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Euro 2012

Russians steamroll Czechs

June 8, 2012 — by Sean — 1

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What a lot of exciting football we had today! But before that, there were the opening ceremonies. There was some prancing around, which I honestly didn't mind. Gives a sense of fanfare beyond your regular club get together is what I think. Toward the end of proceedings a clearly geeked pianist was joined in the center circle by a wild-looking, overweight DJ to perform a Chopin – house music mashup that, though I couldn't hear, was probably as good as it looked. Then it was on to the game, and what a game! Dodgy calls, red cards, a saved penalty kick. Poland were lively moving forward, connecting quick strings of passes on the way to chance after chance. Long story short: great game, 1-1 and the points shared. Go watch a replay. ESPN3 has them up The second game between the Russians and the Czechs started out closer to the Velvet Revolution,

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Euro 2012News

Matchday 1: Poland-Greece & Russia-Czech Rep

June 8, 2012 — by Suman — 5

  It's the opening day of Euro 2012.  Join us in the comments if you're watching either of today's two fixtures 08 June 2012 - Final tournament - Group stage (Group A) Lineups » Poland 18.00 Greece Referee: Carlos Velasco Carballo (ESP) – Stadium: National Stadium Warsaw, Warsaw (POL) (Two time conversions to keep in mind: 18:00CET = 12pmET and 20:45CET = 2:45pmET.  All matches kickoff at one of those two times!) 08 June 2012 - Final tournament - Group stage (Group A) More » Russia 20.45 Czech Republic Referee: Howard Webb (ENG) – Stadium: Municipal Stadium Wroclaw, Wroclaw (POL)   Your daily link roundup: Guardian liveblogs: day one liveblog, Poland-Greece, Russia-Czech Rep Poland looking to Dortmund trio to undo Greece | Kevin McCarra | Guardian Football Why Uefa's failure to deal with Holland racism is no surprise | Richard Williams | Guardian Football

Euro 2012Preview

Kicking Off Euro 2012!

June 8, 2012 — by Suman — 4

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We're belatedly kicking off our Euro 2012 coverage--belated since the tournament is kicking off later today (in a few minutes actually).  We've got a few preview posts up to help you get ready for the next 3+ weeks of international European football--31 matches* in 8 cities in two countries (Poland & Ukraine) over the next 23 days--starting with Poland-Greece and Russia-Czech today (6pmCET/12pmET in Warsaw and 8:45pmCET/2:45pmET in Wroclaw, respectively) and continuing until the final in Kiev on July 1. Calendars & Fixtures Team & Group Previews Many Miscellaneous Previews Ongoing Coverage We'll also put up ongoing coverage as the tournament progresses.  Ideally we'll put up at least a daily wrapup and/or preview post--the previous day's results, the day's upcoming fixtures, a roundup of links, maybe even the occasional liveblog. But at the very least an open thread, with the hope of getting some commentary in the comments--which we haven't really

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Euro 2012EuropePreview

Kicking Off Euro 2012, Part 4: Where To Go For Ongoing Coverage

June 8, 2012 — by Suman — 2

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Part 4 of our Kicking Off Euro 2012 series: where to go for ongoing coverage over the next few weeks. We'll try to be posting, but here's where we'll be going ourselves to keep up with the tournament: Guardian Football: Our primary source for football news. Still anglocentric in its top headlines and most-read articles, but probably the least so of the English papers, Go directly to their Euro 2012 section (but also see below for a more detailed guide to their coverage). ZonalMarking: The other site we'll be visiting daily--the tactics blog run by Michael Cox, who also contributes columns to the Guardian.  He's already posted team-by-team previews in his Euro2012 section, and will no doubt be posting match analyses daily. If somehow we're still hankering for additional commentary, we might drop in on the Euro blogs of FourFourTwo or In Bed With Maradona. We'll probably call up Goal.com and espnfc.com on occasion. And lately we've been

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CommentaryEuro 2012

Kicking Off Euro 2012, Part 3: Many Miscellaneous Preview Links

June 8, 2012 — by Suman — 1

Part 3 of our Kicking Off Euro 2012 series: a very loosely curated collection of various tournament previews. Clearly we haven't read them all--this serves as a sort of list of bookmarks that we'll try to return to over the course of the tournament: Tournament previews & predictions: What To Watch At Euro 2012 | ESPNFC.com Euro 2012 Preview and Predictions | Political Footballs The Reducer: The Big Stories at Euro 2012 | Grantland Euro 2012: Our writers' predictions, from winners to golden boot | Guardian Football Why Euro 2012 will rock | FourFourTwo Spain remain the team to beat on the road to Kiev | Daniel Taylor | The Guardian) Guardian Football's Euro2012 Daily podcast's preview episode (short video excerpt here, and embedded below) Tactics: The tactics, trends and formations we should expect to see | Michael Cox | The Guardian The Big Three: Challenges facing Spain, Netherlands, Germany | Michael

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Euro 2012Preview

Kicking Off Euro 2012, Part 2: Team & Group Previews

June 8, 2012 — by Suman — 2

Part 2 of our Kicking Off Euro 2012 series: team-by-team previews pulled from a handful of sites we frequent: (key: GEN = Guardian Expert Network, ZM = ZonalMarking, FFT = FourFourTwo, IBWM = In Bed With Maradona, SI = Sports Illustrated; * = by Jonathan Wilson) Group A Poland: GEN, ZM, FFT*, IBWM Russia: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM, SI* Greece: GEN, ZM, FFT*, IBWM, SI* Czech Republic: GEN, ZM, FFT*, IBWM Group B (The Group of Death) Netherlands: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM, ESPN Germany: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM, ESPN Portugal: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM Denmark: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM, SI* Group C Spain: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM, ESPN Italy: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM, ESPN Croatia: GEN, ZM, FFT*, IBWM Ireland: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM Group D Ukraine: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM, SI* England: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM France: GEN, ZM, FFT, IBWM Sweden: GEN, ZM, FFT*, IBWM

Euro 2012EuropePreviewSchedule

Kicking Off Euro 2012, Part 1: Calendars & Fixtures

June 8, 2012 — by Suman — 4

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Part 1 of our Kicking Off Euro 2012 series: a couple nice interactive calendars--and below them, the full fixture list: Actually, first off, for us US viewers, here is ESPN's fixture list along with details of their television coverage.  The majority of matches are on ESPN, with a handful on ESPN2--and all of them will be available for streaming on ESPN3.com! (Which is great not only for those of us without cable, but also because it means all the matches should be archived for replay after the fact--particularly helpful since kickoff times are 12pmET and 2:45pmET.) Ok, on to the fancy interactive calendars. UEFA.com's "tournament map" might seem  a bit dense at first glance, but that's because there's a lot of information there--it nicely gives you all the groups and fixtures in one view:
UEFA.com's Euro 2012 "Tournament Map" (click for larger image)
  Click on the image above for

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Champions LeaguePreviewSchedule

Champions League Final, Bayern vs Chelsea–Today!

May 19, 2012 — by Suman

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The culmination of the European club season is upon us. Bayern Munich takes on aging interlopers Chelsea in the Allianz Arena--which happens to be Bayern's home ground.  (For US viewers: kickoff is at 2:45pmET, and the match will be televised on Fox's main network.  In fact, the Fox networks are going full bore with almost-Super Bowl levels of TV coverage--see below for the full schedule.) And what a season it's been--especially the past month.  Recall that it was just (over) a month ago that the Champions League semifinals started, with Bayern defeating Real Madrid at the same venue, and with Chelsea shocking the world with a 1-0 win over Barcelona at Stamford Bridge. The return legs the following week were even more dramatic. Chelsea even more unbelievable result at the Camp Nou, eliminating the defending Catalan champions; and the next day Bayern downing Madrid in PKs at the Bernabéu. At

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