Heading to the final

In meantime, catch up on kick-ass anime
with awesome music, Macross Delta!

3F-Portugal (2-0-4) will try to snap a 10-match losing streak to 1A-France (5-0-1) when the two national teams meet up for the final in Paris, France.  In the new expanding Euro (24 teams from 16), a third-place team has reached the final.  It has happened twice in the World Cup when they had 24 teams with Argentina losing 1-0 to Germany in the '90 final and Italy losing in PKs (0-0 (3-2)) to Brazil in the '94 final.

Both teams struggled to being the tournament with France needed a late second-half goal to edge Romania while Portugal blew a 1-0 lead to tie, at the time, lowly Iceland.  After settling for a tie in their 3rd match, France has won each knockout stage scoring 9 goals.  Portugal has played even in the first 90 minutes in each of their first

Foster’s Futbol Brew, Batch Number Two

June 5, 2012

Foster’s Futbol Brew, Batch Number Two:

Some of you follow the World Cup, but perhaps this is the first or second time following the European Championships.  Some of you who may not be as familiar with the tourney’s top players, nearly all of whom play for Club soccer somewhere in Europe.  For those of you who follow Club teams like me in the English Premier League (EPL), Serie A in Italy, La Liga in Spain and other European clubs, you've probably begun to hear about some rising stars.  For some European national sides, the next generation is here.  This is a sneak-peak at some of the rising stars to follow on their national squads that should have a big impact:

A to the Z SPORTS! # 1: Favorites: Spain, Germany, and Italy

Please visit Albert's original post.

Welcome to the A to the Z Sports Blog!  This is where I will talk soccer , boxing and any relevant happenings in sports.

Since the Euro Cup tournament is right around the corner, I have dug through the numbers in search of some interesting stats regarding the 16 participating nations.

 For now check out these impressive stats involving three tournament favorites: Spain, Germany and Italy.

SPAIN

Foster's Football Brew # 1: First Batch

Foster's Football Brew:  First Batch

Although the recent 2010 World Cup is becoming a distant memory, the Euro 2012 promises to satiate our appetites for top-level international football to ease the pain of waiting until Brazil 2014.

In this opening of a series of emails, I’ll identify the 16 teams playing in the Euro 2012 Tournament, and get you thinking about who you should pick to go all the way.  Will we see a repeat of the World Cup Final, Spain v. Netherlands???  Will UEFA Euro defending Champs from 2008 Spain reign supreme, to be the first European country to ever win three major tournaments in a row (Euro 2008, 2010 World Cup)??

Here's the tournament draw: 

Group A:

Poland (tournament co-host)

Greece

Russia

Czech Republic

Group B: (the unofficial Group of Death!)

Netherlands

Denmark

Germany

Portugal

Group C:

Spain

Italy

Republic of Ireland

Croatia

Group D:

Ukraine (tournament co-host)

Sweden

France

England

So you think you know which two teams will pull thru in each of these groups?  Which are the favored teams, and which are the dark-horse candidates that will pull off a few upsets and slip through?  Here are my preliminary thoughts on the four groups: