Today I'm going back 14 years to 2008 and the European Championships hosted jointly by Austria and Switzerland. This was a tournament for which England had failed to qualify after finishing third in their qualification Group behind qualifiers Croatia and Russia. These were the years of "the Wally with the Brolly" as Steve McLaren's England crashed out at home 3-2 to Croatia in their last qualifying game when a draw would have taken them through to the Finals. I decided to take in a match at the Finals themselves however, applied for tickets "blind" (before the draw was made) and we eventually found ourselves in Salzburg watching the reigning European Champions Greece play Sweden.
Now that's a phrase that I would never have expected to have found myself saying: "Reigning Champions Greece". The European Championship tournaments have, down the years, thrown up one or two surprising winners. Most notably there was Denmark's victory in 1992 but, in 2004, Greece confounded everybody by winning the tournament. Nobody had tipped the Greeks but, under the management of Otto Rehhagel, they proved very difficult to beat. Greece had already shocked hosts Portugal in the opening match of the 2004 tournament and then defending Champions France in the Quarter-Finals before going all the way to the Final where they would meet Portugal again. It was the first time that a tournament's opening match and the Final had comprised the same two teams. Greece's style of football was hardly top entertainment but it was certainly effective and they proceeded to defeat Portugal again, this time 1-0 with a single goal from Angelos Charisteas, to become first time European Champions.
In the featured match in Euro 2008, Greece therefore found themselves as defending Champions. Myself, John Kerfoot and Les Howells had flown to Munich and then travelled the short distance across the border into Austria to Salzburg, a journey of about two hours by car. Sadly we saw no evidence of the von Trapp family amongst the spectacular Bavarian backdrop along the way and nor were the hills alive with the sound of music but it was enchanting nevertheless. We found Salzburg to be a charming city with excellent food and beer as well as having a well organised city centre fanzone where we watched one or two of the tournament's other matches on the giant screen. The city centre seemed to have been taken over by jovial Swedes and their amusing song "Das ist gut, c'est fantastique, Zlatan Ibrahimovic!" (well it almost rhymes). In my experience, tournament football, when the game concerned does not involve England, can be one great big party and I much prefer the atmosphere at such games. England games abroad often feel like you are entering a war zone with a huge police (or even army) presence who usually come prepared for a riot. Sadly there are enough brainless idiots amongst the England fans that the police often seem to get what they had prepared for. I don't enjoy that and it's not fun.
Salzburg's stadium, the Red Bull Arena, was known for the duration of Euro 2008 as Stadion Wals-Siezenheim (sponsor names are not allowed unless, one imagines, there's something financial in it for UEFA) and is home to club side Red Bull Salzburg. The stadium was home to Greece, a seed due to their status as holders, for all three of their Euro 2008 Group Stage games. The attendance for the featured match was a sell-out 31,063. The majority of the support in the stadium was Swedish and, uniformly bedecked in their bright yellow shirts, their fans appeared to be one vast yellow wall.
The Swedish side was strong and included former Aston Villa player Olof Mellberg, captain Freddie Ljungberg of Arsenal, the aforementioned Zlatan Ibrahimovic of Inter Milan and Henrik Larsson, formerly of Feyenoord, Celtic and Barcelona. The Greeks included former Portsmouth midfielder Angelos Basinas and that man Charisteas. The former Manchester City and Celtic striker Georgios Samaras also made an appearance from the substitutes bench in the second half.
From the very start, the Greek tactics were, shall we say, robust. Charisteas received a yellow card in the first minute of the game for a wreckless tackle and, throughout, Swedish players were subject to some rough treatment. It was goalless at halftime but, midway through the second half, Zlatan Ibrahimovic fired an unstoppable shot across the goalkeeper and into the top corner of the net from just outside the penalty area for 1-0. It was his first International goal for two and a half years and was one of his 62 goals scored for Sweden in 121 appearances. We had to wait just a further five minutes for the decisive second Swedish goal, a truly scrappy affair scored by centre-back Petter Hansson in the 72nd minute. It finished 2-0 and the Swedes deserved their win.
Sadly, neither team on show in the featured match progressed from Group D. Spain won the Group and Russia took second place. Spain and Russia each beat Sweden and Greece to leave the Swedes third and Greece plumb last, their time as holders well and truly over. However, there was no shame in failing to qualify for the knockout phase in a Group which bore the eventual tournament winners in Spain and Russia themselves made the Semi-Final before succumbing to Spain.
CRB Match No. 1632
Comments
Post a Comment