Euro 08--Kinda Like The World Cup I Guess, Day 8 and 9

TURKEY 3, CZECH REPUBLIC 2

Forget Tiger Woods, this past weekend belonged to Nihat Kahveci. No that's not a word jumble you need to rearrange, that is the name of the Turkish forward (who plays his club ball for Spain's Villarreal), who scored twice in the final 3 minutes of the match to lead Turkey to an absolutely insane 3-2 win over the Czech Republic, sending Turkey on into the elimination round of the tournament and sending the Czechs home.


The Czechs led this match 2-0 in the second half, before everything went to hell. Arda Turan scored his second goal of the tournament in the 72nd minute to bring the Turks within a goal. Then, with time running out, a high cross bounced off the hands of the Czech keeper, right to Kahveci, who put it in the net to tie the game. It was a big boo boo by the goal keeper. Minutes later, Kahveci put one under the crossbar from the top of the box to win the game, and it was fire up the hooka time all over the Anatolian peninsula.

Kahveci is now the greatest Turkish sports hero since Bald Bull. Maybe even greater.

RUSSIA 1, GREECE 0

Oh woe to me, Greece is eliminated and won't repeat as Euro Champions. Their no-scoring, Chicago White Sox-esque, wrist slashingly boring style of play won't lead them to victory this time. Russian midfielder Konstantin Zurianov scored in the 33rd minute, and that was, as expected, an insurmountable deficit for the Greeks. They will now have to turn their attention to winning the World Cup of Buttsex in 2009.





SPAIN 2, SWEDEN 1

Coming into this tournament, everyone was all like, "Ooooh Cristiano Ronaldo, he's so great, I totally want his balls". Well, Ronaldo is still good, but the best player in this tournament so far has been Spain's David Villa. The tiny (5-9, 152 lbs), forward from Valencia scored his 4th goal of the tournament in this match, and it was a huge one. He put home the winner in the 90th minute to send Spain on to the elimination round, and send Sweden into a do-or-die All-Viking Ragnorok against Russia in their Group D finale.

Sweden got their second goal of the tournament from Inter Milan forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He'll be the best player on the field in that Russia finale, and it should be a good one to watch.


SWITZERLAND 2, PORTUGAL 0

Aaand this game was a big wack-off as Portugal had nothing to play for, and neither did Switzerland except to avoid getting 0 pts as one of the host nations. Swiss midfielder Hakan Yakin had two goals. Yakin plays for a club called "Young Boys", how gay is that?


GROUP D STANDINGS
SPAIN 6 PTS
RUSSIA 3
SWEDEN 3
GREECE 0

GROUP A STANDINGS FINAL
*PORTUGAL 6 PTS (+2 GD)
*TURKEY 6 (0 GD)
CZECH REP 3
SWITZERLAND 3

*-Advances to Elimination Round