Sunday is the European Championship Final, between Germany (boo) and Spain (yeah!). Yeah, I’m rooting for some new blood at the top. Who knows if we’ll see beauty or the beast but here’s a reminder of what the game can look like. More later… Hat tip to Chase Jarvis

In the meantime, enjoy this selection of photos presented by Canon and Agence France-Press (AFP) along with this selection from the Canon Professional Network - Favorite Photos part 1 and Favorite Photos part 2

From the US Soccer website:

Nine players on the roster were members of the U.S. team that won the gold medal four years ago in Athens, Greece, including team co-captains Christie Rampone and Kate Markgraf, who will both be participating in their third Olympic Games.

The USA will open play at the 2008 Beijing Olympics on Aug. 6 against Norway in Qinhuangdao, China. The USA will then face Japan on Aug. 9, also in Qinhuangdao, before finishing Group G play against New Zealand on Aug. 12 in Shenyang.

All 22 players – the Olympic Team plus the four alternates – will leave for Europe on June 27 for two matches, the first against Norway on July 2 in Fredrikstad and a second against Sweden on July 5 in Skelleftea. The USA’s two Olympic send-off matches against Brazil, on July 13 in Commerce City, Colo. (2 p.m. MT on ESPN presented by Dodge) and on July 16 in San Diego, Calif. (7 p.m. PT on Fox Soccer Channel), will feature only the 18 players named to the Olympic Team.

UPDATE - St Louis Post-Dispatch interviews the Nerinx Hall Marker alum:

Going to China has become old hat for Lori Chalupny. The Nerinx Hall graduate has made four trips there with the U.S. women’s national soccer team since the start of 2006 alone.

She’ll make another trip to China in August, and it will be different from the others. This time it will be to play in the Summer Olympics.

Kudos to Marco van Basten. But if you even begin to suggest that the Netherlands have anything to do with “Total Football,” you either don’t know what you’re talking about or you haven’t seen the Dutch play.

I’m old enough to have seen and enjoyed those games but it was still a great refresher as I prepare the chips and dip for this afternoon’s game. Hat tip to Glendale Soccer scribe Bob Jordan

The Netherlands ended a 30-year wait for a victory over Italy in emphatic fashion as they began their Group C campaign with a rousing 3-0 win against the world champions in Berne.

I found out Sunday at Coester’s that ESPN2 is showing the best game of the day on delay so set the VCR/DVR for 1:00 am and the replay. Can someone share a copy with me? Burn it to DVD from that DVR of yours folks.

Spain vs Russia at 10:50 am Tuesday. I’m holding out for Sweden vs Greece at 1:45 pm myself. Who do you think I’ll be rooting for? Yah, hey dere, Ole be rooting for Svenska!

Coesters. We had the USA game on Sunday evening (they looked good against Argentina, didn’t they) and the basketball fans had to wait until our game ended before the NBA Finals got the audio feed in the restaurant. We’ve got a special situation developing here folks, Mark’s providing a great service to the soccer community. I’m reading about guys in Winston-Salem North Carolina (ACC Soccer country) who can’t get the sound turned on. Come out and support and justify his investment in supporting us!

We had our first Soccer Mom sighting on Sunday. Gary and Debbie Loyd were out with Evan (Greenwood/SSC) and his brother. Come out and represent folks!

I caught up with Demize defender/midfielder Nikola Katic following Saturday’s tough loss to the Colorado Rapid U23’s. Nikola is a Croatian native, and just returned from a 10 day trip to Croatia with his Western Illinois teammates who played a pair of games while there. He offers some feedback on the Demize match as well as some background on Croatia, who play their first match at Euro 2008 Sunday at 10:45 am against hosts Austria. Enjoy!

I arrived in Granada, Spain at the end of January to begin my year long study abroad experience. When I learned that the U.S. MNT would be playing a friendly against Spain, in Spain, while I would be in the country, it was like a dream come true. It would be an understatement to say that I was excited about the game.

I talked up the game up to all of my friends in attempt to recruit a group to travel north to Santander. FYI, Santander is located on the north coast of Spain while Granada, where I study, is about an hour drive from the southern coast. In the end we had a group of 4 Americans plus one British chap that made the trip. Getting tickets to the game proved to be an interesting task as they were never officially advertised on the U.S. soccer website. Luckily we were able to purchase tickets for the 13th row from a bank in Spain. This, of course, meant that we would be sitting in a sea of Spanish fans but we were content with the location and price (€20 = $30).

Most of my Spanish friends told me they would watch the game on TV and often sympathetically assured me that the U.S. wouldn’t lose that bad. To be honest after the performance against England a week earlier I had my fears of things that could go wrong or us simply not playing well. But for the most part I kept confident that our team would step up to the challenge and play a good game.

Just like an MLS or NFL game there were plenty of activities outside the stadium in which fans could participate before the game. Although the activities tents were almost exclusively filled with Spainards we still took at most of the stuff. There was tent that contained a bunch of World Cup memorabilia from each competition. We found our seats about an hour before the game. It started to drizzle light rain but luckily we were just under the overhang of the stadium so we kept dry.

As soon as the U.S. team entered the field to warm-up I whipped out my camera. I had never been so close to any of these players. As in all international friendlies both team’s flags were presented along with the playing of their national anthem. My group (minus the Britain) and I proudly stood up among of crowd of 14,000 Spanish fans and sang. It was a really exciting experience if not a bit intimidating.

As far as the game goes I feel that all I can say has already been said by other commentators or bloggers. Compared to last week against England the U.S. team was much improved and they provided an entertaining match. I would even go as far to say that we appeared to be the more dangerous team during the first half. Our seats allowed us to get a great view of the U.S. defensive line during the first half and I think all four full backs played well. It was good to see Freddy Adu get a start and perform well. And for those of you who haven’t seen Michael Bradley up close – the kid doesn’t look 20 years old – he’s developed an impressive build and is quite an athlete. I’ll add that I was also happy to see former KC striker Eddie Johnson create some dangerous chances. In the end I left the stadium a bit disappointed – but only because I thought we had chances to beat Spain but failed to capitalize.

It is also important to add that we had no trouble with other fans before, during, or after the game. We were treated politely and even shared a couple of friendly conversations after the game. – I have a lot of respect for the Spanish fans. I did talk with several U.S. fans (there were maybe 50 of us total) before and after the match. It seemed that a large part of the U.S. fans were in Spain on some sort of a study abroad trip in Spain, which allowed them to make the trip. A few said they were in Wembley the week before and a few actually migrated from their homes in Europe.

I am extremely content that I had a chance to see the U.S. Men’s team in Spain. I was impressed by our team’s effort and it was fun to cheer on the U.S. and be part of something of which I was proud while in Spain. On so many levels the U.S. is not recognized as an international contender in soccer so it was fun to share my knowledge and passion of the national to my foreign friends.

On that note I’m excited to see that there is consistently a group of fans gathering weekly for soccer matches at Coester’s. It is great to know that we have a strong mini-hotbed of soccer in SW Missouri that can gather together and enjoy the beautiful game. That is a group I’ll look forward to joining when I return from studying abroad next January. Until then I plan on finding a pub in Granada where I can watch the U.S. vs. Argentina game on Sunday.
–

Nic Zweifel
www.niczweifel.com

No England? No problem! Relax and enjoy Euro 2008

It boils down to a simple question, really. Do you like football, or not? And by football I do not mean the way we increasingly choose to interact with the sport in this country; by developing a parochial obsession with one team at the expense of all reason and combining a pathological hatred of a local rival with an intellect-sapping devotion to whichever group of mercenaries and ungrateful slouches happens to be passing through wearing the shirt.

I mean old-school football, the first you watched, when there was nothing more resting on it than the pleasure of seeing 22 men trying to play a game with beauty and it did not really matter who won as long as the way in which they did it was exciting and pleasing to the eye. The football, and footballers, of your youth, when attempted imitation over the park was the sincerest form of appreciation.

Saturday morning, 11 am, Switzerland vs Czech Republic, followed at 1:45 pm by Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portugese teammates taking on Turkey.

Soccer by Ives has broken down each of the four groups. Jeremy St Louis from Fox Soccer Report offers up his condensed version and ‘the chosen one’, Jose Mourinho is picking Spain.

The US Men’s National team has a pair of games this week. The first on Wednesday against Spain, followed by the game against current World #1 Argentina in Giant’s Stadium. I’m aware of a few folks headed East for that game, hopefully we’ll have some soccer adventure stories to share with you afterwards.

U.S. Men vs. Spain
Wednesday 06/04/2008 3:00 PM
ESPN360.com (live) ESPN2 (5:30 ET) Gala (7 ET/PT)

U.S. Men vs. Argentina Presented by Visa
Sunday 06/08/2008 6:30 PM
Live on ESPN Classic and Galavision

And don’t forget next weeks World Cup Qualifier against Barbados at the Home Depot Center.

U.S Men vs. Barbados
Sunday 06/15/2008 4:00 PM
Live on ESPN2 and Galavision

The European Championships open on Saturday. If you are unfamiliar with these games, the best description is that it’s the European mini-World Cup, as the rest of the world watches the European national teams battle for bragging rights before they face off in the final World Cup qualifying for South Africa 2010.

As always, I’ve added all of the games to my Soccer Calendar so go subscribe or pick your favorites and add them to your calendar, it’s a simple as clicking and downloading the info for import into your calendar.

I’ll also be adding Events to my SGFsoccer.com Facebook Page for key games which for me includes any game with Sweden! I see there’s already one guy who’s planning on watching the two opening games at Coester’s on Saturday. Hosts Switzerland face off against the Czech Republic at 11am and Portugal face Turkey at 1:45 pm.

Remember, the best place in Springfield to enjoy the World’s game with fellow fans is at Coester’s, located at 631 S Kimbrough, just West of the MSU Basketball stadium.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention there are a pair of Springfield Demize home games on Friday and Saturday this week. I’ll be back with more details tomorrow.

Lot’s to enjoy as I offer a single resource for all the ’soccer junkies’ in the region to ensure you can get your fix this summer. The Southwest Soccer All-Stars play June 19th, the European Championships kick off June 7th, at the Beijing Olympics soccer kicks off August 6th.

Local Club tryout information and schedules are available, the first day is June 15th. Regional Camps start as early as June 2nd and run until early August, you should be able to find one to meet your child’s needs easily.

Jack Jewsbury continues his development and increases his role on the KC Wizards. You can find the complete Wizards schedule on page 29. The Springfield Demize have six more home games, have you made it out yet? Springfield SC U23 are offering a competitive club program for our young men now as well.

I’ll be holding watch parties throughout the summer at Coester’s, including give aways courtesy of the KC Wizards, as we take in some fantastic international soccer and Major League Soccer. How about a road trip to Kansas City? I’m thinking KC Wizards vs NY Red Bull on July 10th!

From the Tararua Sports Club website:
We believe the commitment from the club to bring the guys out will not only aid the first team for the season but also cement a relationship with the Missouri State University that may enable the club to offer scholarships to potential future stars of the club. Andy is 23, 6ft tall and described as a central defender that can do equally well in the midfield. Brian is also 23, 5ft 11in and plays in the midfield. I’m sure that both these guys will get a warm welcome from the club and enjoy their stay. Thanks to Ali James for the massive effort he has put in over the last few months in getting this to fruition.

I grabbed the photo from Brian’s Facebook page. This is the kind of stuff that makes a guy want to be young again. Have a great time and represent fellas!

AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev

Coester’s is located at 631 S Kimbrough, just West of the basketball stadium on the Missouri State campus. It’s a full-service restaurant, smoke free and features 22 big screen HD TV’s, the majority of which will be tuned to the game with the audio broadcast included.