As we lounge around hoping that the sun will poke its head through the clouds I can’t help but feel fed up with waiting for something to happen in football again. This is by far the most boring time of the year because apart from ridiculous transfer rumours to discuss not a lot is happening at the minute. There is only so much I can stand of the Cristiano Ronaldo or Gareth Barry transfer sagas. We were all informed that after Euro 2008 the transfer market would pick-up and things would be more exciting and to a point things have improved in that we have actually had some transfers. Just this morning we have seen Turkish side Galatasaray take a gamble and sign Harry Kewell. This is probably the most interesting completed transfer of the summer because I always believed that Kewell would want to stay in the Premier League or at least in England. However you know it’s a slow news days when top of the BBC Gossip Column is a transfer rumour about Rangers wanting to sign Danny Shittu. If you don’t believe me here it is. Underneath it though is the news that Peter Crouch is off to Portsmouth, another saga that has gone on far too long for my liking.

On that page the BBC have done a good job in highlighting how much rubbish gets printed in the British newspapers day in, day out. The Sun, Daily Express and daily Mail all have the news on Crouch’s transfer but they have all given different prices. Now I suspect that one of these will be true and the other two completely made up, which two are false we won’t find out until that transfer goes ahead, if it ever goes ahead. This is just an example of how the newspapers can get away with printing absolute twaddle at this time of the year. I have come to believe none of it, the number of times I have seen my club linked with a great player only for it to turn out to be just a rumour is unbelievable. I have decided now not to believe anything I read until I see that player holding up the shirt at the press conference. When I was younger I use to get really annoyed at the manager when a transfer rumour didn’t come true because I believed that it was his fault we hadn’t signed this or that player. Now I realise that the only ones I should be getting annoyed with are the players agents who start these tales so their client can add an extra zero to the end of his salary.

For example let’s look at the Peter Crouch transfer again. Everyone has known for some time that Harry Redknapp, the Portsmouth manager, has been interested in Crouch. Yet last week I read a story in a newspaper that Arsenal were now interested in buying Crouch. This to me is a blatant example of an agent starting a rumour to hurry one club a long, in this case Portsmouth so that they would pay the asking price and the aforementioned agent gets a bigger slice of the transfer deal. I know the debate about agents has been going on for some time but they are one of the things that is currently wrong with football. However I won’t go into that now and instead will stick with the summer transfer market. You can read about the transfer odds here.

I think everyone is getting a little tired of reading the same thing over and over again on the back pages of the newspaper. I think what everyone would like from all the players involved in the on going sagas is a definitive answer from all the parties involved saying if they are going or staying. However even then things are not cleared up. For example last Friday Emmanueal Adebayor said he was staying at Arsenal but one hour later he refused to deny that he could move to Milan. Now I have read that Barcelona have made a big for the Togo international. That rumour started when Arsenal refused to give Adebayor a wage increase and you’d imagine that the interest from Barcelona would stop if Arsenal gave into those demands.

I really don’t like this time of the year, it really brings outs the ugly side in football where you can see how much money dominates the English game these days. The one thing that is keeping me going through all the rubbish is the thought that football will return very soon and finally we will have something to debate where the facts can not be altered and we get the whole picture.

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A collection of transfer rumours and facts that are doing the rounds -Harry Kewell makes move to Galatasaray,Paul Robinson maybe going to West Bromwich Albion,Italian defender Andrea Dossena goes to Liverpool,Portsmouth are going to take Peter Crouch for £10m,22-year-old James Milner from Newcastle is going to Aston Villa,Richard Dunne will be staying on at Manchester City,Marvin Emnes signed up for Middlesbrough, Steven Taylor stays with Newcastle United,Atletico Madrid signed French international goalkeeper Gregory Coupet,Ronaldinho won't be sold at a discount,Messi's going to Serie A,most of the Chelsea team is heading off to Inter Milan,Cristiano Ronaldo is going to Real Madrid,no he's not,yes he is,no,yes,no,yes,sez who..etc.In the middle of all this chaos here's one person who's not going anywhere.David Beckham - scoring his fifth goal of the season for the Galaxy in a game they lost to New England Revolution by 2 goals to 1

From a basic point of view it seems that Galatasaray have done rather well in signing a 29 year old European Cup winning international star with a decade's experience of...

" Barcelona have made it clear that their priority this summer is signing a striker with physical presence, after sanctioning the departure of Samuel Eto'o."

I never thought about Adebayor as a physical presence. Yes, he is tall and he does play with his back to goal but an adjective such as physical is an inaccurate descriptor. He is no Viduka or Drogba. He does not bull his way through or possess a rasping shot that catches a goalie out of position. In fact, there is a languid sort of quality which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. His long legs add a deceptive dimension to his less than blazing speed, enabling him to direct in a memorable goal after a nifty Fabregas pass against Man Utd a couple of seasons ago.

Ade's style is indirect and more finesse. When he is sharp, he can kill defenses with well timed deflections or re-directions through opportunities created by Arsenal's busy midfield. It resulted in a 30 goal breakthrough season. He was more productive than Ronaldo who had far more chances. However against more aggressive defense, Ade frequently shows a heavy first touch which results in a number of balls taken away. At a crucial time last season, Ade's output deserted him. Arsenal could not buy a win as their reliance on moving through the middle rendered them predictable and stacked up defences successfully isolated Ade. As demonstrated many times over, Ade's success is contingent on Arsenal's midfield ascendancy.

Thierry Henry's transfer had less impact than expected. With Deco moving to Chelsea, good luck to Barca if they believe Ade can provide the Terminator role.

Back in England a week on from the end of Euro 2008, the tournament still looks as impressive as it did in the Alps. I am not relishing another stolid European club season, dominated by the tawdry money of the big teams, so for the last time, I am looking back on what was a refreshing festival of football, the sort of which comes around only every few years:

How was the play?

Very good, on the whole, refreshingly adventurous and attacking. Only France v Romania seemed to have come from planet boredom. The French appeared to have a cloud over them all tournament, while Romania strangely failed to turn the screw when they needed to in their final group game, so deserved to leave early, too.

Croatia v Turkey was not easy to sit through for two hours, but that was rather down to one team buttoning down the hatches and trying to frustrate another which was playing with winning ambition.

The Dutch were irresistible for two games, while Spain danced their way to the trophy delightfully throughout.

Portugal were also great to watch and Croatia were not bad, while even minnows like Austria and Switzerland showed enough fighting spirit to commend their efforts. Turkey’s late-late comebacks were thrilling, making up for a lack of the beautiful game with exciting attacking.

That leaves Poland and the Czechs as fairly forgettable, although they did at least play to win. Germany, as always, never dazzled but dazed as they ground out more impressive results to add to their endless roll of honour, while Greece could not make lightning strike twice with their safety-first and negative game plans. In their defense, one might argue that Greece were only making the most of their limited options, as were Italy when they kept it tight against Spain after losing playmaker Andrea Pirlo through suspension. The host nations, meanwhile, felt an obligation to their populations to go for broke, given they might not have made it to the finals had they been forced to qualify like the rest of the teams.

In terms of entertainment overall, Euro 2008 unanimously thrilled viewers more than the most recent comparisons, World Cp 2006 and Euro 2004. It was also more open than the average Champions League encounter, which tends to resemble the sort of high-quality but low-scoring encounter that Italy and Spain served up in the quarter-final in Vienna.

Why was this? The cool air and lush grass of the Alpine settings might have helped, but then again the sweltering conditions of USA ’94 produced plenty of goals, while Korea did not seem short of breath in 2002. Some games at Euro 2008 were chilly e.g. it was overcoat time when Spain played Sweden in Innsbruck, but other days were up to 35C.

You can’t read too much into climactic conditions. Euro 2008 was great to watch because the zeitgeist had changed, as it does every few years in football for reasons we find hard to pin down.

After a negative Italia '90 came a positive USA '94. Likewise, come 2008, most of the coaches had decided to win games by attacking first and defending second. Otto Rehhagel’s triumph with Greece in 2004 thankfully failed to inspire others to follow his defensive example. Ambition, the successful coaches correctly concluded, was the way to advance. If the next World Cup has teams as exciting to watch as the Spanish, Turkish, Dutch, Portuguese and Russians were in the Alps, then we are in for a treat.

The play was clean too, with hardly any diving or play-acting, which has blighted previous tournaments. Only when bad-losers Poland tried to make an issue of Howard Webb’s correct application of the laws on shirt-pulling was there any angry argument over refereeing.

The debate surrounding ‘was-it wasn’t-it’ Ruud Van Nistelrooy strike against Italy was more interesting. Given the absurdity of deeming a player lying in a heap off the field as an active participant, the rule surely needs changing to avoid any interminable debate over interpretation, but it looks like FIFA are trying to brush this one under the carpet.

Was there any tactical revolution?

Spain’s victory would have brought a smile to the former FIFA President Stanley Rous, who insisted that at the end of the day, nothing compares to skill. Let us hope Spain's technical prowess and desire to play to feet catches on.

4-2-3-1, a refinement of 4-5-1, seemed to be the preferred system for most teams, with 4-4-2 second, while even the Dutch ditched their old 4-3-3 formation to win games. Spain’s actual shape was more 4-1-1-2-1-1. The anchor midfielder sat in front of the back four (an advanced sweeper if you will) is certainly in vogue, typified by Spain’s exemplary Marcos Senna, who set up as many attacks as he intercepted.

Wingers too, were to the fore, with Roman Pavlyuchenko, Arjen Robben and Cristiano Ronaldo reminding us how exciting wide men can be, as indeed did the previously unheralded Colin Kazim-Richards with a stunning one-off appearance for Turkey against Germany in the semi-final. The overlapping full back is still a potent weapon, as Germany’s Philipp Lahm, Portugal’s flying Jose Bosingwa, Russia’s multi-talented Yuri Zhirkov and an unsung hero, Sweden’s Fredrik Stoor, reminded us.

Spain’s miasmic midfield brought back memories of some of its finest club sides, who proved how switching positions increases the attacking potential. Wide men Andres Iniesta and David Silva requently swapped flanks, while Xavi reveled in his free role, popping up all over the last third of the opposition half.

While we in England make a sport of criticising Latin teams’ lack of recognisable strikers, the mobile centre-forward in the Thierry Henry or Fernando Torres mould continues to impress. Germany reached the final with their real firepower coming from out wide in Lukas Podolski and Bastian Schweinsteiger. The top scorer of the tournament was a penalty-box predator (David Villa) but Spain won the final without him.

Daniel Guiza, Jan Koller and Luca Toni stood out as old style ‘raging bull’ No.9s, but watching the stylistic triumph of the Spanish, you could not help thinking they represented the past in football. If there is still room for tall men up front, then they will have to be skilful on the deck too, like Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Van Nistelrooy, as the physical centre-forward role looks dated.
In terms of height anyway, the short men (Spain) beat the tall guys (Germany) in the final.

Did the finals miss England?

As if. No, the tournament managed quite well without them, danke. When Euro 2008 was about to begin, most Anglos and the land’s breweries no doubt, felt the absence of the three lions quite painfully, but now it has ended, the inital proposition appears absurd.

A happy, party atmosphere engulfed the hundreds of thousands of fans who travelled to Austria and Switzerland, the sort of feeling England’s travelling hordes have yet to master en masse. The boorish and un-sporting attitude of too many England fans was certainly not missed, nor was the jingoistic nationalism of its tabloids. Only the Turkish fans (and at times a few Germans and Poles), failed to tap in to the party spirit, preferring to taunt opposition fans when winning or failing to look on the bright side of life when losing.

Women were more evident than ever at the FanZones, as were ‘adopted fans’, cheering for different countries every night with the appropriate shirts, flags and face paints. This idea of supporting countries other than your own and enjoying the losing as well as the winning is still sadly anathema to most Englanders.

Without England there, real English fans of football could appreciate the games without the nagging influence of the national team’s presence. Those English who travelled to Euro 2008 were true fans of the game. As well as some English supporters, I saw small groups of Irish, Lithuanians and some Colombians, identifiable by their national team shirts, who had travelled to the finals for the love of the game and the pleasant experience it can offer at big tournaments.

After a fun-filled month of mutual camaraderie in the Alps, I came home to watch the final in a London pub amid shouts of ‘f*** off Ballack’, and ‘Torres you c***’ etc, completely the opposite in ambience to the rest of Europe.

England’s boorishness to the spirit of the game was exposed when the UK tabloids ran several racist articles during the country’s hosting of Euro ’96. Forget the nice stadia; if England wants to host the World Cup again it needs to understand how fandom has moved on.

We did not miss the ridiculously overladen English media expectation, nor the trashy WAGs behaving like it's hen night every night, without a nod of respect to the culture they have landed in.

If we are talking in terms of football, the question looks even stupider. England finished third in their qualification group and not since their 4-1 demolition of Holland at Euro ’96 have ever looked like contributing aesthetically to the world game.

Is Russia about to join the elite in European football?

Following Zenit St Petersburg’s UEFA Cup triumph, Moscow’s hosting of the Champions League final, Roman Abramovich’s overflowing bank accounts and the national team’s ride to the semi-final of Euro 2008, one could be forgiven for thinking Russia are about to realise their long-held potential as a major football nation.

Steady on. The UEFA Cup is hardly the competition it used to be if Rangers can make the final. Rather, it resembles the old Cup Winners’ Cup in the quality of teams involved.

At Euro 2008, Russia flattered to deceive - starting badly before improving enormously, only to bow out in the semi-final the way they began the tournament. Their classy 3-1 dismissal of the previously untouchable Dutch will was unforgettable, but one swallow does not make a summer.

The Dutch and Russians had met before of course, in the Euro ‘88 final when Marco Van Basten, the coach 20 years later, scored one of the greatest goals of all time. Like the USSR of 1988, Russia of 2008 at their best were a well-drilled machine, exploiting all areas of the field and compensating for a wealth of individual genius.

Andrei Arshavin of course was one such talent, as was Igor Belanov in 1988, along with Lev Yashin one of only two Russians to win the Ballon d’Or European Footballer of the Year award (Oleg Blokhin was strictly speaking a Ukrainian).

Whether Arshavin or attacking colleague Roman Pavlyuchenko, is truly great I doubt. Arshavin’s age (27) is not important; players flower at different times in their careers. It is rather that he flourished under the shrewd coaching of Guss Hiddink, without whom Russia would not have even made it to the finals. In the event, they scraped in after losing away to England and Israel thanks to England’s inept 2-3 defeat at home to Croatia in their final game.

Russia turned on the gas against Sweden before they neutralized the Dutch courage but their semi-final surrender to the Spanish was such a let-down after those wins that their fans probably deserved a refund from Abramovich. That night, the Russians looked more like a moderately good eleven who had scraped into the finals via some good fortune, but in the end did not really deserve to be eating at the high table. And Arsahvin, the prematurely-crowned king of Euro 2008, was nowhere to be seen.

How was the tournament organisation and fan culture?

Pretty faultless. Two countries with a high standard of living and renowned for punctuality and cleanliness were never going to mess it up. The trains were plentiful, the signposting ubiquitous, the fan zones superb and the accommodation in the cities I visited available, except for around Basel, where not enough had been provided. With a train pass however, it was not hard to hop an hour to another city where there were beds.

That organizers tried to thrust a map and fan guide to the city into the hands of every passenger arriving at Vienna’s Westbahnhof or on nearby tram platforms was proof enough for me of their willingness to help visitors.

Poland and Ukraine, if UEFA does not get cold feet and withdraw their hosting, have got a tough act to follow.

The large fan zones which dominated the city centres of the two countries (I spared a thought for the middle-aged coachloads come to Salzburg to see the Mozart heritage on the day of Spain v Sweden!) should be the model for all future tournaments. Given there are far more travelling fans than match tickets, it makes sense from a security or atmosphere perspective to encourage them to enjoy themselves together in one area. As long as that area is securely monitored with bag checks, stewarding, plentiful big screens, toilets and food and drink outlets, there should be little risk of misbehaviour.

In Austria and Switzerland, there was negligible trouble. I read about a few arrests at Germany v Poland but didn’t see a single incident myself across the tournament and never felt any of the simmering tension present at England games overseas. I felt totally safe and relaxed throughout, whatever fans were in town.

When I was not inside the stadia, I found the fan zones almost as enjoyable. In many ways, it was a more relaxed way to watch a game because you could stand, wander around, sit down on the ground and drink beer or wine without restrictions on warm summer evenings.

What an amazing contrast the public viewing areas in Manchester were on the day of the UEFA Cup final in May. The big screens were the only similarity to the Euro 2008 fan zones. Without any restrictions on alcohol, inadequate facilities and stewarding, plus thousands of Rangers fans stopping the trams from running, the place soon descended into mayhem.

Austria and Switzerland got a lot of flack in the media for having only two stadia with capacities over the UEFA minumum of 30,000 seats, as well as some snide Anglocentric criticisms for having overly-cultural cities lacking the requisite grittiness for football.

It would be a shame if only England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain could host Europe's showpiece football event, while one can hardly complain if a host venue is clean and orderly. Let's see what happens in South Africa in two years' time before we moan about civilised countries.

Was Michel Platini the real winner?

Behind the football, UEFA and FIFA have been rattling sabres over Sepp Blatter’s ‘6+5’ law, which will force clubs to field a minimum four players at the start of a game from 2010/11, rising to six two years later.

Despite Platini’s pleas for the specificity of football to be recognized, he is against Blatter on this issue and in agreement with the European Union, whose laws permit the free movement of EU workers among member states irrespective of nationality. UEFA believes FIFA’s law would harm the UEFA Champions League, lair of wealthy clubs with multi-national cadres.

Unlike the world’s governing body, Europe’s also oversees the world’s biggest club tournament so has to please both the club and country game. As a concession, Platini instead has advocated quotas based on home-grown players irrespective of nationality, which FIFA opposes because it would encourage a scramble for children by foreign clubs.

FIFA’s whole beef is based on the fact international football is suffering from the power of the club game. The jaded European players in the 2002 World Cup helped push their arm, as did the fact England failed to qualify for Euro 2008, despite having two clubs in the final of this year’s Champions League.

FIFA weasels therefore, probably wanted Euro 2008 to be a damp squib, while UEFA hoped for a successful tournament to show national teams could withstand whatever the club game had extracted from their players over a long season.

Battling it out on their home patch – both organizations have their bases in Switzerland, UEFA came out on top. The free-flowing soccer and memorable goals seem to have won the battle, if not the war for now, and Platini, whether harbouring desires for Blatter’s throne in the future or not, has the upper hand.

Are Poland and Ukraine in danger of losing the hosting rights for 2012?

Apparently so. Maybe it was the shining efficiency of the Austrian and Swiss settings, but the rumours swelled up in the press rooms in the Alps that Euro 2012 could be headed west after all.

There have been reports of UEFA’s worry at the Kiev stadium’s refurbishment as well as the country's political situation, and Platini has just completed a short trip to assess both host nations. A curious story going around is that Scotland and Wales have already been in talks to step in should the visit draw negative conclusions.

Poland and the Ukraine were always facing an uphill task to live up to UEFA standards. Their entire hospitality, transport and stadia infrastructure are some way behind those of Western Europe, and the distances between the venues are far greater than ever seen before at a European Championship.

UEFA have announced a final announcement will be made in September. If they are politely ushered out following this inspection, it will be regrettable, but will come as little surprise.


(c) Sean O'Conor & Soccephile


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The voters have spoken. According to people who voted on the UEFA site, Wesley Sneijder’s goal against France was unquestionably the most beautiful goal of the Euros. It took 40% of the vote. (Nihat Kahveci’s game-winning goal against the Czech Republic took 14%, and Andrei Arshavin’s goal against Sweden took12%. )

And France fan says…Um, yeah. Glad we could help you out, Wesley.

(Watch fast. It’s somehow up on YouTube. Not sure how they’ve allowed that to happen, but my guess is it won’t last 24 hours.)

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Title: Champions of Europe
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Each page of Champions of Europe: The Road to Moscow is packed with match reports, pitch-side accounts, interviews and a collection of incredible full-colour team and action shots of United’s best moments in this most memorable of seasons.

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If you ignore the bit where all the television pictures disappeared, Euro 2008 in Swissautria went nice and smooth. UEFA are obviously hoping for the same from Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine, but haven’t been sounding entirely confident lately.

It’s part of Michel Platini’s plan to spread the wealth to Eastern Europe for the first time, but UEFA apparently called Polkraine to his office in January and told it to “wake up” and put more effort in. The co-hosts were given a few short months to get their grades up.

Polkraine needs to get stadiums built, get hotels built and get infrastructure ready for the masses of Euro 2012 fans to descend. Platini visited (read: inpsected) Poland yesterday and is in Ukraine today. Let’s hope he likes what he sees.

We already know Sepp Blatter has a mysterious Plan B for World Cup 2010, but Platini insists there’s no such thing in place for Euro 2012:

“We will do everything we can to ensure Poland and Ukraine host it and there is no backup plan.

Things seemed to go pretty well in Poland, but Platini had a word of warning for the Ukrainians:

“Responsibility (for Euro 2012) lies as much on you, as it does on me,” Platini said. “The situation is not as we thought and we will have to work a great deal on it.”

Maybe Ukraine’s decision to stage a riot for Michel Platini wasn’t such a good idea?

I can see the logic behind it - to display crowd control techniques - but seeing a massive riot in Kiev, no matter how fake, can’t have put Michel Platini in a very positive frame of mind.

I wonder what Poland think about all this? Can you imagine how angry they’ll be if Euro 2012 is taken elsewhere and it’s all Ukraine’s fault?

Geez, Spain. I know you’re excited about the your first big win in 44 years, but you could show a little sensitivity here.

Or not. This is funnier.

(Original find by the Germany blog, via The Spoiler)

When we finished our Euro coverage here at World Cup Blog, several things appeared clear.

1. Andrei Arshavin would get a lot of money to move somewhere
2. Roberto Donadoni would be unceremoniously dumped from Italy, and
3. Raymond Domenech of France would soon follow

Number 2 has happened, number 1 is in process, and number 3…

Wait a minute. This can’t be right. You’re telling me the French Football Federation voted 18-0 (with one abstention) to keep Domenech in his current job? The Raymond Domenech whose team scored one goal and got a grand total of one point in Euros?

Yes, that’s what they’re telling us. The FFF voted today to keep Domenech in his job and give him a chance to take the team to World Cup 2010.

As a France fan, I’m shocked. But perhaps not as shocked as I should be. The FFF is a political organization. If you’re a political animal, as Raymond is, and if you have the support of thre President, Jean-Pierre Escalettes, as Raymond does, chances are pretty good that you’ll keep your job. As Raymond has.

There have also been rumors that Escalettes is not a fan of Didier Deschamps, who was the top name being tossed about as a replacement. And the fact that a number of current team members, including Willy Sagnol, Patrick Vieira, Franck Ribery, Karim Benzema and Hatem Ben Arfa spoke out in Domenech’s favor influenced things as well. And UEFA President Michel Platini is apparently also a Domenech fan.

And the FFF did make it clear that some things need to change.

Domenech was reproached for the brittle way in which he answered questions, for alienating French players from the fans by having too many closed-door training sessions and for proposing marriage to his girlfriend, Estelle Denis, live on television just moments after the French were eliminated.

“He only has one mission now, to concentrate on what happens on the field,” Escalettes said. “Now the communication has to be focused on the French team, not personal viewpoints. … In my opinion this communication was sometimes disastrous, aggressive and lacking clarity. He has a few years of experience behind him, and it’s up to him to show he can bounce back from this failure.”

So. He has to change. That’s…good. Right?

As a France fan, though, I have to say that I’m disappointed by this. Granted, I can’t see into the inner workings of the FFF, but from the outside this appears to be a clearcut case of politics trumping common sense. France needs a fresh, clearheaded approach. They need somebody who can say things like, “We really don’t have anybody who’s effective on set pieces. What can we change to make that happen?” Or, “The only reason we need two defensive midfielders is that our central defenders have gotten old and slow. Put in a younger, faster central defender and maybe we could afford to bring in some more midfield creativity.”

Domenech has never offered that clear-headed perspective — that ability to take a step back are recognize when things that used to work are no longer working. And I’m not sure he’s capable of starting now.

I was really looking forward to this team getting a fresh start. And I’m sad to see that this fresh start won’t be happening yet.

The Columbus Crew want to improve their team by bringing in a quality player from Norway's first division. So what's the problem? The player is Pat Noonan.

Noonan left the New England Revolution after the team decided not to offer him a respectable contract extension at the end of last season (they offered him less money then he made in 2007). Because he was out of contract, Noonan was able to move to Norway without a transfer fee, which means the Revs retained his MLS rights.

For their part, the Crew are willing to pay Noonan a salary similar to what he was earning previously in the US, plus pay a transfer fee to his current club and give the Revs something for his rights, however MLS is not happy. Why? Coach Sigi Schmid has the answer:

"A player that can turn down an offer from the league, go overseas on their own volition and then we as a league have to buy them back," Schmid said. "That's bad business and MLS doesn't want to be in the habit of doing bad business. That's completely understandable."

Schmid is playing the good sport here because really the only thing bad about this whole situation is that New England tried to hardball him in the first place (they would not trade him, thus he had to take their deal or get out of the country).

Noonan is a quality American striker who wants to be treated with respect. The fact that the league and the Revolution failed to do so should not be held against him or the Crew.

Instead the league should get past the hurt feelings caused by someone calling their bluff and do what is best for the sport.

The idea that a team can hold back a player that they no longer have under contract is one that must change or we can expect to see more young American players skip over their domestic league in favor of third tier competition overseas.

It looks like the Dynamo might be about to solve some of their offensive problems as Nate Jaqua has been offered a contract to return to Houston.

Jaqua left Houston during the off season for a spell in Austria, where he put up some great numbers (5 goals in 10 apperiences). Even with these quality results on the pitch, his club decided not to offer him a new contract.

Houston has been chasing him for awhile now, but it looked unlikely until they added a little twist to the offer. As part of this deal, Houston will promise to trade him to Seattle FC for the 2009 season.

Jaqua is from Eugene, Oregon, and very much wants to play in the Northwest.

It is not clear if this trade will be part of the expansion draft.

This is a smart move by Houston as they need another striker. Sure it will hurt losing him to Seattle, however they will have seven months to find a replacement. Who knows, maybe by then Caraccio might be ready to show something.

It is even a smarter deal if this will count towards the expansion draft as then they will not have to worry about losing any other players.

Former Houston Dynamo and Zimbabwe international striker Joseph Ngwenya is on a three week trial with Bayern Munich, which seems to prove a rumor that circulated back in January when Ngwenya moved to Austrian side Kärnten. The rumor had Jurgen Klinsmann 'hiding' Ngwenya in Austria until he took over as manager of Bayern.

If this all pans out, this could prove to be a brilliant move by Klinsmann. Then again, if Ngwenya fails to perform, it might all be for not.

By the way, Klinsmann noticed Ngwenya while watching him train with the LA Galaxy back in 2005.

It happens every month. FIFA’s new rankings come out, and everybody groans and says, “There is no possible way Team X is better than Team Y. Where do they get these rankings, Miss Cleo’s Psychic Hotline?”

Good question. And FIFA has the answers, in a handy-dandy five-page .pdf document, which of course reminds us in its logo that these are the Coca-Cola FIFA Men’s World Rankings. Because if they weren’t selling out to advertisers, they wouldn’t be FIFA.

The FIFA ranking system was originally conceived as a way to compare the teams in different parts of the world who might not ever play each other. And it does do that. But if you don’t know how it works, it feels pretty opaque. So here are some answers to the questions you would probably ask if you ever decided to care enough about FIFA rankings to come up with questions:

How long has FIFA been using this system?
The FIFA ranking system started out in 1992 as one big international table: Three points for a win in international competitions, one point for a draw. But it wasn’t long before folks realized that things were just a tiny bit more complicated than that. The system was revised in 1999, and then again in 2006. (A summary of the 2006 changes can be found here.)

What time period do the rankings show?
It used to be that rankings reflected performance over eight years. The obvious problem with this is that teams can change a lot in eight years. One extremely strong, team-altering player like, say, Zidane, would skew the results too high for years after his retirement. And one extremely bad patch seven or eight years ago would skew the results too low. So the current system looks at a four-year period, and this is weighted — recent games count at 100%, last year’s at 50%, two years ago at 30%, and four years ago at 20%.

Where do the points come from?

Here’s the calculation FIFA gives us: P = M x I x T x C x 100

And here’s what those things stand for:

M = Match — how the match ended.

Win (no penalty shootout) 3
Win (penalty shootout) 2
Draw 1
Loss (penalty shootout) 1
Loss (no penalty shootout) 0

I = Importance
The more significant the match, the more it counts. The assumption here being that coaches may or may not field the strongest teams in a friendly, but they certainly will in the World Cup.

Match status	Multiplier
Friendly match	x 1.0
FIFA World Cup and Continental cup qualifiers	x 2.5
Continental cup and Confederations Cup

finals x 3.0 World Cup finals match x 4.0

T = Team The strength of the team played.
This one is a surprisingly simple weighting system based on relative FIFA ranking. Start with 200. Subtract one point for every place a team lies below first. Then divide by 100. This means that the #1 team is weighted at 2.0, #2 at 1.99, #50 at 1.50, etc. Teams ranked lower than 150th are weighted at .50.

C = Confederation.
Each confederation is weighted based on how well that confederation did in the three most recent World Cups.
Current weights (based on 2006, 2002 and 1998) are:

UEFA (Europe) = 1.0
CONMEBOL (South America) = .98
CONCACAF (North and Central America, plus some outliers) = .85
AFC (Asia) = .85
CAF (Africa) = .85
OFC (Oceania) = .85

And that’s it. It’s that simple.

---

The old, pre-2006 system tooked at things like home vs. away and goal differential. The current system assumes that these things are taken care of by taking into account the other factors.

If you’d like to see how this works in practice, the FIFA worksheet has several examples using real-world games like the 2006 World Cup final.

---

So there you have it: FIFA rankings, in a nutshell. And feel free to continue to gripe about Spain being #1 and/or Italy being #2. Now you can gripe in a semi-informed way.

(And no, I’m not going to use these calculations to show you how Spain has precisely 1557 points. What do I look like, your math teacher?)

For FIFA’s Q & A’s about how the 2006 revision affects the rankings, click here. Really, you should click there. Because how else will you ever know what Coca-Cola’s role is in the ranking system?

Alternate measurement system:

ELO rankings, which is basically the ELO chess system, modified for soccer. But that’s a topic for another time.

So dreams can come true. Even Spanish footballing ones. And they can even come true in a wondrous way.

The Cava is still flowing and rightly so. In winning Euro 2008, Spain ended a quest for silverware that at 44 years' length, two more than England's, had defied all sense of fairness or logic.

But that they laid their hoodoo to rest in such style makes them the toast of the soccer world. Not since the Netherlands in the World Cup of 1974, or the Hungarians in 1954, has a nation playing such dazzling football reached the final of a major tournament. Unlike Cruyff's and Puskas' teams however, the Spanish vaulted the Germans at the last hurdle. The heart has beaten the head at last and the Beautiful Game is new again.

Their 1-0 win was not as delightful as their earlier victories in the Alps, but there was still enough of their mesmerizing passing and movement to leave nobody in any doubt that in more ways than one, the best team of the tournament had triumphed.

Germany suffered from Michael Ballack's woes; having missed Saturday training, he took a bloody wound to the eye and got himself booked in a frustrating first 45. Then Philipp Lahm, another key player, fatally hesitated to let Fernando Torres score before leaving the side at half time. In the second half, the Germans looked oddly jaded and unable to test Iker Casillas in Spain's goal, but even had fortune been on their side, you suspect the Spanish would still have been too strong for them.

This was indeed a victory for football, if we believe the game at its best is about aesthetics and not just winning. The soccer world had believed for so long that strength, hard work and organisation were the keys to victory, that we had forgotten about the entertaining by-product the fans so adore.

Flair players are have been considered liabilities in the quest for results, so set against this background, Spain’s win comes as an refreshing counterblast to the prevailing consensus.

Watching them labour to a 1-0 win over the USA in Santander on the eve of the competition, I saw enough of a midfield loaded with attacking talent to know they would be a force at the finals, and I tipped a team from the Iberian Peninsula to win, though I still felt a fit and on-song Germany could edge them thanks to their superior big-game mentality.

I was wrong – Spain had that inner steel to balance their twinkle toes. Confidence, that most powerful yet elusive weapon a team can posess, stayed with them until the end. Where the Netherlands, the other truly impressive team from the first round failed, the Spanish succeeded. Their self-belief saw off the challenge of the impressive Russians, devastatingly so (3-0) in the semi-final, before their prowess prevailed once more when Vienna called.

A final is like a second home to a German Mannschaft, while for Spain it has remained terra incognita since General Franco was in power. But last night in the Prater, the conquistadors of fútbol sailed crossed their ocean of doubt to plant their flag in the winners' enclosure. It is, one hopes, a new era for European football, a lasting challenge to the German-Italian axis which has scooped so many trophies, and an encouragement to coaches worldwide to teach a beautiful style of play to win.

Not that Spain set out to entertain, but their end-product was both victorious and dramatic. Dancing to a flamenco rhythm, their ball-to-feet midfield quickly became a joy to behold. Elvish little terriers like Xavi, Andres Iniesta and David Silva mastered the ball like virtuoso musicians, whipping it around with flair and a panache not seen in an international team for years.

That the country which contains club giants Barcelona and Real Madrid could apparently not produce a winning national team in almost half a century remains hard to explain.

Repeated exits from World Cups and European Championships left us so hoarse from repeating the old maxim that sooner or later it had to be Spain's year, most of us had given up tipping a nation which seemed immune from success.

The return of silverware to their FA leaves England, with its last trophy in 1966 as Europe's most under-achieving soccer nation, a depressing albatross of a boast for the game's motherland.
In his masterful book 'Morbo', the first English-language dissection of the game in Spain, Phil Ball suggests the historic dominance of foreigners in La Liga and the cultural divisions of the nation could have rubbed off invisibly on La Selección.

Journalist Guillem Balague told me this week he thought Spain had never had a winners' mentality because of repeated failure, so just needed a rub o' the green to have a chance to prove they could be victors at last.

While England persist with blind optimism and a fighting spirit despite their poor record, Spain's collective mentality has tended to wither more quickly. Take their 1994 World Cup quarter-final exit to Italy for instance. The Spaniards spurned several chances to win the game before Roberto Baggio finished them off. Valencia winger Vicente summed it up when he replied to a question about Spain's Euro 2004 failure - "What do you expect? We're Spain." By 2006, most of us had given up tipping the Iberians for good.

Only two years ago, eight of the Euro 2008 winners took the field in the second round of the World Cup finals, facing an ageing French eleven. Spain took the lead through David Villa and had 62% of the ball, but France ran out 3-1 winners.

But then along came a saviour. More prosaically perhaps, we can ascribe the torn page in the record book to Luis Aragones.

The 69 year-old might hail from Madrid but his Spanish team have played more 'Catalan' than previous incarnations. Three Blau-grana players featured in the team - Iniesta, Carlos Puyol and Xavi; four if you count former Barça man Cesc Fabregas, while Real Madrid had only two - goalkeeper Iker Casillas and right-back Sergio Ramos.

The short-passing 'tiki-taka' style of Spanish play looked a lot like Barcelona to me, while the speed of midfield exchanges and player rotation called to mind the best of Valencia's Champions League endeavours in recent years. David Silva and Euro 2008 top gunner David Villa play for that club.

Silva was one of Spain's unsung heroes, as mobile and skilful an attacker as any in the team, while the excellent Brazilian-born holding midfielder Marcos Senna was for me one of the players of the tournament, an award which went in the end to Xavi.

The team was short by modern standards, which makes their triumph over the tall and muscular Germans even more pleasing.

Their goalkeeper was not perhaps the best in the tournament but was no slouch. And while centre backs Puyol and Carlos Marchena lacked a little speed, and full backs Sergio Ramos and Joan Capdevila weren't the best positionally, they defended stoutly enough to repel the best Italy, Russia and Germany could throw at them and kept clean sheets in the knock-out stages.

The statistics are staggering: Across the tournament, Spain had more than twice as many shots on target than Germany and made 900 more passes than them with an 81% completion rate, the highest in Euro 2008, just eclipsing the Dutch. They were No.1 for shots on target and with 12 goals, hit the net more than anyone else: End of story.

What a great time to be Spanish. Even die-hard Catalans, Galicians and the odd Basque have had to swallow their pride and join the fiesta. If the frail-looking 69 year-old Aragones can get the bumps, so can they enjoy the special moment, too.

All in all, a magnificent victory for Spain and a beautiful day for football. Olé!

(c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile

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Sad news coming out of Germany.

It seems that love of soccer has proven deadly. To a six-foot catfish. He apparently attacked a soccer ball floating in a canal and suffocated when it got stuck in his mouth.

The two-meter long fish was found on Monday in a sluice in the Main River with its teeth sunk into the blue and white plastic ball.

“The catfish had evidently bitten into the ball and suffocated,” Bavarian police said in a statement. “Whether the fish was swept up in the current excitement about football in the wake of the EURO 2008 championship could not be ascertained.”

Too bad, too. Because it looks like he was a whole lot better at catching the ball than Jens Lehmann.

New European champions Spain top this month's Fifa world rankings for the first time ever.

Argentina drop to 6th and Brazil are 4th, Italy 2nd and Germany 3rd. England drop to 15th place just one ahead of rivals Scotland in 16th.

Euro 2008 co-hosts Austria drop out of the top 100 after picking up just one point in their three games.


1 Spain
2 Italy
3 Germany
4 Brazil
5 Netherlands
6 Argentina
7 Croatia
8 Czech Republic
9 Portugal
10 France
11 Russia
12 Romania
13 Cameroon
14 Turkey
15 England

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FIFA says… yes. The latest FIFA World rankings were released today, and a month of World Cup qualifying and a little tournament called Euro 2008 has produced quite a shake up.

Former leaders Argentina have slipped to sixth place, while Brazil have slipped from second to fourth.

The new world order sees Euro 2008 champs Spain sitting on top, Italy moving up from third to second (huh?) and Germany in third. In fact all the successful Euro 2008 countries have made leaps up the table. Croatia are up to 7th, the Netherlands up to 5th. And somehow Scotland moved up one place to 16th despite taking the summer off.

Euro nations who’ve slipped include Greece (down from 8th to 18th) and France (down from 7th to 10th.) But the big losers are, predictably, England. Their non-involvement in Euro 2008 has seen the team fall out of the top 10 (they were 9th) all the way to 15th. Ouchy.

Top 20 below:

1. (4) Spain
2. (3) Italy
3. (5) Germany
4. (2) Brazil
5. (10) Netherlands
6. (1) Argentina
7. (15) Croatia
8. (6) Czech Republic
9. (11) Portugal
10. (7) France
11. (24) Russia
12. (12) Romania
13. (13) Cameroon
14. (20) Turkey
15. (9) England
16. (17) Scotland
17. (18) Bulgaria
18. (8) Greece
19. (14) Mexico
20 (16) Ghana

The good news that has surround the Wizards over the past week (late win against, and by, Real; comeback win in US Open Cup; re-signing of Josh Wolff) looks to be at an end as the team's management has been accused of “pervasive and regular” sexual harassment.

Kathryn Carver filed the lawsuit on Monday against the Wizards' ownership group OnGoal as well as 'Greg Cotton, executive vice president and general counsel for OnGoal, and Robert Thomson Jr, the company’s vice president for marketing and communications.'

The suit alleges, amongst other things, that:

•Cotton and Thomson would review the Facebook and MySpace sites of prospective female employees to determine whether they were “hot enough” to be hired.

•Cotton allegedly said of one employee, “She is the dumbest person I have ever met, but she is worth keeping around for the scenery.”

•Male employees held “drafts” of young female employees with whom they would want to have sex.

•During a team-sponsored trip to Las Vegas, Thomson told Carver she was “hot,” complimented her physical attributes and said he wanted to have sex with her, she alleged.

It is far to early to figure out if these charges are true or not, but it is worth watching, especially as the Wizards move forward on their stadium development.

Obviously, if these accusations prove to be accurate, Cotton and Thomson need to be dismissed and a major restructuring of the whole OnGoal organization must happen. In addition, the league would need to figure out punishments, such as the loss of allocation money, that they can place on the team.

Bad times in Kansas City.

Last night is the perfect example of why I enjoy the US Open Cup so much. Seeing all these underweight teams try to out punch MLS sides really is enjoyable. Sure, the MLS teams see this as little more then a reserves match, but it is still good fun.

As bad as it is that MLS teams dropped three of the eight games last night, it is actually much better then last season when five top teams fell. The biggest surprise of the night took place in Maryland where Crystal Palace Baltimore (USL-2) bounced the Red Bulls out of the Open, even though they played down a man for an hour.

Ranking just below on the shock level was the Dynamo losing on kicks to the Charleston Battery (USL-1), even though Houston played up a man for 50 minutes and up 2 men for 15. Really, the defending MLS Champions were up two men for 15-minutes and could not find a way to get a goal. Not only that but the Battery's Osvaldo Alonso was still giving the Dynamo fits in the second period of overtime (Alonso must be on Kinnear's radar after last night). I think Dynamo forward Franco Caraccio summed up the whole night for his club when he collapsed to the pitch in shame after having his penalty kick stopped, thus giving the Battery the win.

The only other lose came in Seattle where the Sounders showed Chivas USA the exit. The goats have not won a USOC match since beating the Charlotte Eagles (USL-2) on 13 July 2005. This streak includes a defeat by Roma FC of the USASA.

There was almost something big in Dallas, however FCD was able to get a late stoppage time goal to take Miami 2-1.

Kansas City also needed a little rally as they were down 2-0 in the 67' minute before coming back to tie and send it to extra time where they piled on two more goals for the win.

DC United needed two goals via free kicks from Marc Burch to take down the Rhinos of Rochester. Both New England (last year's USOC champ) and the Fire (perennial USOC powerhouse) easily saw off their foes for the evening.

Here is the full list of results:
FC Dallas (MLS) 2-1 Miami FC (USL-1)
Charleston (USL-1) 1(4-3)1 Houston (MLS)
DC United (MLS) 2-0 Rochester (USL-1)
Carolina (USL-1) 2-4 Kansas City (MLS)

CP Baltimore (USL-2) 2-0 New York (MLS)
New England (MLS) 3-0 Richmond (USL-2)
Chicago (MLS) 4-1 Cleveland (USL-2)
Seattle (USL-1) 2-0 Chivas USA (MLS)

These results move the numbers a bit when it comes to higher versus lower ranked teams. Before last night, it stood at 19-2 (90.5%) for those higher ranked, but now is at 24-5 (82.75%).

It does look like home field advantage was reinstated. During the second round, home sides only went 3-5, but yesterday saw only one visitor walk away with a win.

Here is the schedule for next Tuesday night's round of eight:
Chicago Fire at DC United (Boyds, Md)
Crystal Palace (USL2) at New England (New Britain, Conn)
Charleston (USL1) at FC Dallas
Kansas City at Seattle Sounders (USL1)

Can Crystal Palace bring down two giants? Will the Battery take out both teams from the Lone Star state? Will Seattle give another MLS team an introduction to soccer in the Northwest? Can DC finally beat Chicago in a playoff situation? It will be fun to find out.

The eleven giant statues of Euro 2008 players are broken down and removed from Zurich train station. Once they’d sawn off Michael Ballack’s head, Euro 2008 was officially over.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Keystone/Eddy Risch

Sepp Blatter says there’s a Plan B for World Cup 2010, should South Africa prove incapable of hosting. He didn’t say what it was, just that he had one. For all we know Plan B could be a piece of paper with PANIC!!! written on it in big letters.

Let’s hope not though, eh? Here’s exactly what the king of FIFA said recently:

“I would be a very negligent president if I hadn’t put away in a drawer somewhere a plan B,” said Blatter.

“However, only a natural catastrophe would change things.

“If we had to activate the plan B, we would take our decision after the Confederations Cup.”

Anyone else notice Sepp sending mixed signals there? Making clear there’s a Plan B seems like an obvious threat to South Africa to get it together before he takes his tournament elsewhere. Then the “only a natural catastrophe” line suggests Plan B is just a worst case scenario contingency plan.

But the final line suggests he’ll see how things look after the Confederations Cup in June 2009. The CC is basically a warm-up gid for the big thing, so Blatter’s implying that if he doesn’t like what he sees then the curtain’s coming down early on South Africa 2010.

Should it come to that, what do you think Plan B is? Obviously we can only speculate right now, but logic dictates it’s going to involve relocating the World Cup to a country with all the stadia and infrastructure in place and good to go at short notice.

Maybe a repeat of World Cup 2006 in Germany? Maybe another traditional football country with loads of stadiums, like England? Maybe the USA, always mooted as a potential World Cup stand in? Could be anywhere really.

But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. My feeling is that the Seppster was just having one of his infamous headline grabbing moments (and to be fair, he’s good at it) in order to give South Africa a little scare.

Whatever happens, the 2009 Confederations Cup is going to carry a lot more intrigue than usual next summer.

If you have always dreamed of playing international football, but perhaps lack the skills to play for a real country, have we got the tournament for you.

The VIVA World Cup begins July 7 in Gällivare, Sweden. Or Gällivare, Samiland, depending on your point of view. This competition is, of course, not to be confused with the FIFA World Cup, which fields teams from actual sovereign nations. VIVA is a whole different animal.

The participating men’s teams in this year’s Cup are Sapmi (Samiland), Iraqi Kurdistan, Syriac (or Suryoye, or Assyria), Padania and Provence. For the women, Sapmi and Kurdistan.

What, you’ve never heard of these countries? There’s a good reason for this. They don’t exist, at least as actual, recognized sovereign states.

The tournament has been set up by the New Federations Board, established to represent nations which aren’t recognised as sovereign states. Its members include Monaco (not to be confused with the club side), Tibet, Zanzibar, Somaliland, Romani Nation (representing Romani people around the world), South Moluccas, Rijeka (Croatia’s third largest city, which was briefly a free state in the 1920s) and the Chagos Islands.

Some of the claims to independence are in deadly earnest (provisional member Chechnya, for example), while others are more fanciful. Even Sealand, a micronation set up in 1967 on an abandoned steel platform in the North Sea, six miles off Suffolk, fields a national team, though in their case they have appointed Danish side FC Vestbjerg to play on their behalf.

Great excitement. But it’s not quite the tournament it could be. There will be some teams missing. Teams that, for some reason, don’t want to hoist the Nelson Mandela Trophy (pictured.)

Håkan Kuorak, the vice president of the Sami Football Association, is excited about the competition, but feels that several big teams are missing, such as top ranking Zanzibar, Gibraltar and Greenland. And who can blame him? Who wouldn’t want to watch a meeting between these sporting giants?

Håkan is making the final preparations for the competition that is taking place at two grounds in Gällivare. The opening ceremony won’t be as pretentious as some of the ceremonies that precede large international events today – no acrobats, no synchronized chiffon scarf waving and no historical events recreated through the medium of dance.

But for those who love a bit of pomp and ceremony, Håkan promises a parade of (five) flags, a number of speeches, a couple of joiks (Sami folk songs) and a special appearance by the tournament’s reindeer mascot.

I’m sold. They had me at “reindeer mascot.”

Oh, and “joik.” They really had me at joik.

Spain have won their first international silverware since 1964, with a solitairy goal from Liverpool striker Fernando Torres sealed Spain’s triumph after winning every game they played.

More to follow

Spain have been crowned European champions after beating Germany 1 - 0 in the Euro 2008 final in Vienna, Austria. Liverpool striker Fernando Torres scored the decisive strike in the...

As Euro 2008 is coming to a close with tonights final being played in vienna tonight between Germany & Spain, i thought i would look back at some of the best goals of Euro 2008, i wonder if any of tonights goals will make it into this collection:

Best Euro 2008 Goals Video #Part 1

Best Euro 2008 Goals Video #Part 2

EURO 2008 QF VIENNA
Croatia 1:1 Turkey aet; 0:0 after 90mins, Turkey win 3-1 on penalties

Klasnic 119', Senturk 120'

A disappointing contest which never got going over 118 minutes, implausibly caught fire in the last two minutes of extra-time, and ended in a dramatic finale of shifting fortunes.

First Croatia and then Turkey revelled in 60 seconds of ecstasy after scoring improbable goals, before three missed penalties sent the Turks through to a semi-final date with Germany.

After almost two hours of solid but increasingly tiresome play which rarely looked like producing a result, Ivan Klasnic' 119th minute header surely looked to have carried Croatia through.

But as the soccer fates wound their thread yet tighter, Turkey's Semih Senturk rifled into the top corner in the 122nd minute to silence Croatia's huge travelling support.

When it came to penalties, Croatia showed themselves the less adept, missing three out of four to send the last-gasp specialist Turks through instead.

The day's Viennese heat had cooled inside the Prater by kick-off, but the temperature was always goingto be stoked by the passionate Turkish fans and their Croatian counterparts, who outnumbered them substantially inside the bowl.

After a couple of long-range shots at either end, the first moment of real danger arrived in the sixth minute when Ivan Rakitic infiltrated the box on the left and pulled it back into the six yard box, but the onrushing Darijo Srna failed to connect.

Turkey had enjoyed the majority of the ball in the opening quarter of an hour, showing little respect for their opponents, but in the 18th the Croats gave a reminder of just how dangerous they are on the counter.

Dinamo Zagreb star Luka Modric accelerated between three defenders to the endline and whipped the ball back across goal.

Striker Ivica Olic slid in but only found the crossbar with the goal gaping before him; Niko Kranjcar's rebound header went soaring over.

Halfway through the first period, Croatia had slipped throught the gears and had now got the Turks on the backfoot. The left wing was their favourite route to goal, from where Daniel Pranjic and Ivan Rakitic were sending over a succession of dangerous crosses.

Middlesbrough forward Tuncay Sanli became the first of three Turks starting on a yellow card to disqualify themselves from the semi-final, picking up another booking in the 27th minute. After stroking the ball around a while in front of the Croatian rearguard, Turkey almost registered the strike of the tournament seven minutes before the break.

Midfield anchor Mehmet Topal let rip from a good 35 yards and his ambitious effort whistled only inches past Stipe Pleitkosa's upright. As the seconds ticked down towards the interval, it seemed Croatia had certainly carved out the better chances, but Turkey had proved their mettle too, giving the impression of a drawn-out battle in the pipeline.

In the 49th minute, Arda saw yellow and counted himself out of the semi-final, while a minute later Olic beat Turkish goalkeeper Recber Rustu to the ball but from two yards wide of the post, his header bounced away from the open net. Then in the 57th Croatia threatened again when Modric threaded Niko Kranjcar through but the Portsmouth man's toe-poke did not fool Rustu.

A minute short of the hour with the play largely stagnant, a bunch of Croatian ultras let off a flare and a pair of smoke bombs, leaving a fine mist across the arena. Swiss TV had been criticised for not showing similar incidents in previous games, so it will be interesting if this was picked up or not.

Incredibly to English eyes, no stewards intervened and there are no police to be seen anyway inside the stadium. Slaven Bilic exchanged Krancjar for Mladen Petric in the 64th in the hope adding some zest to his team's attack. While looking solid at the back, Croatia were failing to penetrate up front.

Modric was certainly their best hope of a breakthrough, slaloming past four or five Turks in the 69th minute, but his final ball confused the lurking Olic. Olic and Rakitic played a neat one-two a moment later before Rakitic skied his finish, leaving Bilic on the touchline a picture of self-torture. With a quarter of an hour to play, it was certainly not a patch on last night's Germany v Portugal clash, but the possibility of a killer goal in the closing minutes was still there.

In the 83rd, a raiding Petric was brought down 20 yards out, offering Croatia a possible avenue from a set piece. Darijo Srna's blasted free kick swung around the Turkish wall and drew a spectacular tip away by Rustu. Then, a minute from time, Modric, the creative Croat, broke down the right and sent a cross into the near post for Olic, but Rustu was well placed to save as the striker slid in.

Srna dirtied the Turkish custodian's gloves once more with a long-range free kick, but when Petric swung his shot high into the stands in the final minute of added-on time, there was to be no winner. Four minutes into the first period, Tuncay forced an otherwise rarely-employed Pletikosa to punch away his near-post cross cum shot.