Euro 2012 Diary

Geography test

All of the Euro 2012 games will be broadcast Stateside on ESPN and the good folk at ESPN Radio are throwing their weight behind the promotional effort. This week popular sports talk show Mike and Mike obliged with a tournament preview in which Adnan Virk (standing in for one of the Mikes) did his best to whet appetites by listing the star names viewers can expect to see.

“Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — how’s the outlook looking for both those guys and their teams?”

Luckily, our old friend Alexi Lalas was on hand to gently reinstate continental boundaries: “Well, Leo Messi won’t be there because he’s Argentina.”

Orange choppers

Perhaps mindful they didn’t leave their last major tournament with the greatest of memories, the Dutch players have been making friends in Poland by funding the building of a community pitch in the small town of Bronowice, where the squad is based. To open the ‘Orange Cruyff Court’, some of the team took part in a kickabout with local kids in which a jolly time was had by all.

A pity, however, that the standout video clip from the game — at least in the eyes of thousands of tweeters — was Nigel de Jong hauling back by the shirt a lively kid who had sprinted goalside of him.

Small blessing, perhaps, that Nigel kept his kung-fu powder dry.

Group of life

Jimmy Magee famously explained the progress of Ireland, England and the Netherlands at Italia ’90 thus: “They said it was the group of death. In the end it was very much the group of survival, particularly for those who survived.”

Never noted for the breadth of his research, perhaps Alan Hansen had another three-way in mind for Euro 2012 Group B. Asked to provide his tournament tips for the BBC website this week, Hansen selected Holland, Germany, Spain and Portugal as his semi-finalists, before thousands of readers noted that such a scenario was rather unlikely since three of the four shared a group.

The Beeb soon restricted Al’s choice to a top-three, while adding the saver: “Not all predictions may work out precisely because of the nature of the draw.”

You don’t know what you’re doing

Speaking at the Euro 2012 Respect campaign launch, Michel Platini heaped further pressure on referees this week by suggesting they had the greatest power to quash racism at tournament grounds by stopping games affected by abusive chanting.

Let’s add acute hearing, cultural sensitivity and the wisdom of Solomon to a referee’s required skillset.

Perhaps the dozen Euro refs should get a preview grounding in yet-to-be-released FIFA 13. EA Sports boss Andrew Wilson revealed the landmark feature of its flagship game’s newest edition will be a “referee feedback” mode which will recognise and react accordingly any time you scream an expletive at the virtual man in the middle.

Quite the way to encourage respect for officials among young players.

Worst advertising spend of the day

Several 50-foot high posters line the walls of Wroclaw tram station featuring the likes of Iker Casillas, Karim Benzema and Lukas Podolski decked out in the strip of ‘Team Hyundai.’ And who in England is spending the South Korean shilling — Daniel Sturridge, currently enjoying Jamaican hospitality with Micah Richards.

Quote of the Day

“He was a man of football who represented the best values of his profession. He was a fighter who leaves a large gap in this world.”

— Spain coach Vicente del Bosque responds to the passing of Manolo Preciado, aged just 54. The former Sporting Gijon coach suffered a heart attack a day after being appointed Villarreal boss.