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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 a better view, but better to click thru for the interactive version on UEFA’s site–rolling over a given group, team, date or venue highlights those particular matches. Even better: clicking on a particular group, team, fixture or venue brings up a pop-up box with details and links to the rest of UEFA’s copious Euro 2012 coverage.  We’ll likely have this tournament map open in our browser the rest of the month.

(Some notes on the design: it’s a 2D matrix with dates across the top, groups/teams on the LHS, and venues on the RHS. Which highlights the rational design of the tournament: each group plays its matches in just two venues, and the group stage fixtures rotate through the four groups in order: first two Group A matches on the June 8, then Group B on June 9, Group C on June 10, Group D on June 11; then the second set of group matches (Groups A-D on June 12-15, respectively) and the third and final set of group matches (Groups A-D on June 16-19, respectively)).

  • As they did for World Cup 2010, Marca.com has produced a beautiful and elliptical interactive calendar for Euro2012.  You can again view fixtures by team, date, group or venue, by rolling over the points on the inner perimeter.  It’s available in English or Spanish—and conveniently you can set your timezone for kickoff times.  By rolling over the segments in the outer perimeter, you can also bring up a map Poland and Ukraine with the venues, or a map of Europe with the competing nations:
Marca.com's elliptical Calendario

 

Finally, here’s the full fixture list:

Friday, June 8
Warsaw, Group A: Poland v Greece (12pmET)
Wroclaw, Group A: Russia v Czech Republic (2:45pmET)

Saturday, June 9
Kharkiv, Group B: Holland v Denmark (12pmET)
Lviv, Group B: Germany v Portugal (2:45pmET)

Sunday, June 10
Gdansk, Group C: Spain v Italy (12pmET)
Poznan, Group C: Republic of Ireland v Croatia (2:45pmET)

Monday, June 11
Donetsk, Group D: France v England (12pmET)
Kiev, Group D: Ukraine v Sweden (2:45pmET)

Tuesday, June 12
Wroclaw, Group A: Greece v Czech Republic (12pmET)
Warsaw, Group A: Poland v Russia (2:45pmET)

Wednesday, June 13
Lviv, Group B: Denmark v Portugal (12pmET)
Kharkiv, Group B: Holland v Germany (2:45pmET)

Thursday, June 14
Poznan, Group C: Italy v Croatia (12pmET)
Gdansk, Group C: Spain v Republic of Ireland (2:45pmET)

Friday, June 15
Kiev, Group D: Sweden v England (12pmET)
Donetsk, Group D: Ukraine v France (2:45pmET)

Saturday, June 16
Wroclaw, Group A: Czech Republic v Poland (2:45pmET)
Warsaw, Group A: Greece v Russia (2:45pmET)

Sunday, June 17
Kharkiv, Group B: Portugal v Holland (2:45pmET)
Lviv, Group B: Denmark v Germany (2:45pmET)

Monday, June 18
Gdansk, Group C: Croatia v Spain (2:45pmET)
Poznan, Group C: Italy v Republic of Ireland (2:45pmET)

Tuesday, June 19
Donetsk, Group D: England v Ukraine (2:45pmET)
Kiev, Group D: Sweden v France (2:45pmET)

QUARTER-FINALS

Thursday, June 21
QF1: Warsaw: Winner A v Runner-up B (2:45pmET)

Friday, June 22
QF2: Gdansk: Winner B v Runner-up A (2:45pmET)

Saturday, June 23
QF3: Donetsk: Winner C v Runner-up D (2:45pmET)

Sunday, June 24
QF4: Kiev: Winner D v Runner-up C (2:45pmET)

SEMI-FINALS

Wednesday, June 27
SF1: Donetsk: Winner QF1 v Winner QF3 (2:45pmET)

Thursday, June 28
SF2: Warsaw: Winner QF2 v Winner QF4 (2:45pmET)

FINAL
Sunday, July 1
Kiev: Winner SF1 v Winner SF2 (2:45pmET)


CommentaryHistoryNews

Marca on Madrid: “Con 10 Se Juega Mejor”

April 17, 2011 — by Suman — 1

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We’ve been digesting Saturday’s Real Madrid-Barcelona 1-1 draw at the Bernabeu–just the first installment of this month’s 4-part El Clásico series; the second is coming up this Wednesday with the Copa del Rey final, to be contested on neutral turf–at the Mestalla in Valencia. In the meantime, it’s always entertaining to see how Madridista tabloid Marca spins the latest big result.

There’s much to savor in this cover. The screaming lead (“Con 10 se juega mejor”) seems pedestrian enough. Translating to “It’s better to play with 10” (or “We play better with 10”?), Marca is seemingly remarking simply that Madrid played better after losing Albiol to a red card and playing a man short for the final 40 minutes of the match.

But it turns out the headline may actually be an allusion to an aphorism attributed to the legendary manager Helenio Herrera–which leads to something of a Möbius strip of historical resonances: Herrera, nicknamed Il Mago (“The Wizard”), is best known for managing Barcelona (1958-1960) and subsequently Inter Milan (1960-1968).  His Barcelona sides successfully challenged the 5-time European champions Real Madrid on the domestic front. Then in Milan he gave birth to Catenaccio and led “La Grande Inter” to two consecutive European championships (1964 and 1965).  Inter didn’t conquer Europe again until last year–led by Jose Mourinho of course, defeating Barcelona along the way in the semifinal, which led to headlines such as “In José Mourinho Inter finally have a true heir to Helenio Herrera.”

(For more on Herrera, confer this post on The Equaliser (which also has a post about La Grande Inter); Chapter 9 of Simon Kuper’s Soccer Against The World, titled “A Day with Helenio Herrera”; the chapter of Jimmy Burns’s Barça: A People’s Passion covering Herrera’s tenure at Barcelona, titled “El Salvador”; or this post titled “The Really Special One – Helenio Herrera.”)

Back to the Marca cover: Mou(rinho)’s comment on the matter gets put across the top (“Me cansa jugar siempre contra ellos con diez jugadores” / “I am tired of always playing against them with 10 players”), and Marca asks whether the “roja directo” (straight red) for Albiol versus no yellow (“ni amarilla”) for Alves on the respective penalties represents a double standard (“¿doble rasero?”).

Of course it’s CR7 and Messi that dominate the image–another fine piece of photoshopping. Ronaldo striding with the ball, looking up, clawing at the air like some sort of big cat (perhaps an allusion to Mourinho’s hunting with cats?), while Messi shuffles behind him, eyeing the ball, looking disturbed/disturbing.

But we also rather like the little image of Guardiola and Mourinho inserted at the top: the two managers with their backs to each other, pistols in hand.  One round of the duel completed–three more to go.

CommentaryNewsVideo

“Mourinho Finally Gets Mad”…well, un poco (with video)

September 29, 2010 — by Suman

"Estoy loco como el infierno y yo no voy a soportarlo más!"

I must admit, I am falling for the yet-nascent psychodrama that is Mourinho in Madrid (“MiM” from now on). So I eagerly clicked thru when online footy mag fourfourtwo.com‘s La Liga Loca blog led with the headline “Mourinho Finally Gets Mad“, and kicked off the post with some purple prose:

For months now, the Spanish press have been performing their solemn duty of trying to make José Mourinho go completely postal, but sadly with little success.

However, on Monday evening, it was joy to the world and ding dong merrily on high as, after a trying period of four press conferences a week for the Bernabeu boss, hours and hours of provoking, probing and pressing finally brought some decent results – not only did Mourinho completely lose his rag, he also found it again and then set it on fire…