Viva Portugal

[me262]

Hi people,

you in the USA probably don't  follow the Soccer championships but in Portugal the European Championship has being organized and played during the June-July period.

It was a great achievement for our tiny country to organize such an event, but the best is that our national team is in the final.

As a kind of reward, the UEFA, already classified it as the best organized European Cup tournament ever.

After starting with a defeat against the Greek, we won all the subsequent games against Russia, Spain, England in the quarter finals, and yesterday Netherland in the Semi-finals.

We are in the final match.

Yesterday night was a crazy night in the entire country. Everyone went out to the streets wearing the national soccer team shirts, waving national flags, chanting and dancing all around until the sun rise.

I can't expect what will happen next Sunday if we win the European Cup.
It surelly will be an explosion of joy bigger that it was after the nerve racking game with our neighbours, the Spanish, or the emotional game agains't the English.


Sorry guys, but I had to share this with everyone.
See some links below about it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/sports/soccer/01soccer.html
http://www.eurosport.com/home/pages/V4/L0/S22/E6106/sport_Lng0_Spo22_Evt6106_Sto608372.shtml
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=sportsNews&storyID=5558362
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2004/3855597.stm
http://www.iht.com/articles/527456.html


     

[eivindm]

hehe..  Watched almost all the matches.  Portogal has been great (not shure about the disqualified goal of Sol Campel though).  Think the Czechs will win today over Greece, and they will be tough to meet on Sunday!

Good luck on Sunday!

[asleitch]

Hey I'm British and gotta agree (with eivindm), the disallowed goal against Campbell, I can see why the ref thought the keeper might have been impeded, but he jumped AFTER Terry AND was already off his line. I thought that was pretty poor, and after England had complained about the state of the penatly spots during the day and been told they would be looked into, UEFA did nothing. I know all teams has the same spot but Beckham had to take the first kick.

On a brighter note however, I'm pleased for Portugal, as initially (long before the tournament started) our news reported that the government was taking a lot of flack for hosting it, and the money should have been diverted for schools, hospitals etc, but it seems like the nation are really getting behind their team now, and it's fun when your national team do well.

I found the English players dull to watch, and although I think they should have won against Portugal (with that goal) I found Portugal more interesting to watch. I like attacking teams, defensive play is rubbish to watch, and always leads to a goal being given away eventually.

I'm hoping you win it now!

Adam

[/i]

[Anonymous]

It is A great time when a person can have pride in their contry and what the spots teams do on a world level.
 Here in the USA many of the teams are made up of over paid prima donnas and only play in the  world wide stage as oplimpics teams. Still prima donnas and over paid at that.
  Al

[me262]

Aaaaaaaahhhh crap... we lost the final game... darn...    

But, we have to congratulate Greece, even if we don't like how they play.

And of course, we must be proud of our national team for the great campaign that they made in this Euro 2004.

Now we have a nice basis to start to think about the next World Cup in Germany.

And it was good to show to everyone that a tiny country like us, was capable of organizing such an event.

I'm proud of my country, of my national team and of what we have done...

 

[eivindm]

Sorry about the match!

Even though Greece was good, they played wery boreing.  I really hoped Portugal should win.

eivindm