Sporting Madness

Photo: Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates with teammate Deco after the two combined for one of Portugal's three goals against the Czech Republic Wednesday (Photo from CristianoRonaldos ) Breaking down Day Five of the European Championships... Match IX: Portugal 3, Czech Republic 1 So much of the talk about Portugal so far has been about moves taking place beyond the pitch, with the endless transfer speculation about Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid and the just-confirmed appointment of Portugal manager Luis Felipe Scolari to take over Chelsea after the championships conclude [Ben Knight has some good analysis of that move at On Soccer : Stephen Brunt also weighs in ]. Their performance Wednesday against a very solid Czech team showed that they deserve lots of credit for their play on the pitch, though: they dominated the entire match, scored three brilliant goals, and ensured their qualification for the next round after Switzerland lost to Turkey in the late game. It wasn't just th...

Photo: David Villa celebrates with fellow Spain striker Fernando Torres after notching one of his three goals Tuesday in a 4-1 win over Russia. (Photo by Paul White, The Associated Press , via Slam! Sports ) Breaking down Day Four of the European Championships... Match VII: Spain 4, Russia 1 Well, the Spanish won in glorious style as usual, and their striking pair of David Villa (who recorded a hat trick) and Fernando Torres looks to be one of the best in the tournament. The Russians were a bit unlucky that the score wasn't closer, as they created several good chances and rang a few off the woodwork, but Spain certainly deserved the win. Don't read too much into this for the long-term, though: Spain has a long history of excellent play in the group stages and then sudden collapses in the elimination rounds. As Stephen Brunt writes , they've broken plenty of hearts before. "We have all been there, tempted by a car or a watch or another, sucked in by the magnificent aest...

For the three people who didn't hear about it yet, the 2008 European Championships got underway yesterday in Switzerland (the matches in Austria will start later today). In honour of this fabulous tournament, I've decided to present a new feature: a daily recap of past games with a look ahead to the next day's action and predictions for the upcoming matches. The plan is to call it "Earning the (re) cap". Aside: For the non-soccerphiles, a player is said to have earned a cap when he appears for his country in international matches: thus, the player's number of matches played for his country is referred to as his caps. This comes from the old tradition of wearing caps in soccer, which Colin Jose suggests originated in the English public schools. When international matches began, all players were issued with a cap for representing their country, and the term stuck even after that practice stopped. So, without further ado (and certainly without further Adu or Ed...

The FIFA U-20 World Cup continues to provide quality soccer. Only eight teams remain in the competition, and by Sunday night, they'll be reduced to four. Without further ado (Freddy or other), here's my previews and predictions for the quarter-final clashes. Saturday: Austria vs. USA (BMO Field, Toronto, 2:15 P.M. ET) This should be an interesting tilt. The U.S. has had a strong tournament so far, defeating such South American powers as Brazil and Uruguay. Freddy Adu has shown why everyone rated him so highly several years ago, and has lived up to his tremendous potential. Danny Szetela has also been terrific, producing several goals in addition to his solid play as a defensive midfielder. Austria has also been strong, especially defensively, where they have only conceded two goals. Their attack has been reasonably one-dimensional though, with Erwin (Jimmy) Hoffer producing half of their goals. Surprisingly enough, the pre-match lineups have listed Hoffer as starting on the be...