.

Ibrahimo has a preview of today's Italy-Netherlands match, tossing a little caution at Italy supporters, with gentle reminders that this isn't the same team that won the World Cup in Germany two years ago; new coach, new tactics, some new players. More caution: Van der Sar's form in the Dutch goal.

Goallust takes a stab at today's Italy-Holland match, putting some stress on the Italian defense against the potent Dutch attack. He wonders whether Italy's counter-attack style will exploit a weaker Dutch defense. Goallust's prediction is... (click through)

FBCnews is a Barcelona blog, and you gotta give them credit for staying true to the theme of their blog: No Barca players on the pitch yesterday, but they did note Croatia's Luka Modric is a Johan Cruyff lookalike.

Not to be left out, RomaniaBlog looks at the other G.O.D. match today and points out the glaring weakness that is the French attack -- surprise surprise.

Soccernetlive talks about the gap between Portugal and Turkey and how Portugal should have put it away much sooner than it did. Good analysis on the entertaining, positive style Portugal put on display and hopes it continues.

CristianoRonaldo.net reports that Portugal legend Rui Costa believes Portugal can win the whole thing. Shocker.

Must-stop 101 Great Goals has all the video you want.

As for the U.S.-Argentina festival at Giants Stadium, no goals, but plenty of Tim Howard goodness, and a capacity crowd approaching 80,000.

American Soccer News has a great recap, including many platitudes for Tim Howard.

Whooligan has plenty of notes, thoughts and analysis of the friendly.

Cat Dirt bemoans the lack of a quality U.S. striker.

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