Sweden

So with the world looking on expectantly (well the Swedes anyway) and Olof Mellberg no doubt stroking his prize-winning beard in characteristically calm excitement the last kit of the Euros has been unveiled – so gaze in delight at the Sweden away shirt, and may I say… What a beauty. 

Using Umbro’s latest design template, the shirt is coloured in a majestic navy blue, with teasing flourishes of subtle yellow splashed across the shoulders – all topped off with a navy collar. I suggest it is likely to go down particularly well with our Scandinavian brethren, and make their admittedly handsome team look even more handsome on the pitch.

However – as I gushed on about this kit with delight to my blogging pal and confidante Tom, he pointed out that shouldn’t all the teams but Austria and Switzerland wear their away kit all the time? An obvious and silly point yes - but one I hadn’t really considered? I guess it would cut down on kit sales substantially, although I’m surprised the manufacturers haven’t yet come up with a money spinning ‘neutral’ 3^rd kit, for tournaments just like this… 

Watch this space.

Following on from news on these pages that Spain might not be allowed to participate at the tournament, it seems that their Sports Council has backed down and are not now insisting that the Spanish Football Federation holds elections prior to the Olympics.

How FIFA saw this as governmental interference in the first place – and quite frankly it was so complicated I’m not sure even FIFA knew what was going on, but somebody had said something so everyone else went along with it – is a mystery. At least now the fans can rest easy knowing they will see the likes of Torres and David Villa rolling around like they’ve been shot scoring fantastic goals and promising to win the whole tournament, then inexplicably falling apart at the quarter-final stage.

What the managers of Russia, Greece and Sweden are thinking of the whole affair is anybody’s guess, but presumably they’ll be following the old football cliché and ‘preparing for the team that is put in front of them’. Sure they’d have preferred Northern Ireland (the alternative option should Spain have been booted out) - just the 21 places in the FIFA World Rankings (see the Castrol Index for details) behind La Fiora Roja - but they’ll just have to do with tickling tackling the Spaniards, then standing back and watching the Swan Lake impersonations instead.

Image borrowed from BlogWawasan

Have you heard that Thursday is the new Friday! Apparently the tide is turning for the recognition of the nation’s new favourite day – and we like to think that this is in no small part down to ‘Euro 2008 Random Round Up Thursday’! The only place where you can pick up the most irreverent, (some might say) irrelevant Euro 2008 news – from us benevolent types at www.euro2008statistics.com, all in handy bite-sized chunks. 

Firstly; and ideal for all those budding Zicos out there - the enigmatic Wesley Sneijder has shared his free kick secrets with the world over on Netherlands.worldcupblog.org, ensuring that soon the world will be full of kids bending ‘em in from all over the pitch. “In pro football, the trick is to force free-kicks around the box” he states, confusingly – and follows up, offering the words of his mentor Ronald Koeman… “Aim between the second and third man in the wall. [I tried it and] the result was amazing! Nine out of ten went in.” So try that…

Meanwhile, over on eatsleepsport.com comes the news that after a season on and off the substitutes bench, Andreas Iskasson is looking to move on to find first team football. Obviously annoyed after failing to dislodge number one Joe Hart, will Sweden’s number one be able to pick himself for up the tournament?

And talking of goalkeepers, we’re not entirely sure that Jens Lehmann is in the best frame of mind for the Euro 2008 tournament, even though he’s riding high on the statistical charts. Current Arsenal No.1 (and responsible for keeping the furious German on the bench) Manuel Almunia was heard to quote this of the curly-haired keeper “To have someone here who hates me is just amazing. I know he hates me. Every morning I wake up I know it is going to be the same. I’ve had to put up with it every day since he was out of the team and even before then. I wake up and I know what it is going to be like”

Finally – would you believe that our pals at soccerlens.com have received a letter from the erstwhile Steve McLaren in response to some of their less favourable comments about him over the year. A little bird tells us it may not be entirely genuine, but it’s certainly worth a read! One stand out line proceeds thusly: “I then discovered a player who was plying his trade in the USA who had the same name as the superstar I left out when I had first taken over. He was a similar player, probably not quite so good and a little bit older, but it was a masterstroke to select him as we went on to win four of our next six games with him playing.”

See you next Thursday!

From an unhealthy obsession with rabbits to weird androgynous twins, the European Championship mascots have had a chequered history. The first Euro mascot arrived at Italy 1980 and took the form of the sometime wooden boy Pinnocio. He had a red, white and green striped nose. And so the parade of the bizarre begins (see Wall Of Shame below for all images).

France’s effort four years later was Peno the rooster. Clad in a France shirt and clutching a ball, this is perhaps the most normal of the mascots as at least the cockerel is the national symbol. The name, though, is redolent of a) lots of penalties (surely not what the organisers were after) or b) male appendages. Obviously didn’t make it through the translation filter.

1988 (Germany) and 1992 (Sweden) will be known forever more as ‘The Rabbit Years’. Rabbits and football, what were they thinking? Berni, the German Bucky O’Hare looky-likey certainly appears athletic, but it’s still a rabbit. Hang on, what’s this? It’s the Swedish effort from four years later, looking suspiciously like someone has just coloured Berni in with a felt tip. His name? ‘The Rabbit’. Well done, Sweden, well done.

England’s Goaliath (4 out of 10 for the name) was another national animal cartoonised for mascotting purposes, but appeared to be clad in denim shorts. The next effort was also a lion, only this chap was a lion-devil named Benelucky (the tournament was played in Belgium and the Netherlands). A slight improvement on Goaliath.

Another wooden-looking boy appeared in Portugal in 2004. Kinas (dressed in a Portugal strip of course) was depicted carrying out a diving header. Great advert for football, pity none of his national team dared to attempt such a manoeuvre for fear of messing up their hair/getting their knees dirty.

Which brings us to Trix and Flix. Better names for sure, but still bizarre-looking, spiky-haired, not-sure-if-it’s-a-boy-or-a-girl-or-is-it-one-of-each, red-skinned cartoon characters. Maybe it will always be this way, a small attempt to get kids interested. Or to give UEFA executives the chance to dress up in a big foam suit. Who knows?

If they are meant to instil national pride in the team and drive them on to victory, mascots have been effective but once, when France won in 1984. Kinas almost did it for Portugal, only for them to be beaten by the mighty (?) Greece in the final. Maybe Flix and Trix will steer Austria and Switzerland to great things and we’ll see a twin host nation final for the first time.

Somehow, I doubt it’ll be anything to do with the mascots if we do.

Wall Of Shame

There’s nothing like adding the finishing touches to the pride and joy of any nations sporting elite by clothing them in a shirt that’s so alluringly hip that we think it would make even the most sardonic fashion bloggers melt – and this year the kit men seem to have got it right. With 12 of the 16 teams having already released their confirmed home and away strips, the subtle and understated shirts are looking spectacular. With little more than the odd ‘swish’ liberally scattered here and there on the Adidas shirts (which works a touch better on the German offering than it does the French) this year’s designers are clearly aiming for the classic look.

Personally, I think Sweden, always purveyors of smooth looking kits, just about take it for me in the aesthetic stakes. Fresh in classic golden yellow, with just a slither of blue flecking the collar and a single stripe – it’s a perfect example of simplistic, classy kit design. Spain (home) and Italy (home) are other favourites, and while one could suggest that the overall look of the tournament may lack a bit of imagination, the ‘Worst Football Shirt Ever’ thread on harchester.net forums, should persuade that such restraint can only be a good thing.

Observe flamboyant Mexican shot-stopper Jorge Campos below – and while I know it IS a goalkeeper shirt, that’s still no excuse!

Hot on the heels of his thunderbolt to the Spanish FA earlier this week, Sepp Blatter has been swiftly brought back down to earth by the European Commission, who have poured cold water on his plans to introduce foreign player quotas for club teams. An EC spokesman said ‘The implementation by FIFA of a 6+5 [6 home grown + 5 foreign players] rule in the European Union would violate EU law’, pretty much scuppering that one then.

So that means that European teams will continue to be packed with foreign imports (most noticeably from South America – it seemed that about 5 of the Inter Milan team that played Liverpool this week were Brazilian). But does this detract from the game on a national level? Many in England certainly think it does, including some MPs, arguing that the Premiership, whilst being the best league in the world, isn’t the best breeding ground for home grown talent it used to be. They point to this as the reason for England’s dismal showing in the Euro 2008 qualifiers.

Half of me says Sepp is right, half of me that he is so, so wrong. Yes, having a limit of 5 foreign players per side may allow young English players to flourish, but if they can’t compete against the permitted foreigners, they shouldn’t be in the Premiership anyway. And whatever happened to free trade? Sepp, give up, it’s never going to happen, find another way to flex your muscles.

Tired of my fantasy football team continually misfiring week after week, I have discarded the Premier League and ‘JC’s Maltese Falcons’ (guess who I support) for now, and am instead looking to the Euros to impress my formidable knowledge of football on the world. Therefore, I have put together this skeleton outline of my team for inclusion in the Castrol Performance Index competition.

Using the CPI stats, and my own (ahem..) consummate knowledge, this is the team I’ve picked and my outline as to why they have the honour of playing for ‘Totally Tropical Bobsleigh FC’. Do let me know what you think, as there are tickets to be won – and I want to win them!

GK - Petr Cech (Cze) – The best keeper in the tournament, and second in qualifying stats. Only Portugal are likely to trouble Czech Republic in the group stages - Petr is a must!

DF – Olof Mellberg (Swe) – Bearded wonder who’s big, strong and liable to score a blistering header or two. 6^th highest scoring defender on the CPI.

DF - Sotirios Kyrgiakos (Gre) – Top defender in terms of statistics – this one is all down to you Castrol!

DF – Sergio Ramos (Spain) – High up the CPI rankings and a committed defender, Ramos is known for his runs, crosses into the box and is a constant threat at goal.

DF – Fabio Cannavero (Ita) – Although they may not have any defenders in the top 20 statistics wise, I can’t help but feel that the Italians will produce the goods when it matters again this year.

MF - Wesley Sneijder (Ned) – 4^th highest ranking midfielder in the CPI ratings, Sneijder is strong on the ball, and a consistent goalscorer.

MF – Tomas Rosicky (Cze) – It’s no coincidence that the Czech Republic have the top 2 midfielders from the qualifying campaign – and I’ve picked both of them.

MF - Libor Sionko (Cze)

MF – Deco (Por) – I’m out on a limb here, but despite looking surprisingly like the Haribo kid, Deco’s class and flair will complement the Portugese team in Euro 2008.   

FW - Christiano Ronaldo (Por) – He may be irritating, he may put a lot wide and often favour the stepover instead of the pass, but has the potential to be THE star of Euro 2008.   

FW – Eduardo (Cze) – Rated the best striker in Euro 2008 on qualifying points in CPI, Eduardo is a phenomenon. Pacey, skilful and bound to get a hatful.

To participate, you must have an access code. To obtain this code you either need to have your vehicle serviced at a participating Castrol dealer or buy Castrol oil from a participating retailer.