Are You Ready For Some Football?

Wait! It’s April. Is that correct? It is. The sport I’m talking about is vastly different. Still confused? Football, in this case, is soccer. It’s okay if you don’t know it. The rest of the world does.

In June, the best soccer teams in Europe will gather in Austria and Switzerland for the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship. Over the course of the three-week tournament, absolutely anything can happen. As Greece proved in 2004, anything can happen. And, as an added bonus, the winner of UEFA Euro 2008 will also receive a cool 7.5 million euros for their trouble.

Noticeably absent from this years competition is England. The country that is widely recognized as the creator of soccer will not be in attendance. A desire to plug in new, more youthful players and remove ‘aging’ ones, like David Beckham, caused Steve McClaren his job after only 18 games.

Here is the reason for this blog. I was born in Romania and was always around soccer until I moved to the States. At that point, baseball took over, but soccer seems to catch my attention every two years for either the World Cup or, in this case, the Euro tournament.

It’s been eight years since the Romanian national team qualified for any kind of competition. In the 2000 Euros, they defeated England 3-2 to advance to the quarterfinals before falling to Italy. As the 12th ranked team in the world (according to FIFA), hopes are high for the Tricolori (The Tricolours).

Over the course of the next few weeks to months, I’m going to break down each group, standout players and make a prediction as to who may end up winning. I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock into the ladder because in soccer, anything can and will happen.