Euro 2012 Is On!

Finally, after seemingly so many long years, I am elated to be able to watch the Euro 2012 tournament. Every game of the Euro 2012 tournament is being broadcasted live by ESPN, and I believe this is the first time it ever happened in  the US. Thank you, ESPN!

Today, Greece tied Poland (1-1) and Russia beat the Czech Republic to a pulp (4-1) (Both these games were part of group A). These two opening games were not expected to be as entertaining as they were. Typically, the first few games at most major tournaments are 'tactical' and almost boring, but not this time around.

Poland dominated the first half against Greece -and they took the lead almost midway- but Greece reacted like a 'wild weed' with instincts of immortality and managed to stage an almost amazing comeback. Greece appeared to be like a cat that  was pushed off the roof of a tall building and somehow managed to hang onto the edge of the roof, clawing on the gutters. At the start of the second half Greece just revived itself and scored the equalizer 6 minutes in. Later on, Greece even missed a PK and they could have won the game as Poland appeared to no be able to absorb the Greek pressure.

As far as the second game, it was a pure cracker. Russia behaved like a sleepy bear that allowed Czech Republic to play with toys for a while but when they stood up they immediately scored 2 goals. Czech Republic did try to react during the second half and they scored 1 but the Russian bear scored 2 more, just for fun. Amazing game!

Many 'reporters' from famous press agencies claimed that the tournament will have 'problems' related to fans' attitude towards race, poor infrastructure, price gouging, and other such non-sense issues. I think this will be a very successful tournament as both Poland and Ukraine have embraced the tournament and will show their best faces.

In addition, race related issues are pure educational; infrastructure related shortcomings are purely temporary, and price gouging is common practice in every place a major sport tournament or event takes place. See this non-sense reporting here, for instance, but many other such types of reporting abound, primarily by AFP and Reuters.

If you do no believe that this will be very successful tournament then do not watch any of it. I -for one- will watch every second of the tournament.