Maybe it's the summer heat. It's 93 degrees here in Riverside, which is actually 12 degrees cooler than it was on Sunday. But I'm taking yet another break from writing because nothing's coming out.
Actually, I switched up my topic. I was going to write about Euro 2008 as a whole and Germany is the only team that hasn't surpassed expectations by reaching the semifinals but I wasn't feeling it. Instead, I'm focusing on Spain.
Anyway, instead of throwing my now-useless column in cybertrash, I figured I'd put it up here so you can see it before I aborted it.
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Every four years, the European Championship captures the world’s attention even though only 16 nations participate. Outside of Argentina and Brazil, the best nations in the world regularly put on a show during Europe’s quadrennial regional tournament.
This time around, though, the only shows the powers-that-be are how spectacularly they have collectively crashed out of the tournament. Disorder certainly reigns in the Old World.
Of the four semifinalists only Germany can claim that their run thus far has not been a fluke. Russia, Turkey and Spain are trying to shed their previous failures in this tournament and pull off a shock similar to what Greece did four years ago in capturing Euro 2004.
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So I got there and asked myself "now what?" And I couldn't respond to myself so I said #@!& it. Actually, I said the seven dirty words. It was impressive. Should have been there.
3 comments:
whoa whoa hold up luis. saying spain's current success is a fluke is totally overlooking their current squad and form. they've been unstoppable since way before the euro's even started. i think its more accurate to say that they've been "unlucky" rather than considered "a fluke". (and since we're on topic, why not say italy's wc2006 win was a fluke?)
la fuuuuuria roja for the win!
yeah, that's one of the things I was going to develop. In fact, that's kind of what I;m writing about right now. Form and talent have been good but Spain's history suggests that Spain shouldn't be here in the semifinals. Spain has made two finals in their history, the 84 and 64 Euro finals, and has one World Cup semifinal appearance to their credit. It might not be so much of a fluke as Greece but certainly it exceeded expectations.
Why don't you write about the history of upstarts in regional Championships, like Iraq winning the Asia Cup, Guyana's good showing in last year's Gold Cup, Greece last year, etc....
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