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Euro 2008 is a week old and already hosts Switzerland are out, Portugal and Croatia are through to the quarter finals and Germany and Italy are no longer everyone’s favourites. On today’s show we ask a German fan about his country’s chances as well as reviewing your predictions from last week. We also look back at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly in the football news introduce a football expression in English for Football and continue the languagecaster predictions competition.
Transcript
Damon: OK, I am sitting here with Hans, a German supporter. Of course Germany were the pre-tournament favourites, so I’d just like to ask him what he thinks of the tournament. How’s Germany going so far do you think?
Hans: Well, you know very well how Germany’s going so far. We lost last night against Croatia and we’ve beaten Poland 2-0. So, we’re going fairly averagely.
Damon: So, you’ve had two games so far, have there been any stand-out players for you or any disappointments or any comments about the players?
Hans: Obviously, Podolski has scored three goals – all the three goals for Germany – he’s playing particularly well at the moment. His strike partner Klose seems to have done very little and he’s a bit of a concern but the main concern I think for Germany is the defence and the goalkeeping. Lehmann has pulled off some nice saves but he’s also fumbled a bit and he’s standing behind a defence that’s a bit creaky and a bit short of match practice so … there’s some concerns in the German camp that’s for sure.
Damon: One more game to go in the groups and what do you think will be the result for Germany? How can you see them progressing in this tournament?
Hans: Well, we play Austria and really we should beat Austria, if we don’t then we deserve to go home. So, I’m tipping a fairly comfortable scoreline against Austria, maybe 2-0 or even 3-0. So, I think that will be enough for Germany to go through. The problem is the next round where Germany will then play Portugal, which is a sort of a game you’d want to avoid in the quarter finals. But that will be a great game if it gets to it and still, Germany are a good chance. They haven’t lost anything yet really.
English for football expression:Cause an upset
Today’s English for football expression is to cause an upset which means that something surprising has happened. We use this phrase in football to describe it when a stronger team is beaten by a so-called weaker team – a surprising result, an upset. Croatia caused an upset when they defeated Germany 2-1 in yesterday’s Euro 2008 match while the hosts Austria will be hoping to cause another upset by beating Germany next week. Actually, that wouldn’t be an upset, more a miracle. To cause an upset.
Predictions
Damian: With Euro 2008 almost a week old we thought we’d take a closer look at some of the predictions from our listeners and readers that we received over the last week. Now, we asked you to name a winner, a dark horse, a flop and the player of the tournament.
So, nearly half of you felt that Germany would be winners though I wonder if that was before or after last night’s result. Spain, France and Portugal were next but only two of you felt that the World Champions, Italy, would do the double of holding World and Euro titles at the same time. As for dark horses most went for Croatia and this may have something to do with the draw – most would agree that groups A and B are slightly easier than C or, the group of death, D. It may also have something to do with their manager or the tactically astute players or the fact that the Croats have a fantastic record at international tournaments.
As for flops, France were the most ‘popular’ – perhaps the absence of Zidane and the aging squad had something to do with that – or maybe you simply just don’t like the French!
Player of the tournament? Surely everyone went for Ronaldo? Well, not everyone actually many of you also went for Fernando Torres and interestingly one of you went for David Villa. Of course, all will be revealed in a couple of weeks time after the final in Vienna.
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