Germany, Spain, Italy, England, all gone. And now France! This is getting interesting.
Prediction for Sunday: Czech Rep 3, Denmark 1
I think (and hope) the Czech Republic are going to be too strong for Denmark but I think it might be a close game. Denmark have looked good in their group games.
I think you’re right Nunya that Sweden can take Holland. Holland have played some decent stuff here and there through the tournament but haven’t looked a massive force this time round.
[Čei do toho]
Interesting? More like a disaster. With England, Italy, and France all gone, I really don’t care any more who wins or loses. In the US the tournament would be the equivalent of Minnesota against Tennessee - no New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Boston - outside the main media markets, with no one giving two cents who wins.
Interesting? More like a disaster. With England, Italy, and France all gone, I really don’t care any more who wins or loses.
Well, that’s because you’re a philistine. It’s been a bloody great competition, and all the better for the giant-killing. Do you turn up your nose at the third round of the FA Cup?
Others have pointed out that the ‘mighty fallen’ have domestic leagues that rely increasingly on foreign players. But in international competition, you can’t buy a winning team; you have to breed it. (Or, in some cases, naturalise it.) Could it be that the teams playing better as teams benefit from having domestic leagues that are less dependent upon imported talent? Perhaps, although the star players for the remaining countries tend to earn their livings abroad.
But I certainly wonder whether the heavy emphasis on club competition — and over the past four years, the Champions League has metastasised into a de facto European league, to the exclusion of teams from ‘smaller’ countries — has worked to the advantage of those smaller countries, in that national pride is more concentrated upon international competition. The days of Ducla Prague and Brondby getting to the last rounds of the European Cup are long gone — UEFA has turned the Champions League into the same old same old, taking away much of the novelty and magic of the competition.
“Do you turn up your nose at the third round of the FA Cup?”
Well that’s a parochial question. Most people in France (myself included) don’t follow the FA Cup, period.
But yes, if Tennessee played Minnesota in the Super Bowl, I would turn up my nose. Or rather turn it away. I think most Americans would find this perfectly natural. Another cultural divide?
Germany, Spain, Italy, England, all gone. And now France!
The first European Championship ever (going back to 1960) in which none of those five countries made the semifinals.
Others have pointed out that the ‘mighty fallen’ have domestic leagues that rely increasingly on foreign players.
Not that much the case for france is it?
Nevermind :
“
on est dans l’avion,
on est dans l’avion,
on est, on est
on est dans l’avion
“
:)
philistine? parochial? we can’t even get the games on television in the states, for god’s sake. enjoy them in any event - i have to follow the games on my bloody computer!
Well that’s a parochial question. Most people in France (myself included) don’t follow the FA Cup, period.
Ah, forgive me for not knowing your current abode. It was somewhat hard to divine from your references. But you do appear to suffer from the American disease — ‘promotion? relegation? what’s that?’ — of wanting big-market successes. What did you think of Lens’ championship run, may I ask?
yabonn: France’s relative weakness in 2004 (following 2002) is a curious one. Thinking through it a bit more, I think the ‘foreign players dominate domestic leagues’ argument is less compelling than the ‘star players in Champions League teams’ one.
Those French players currently in the English Premiership — Makalele, Vieira, Henry, Pires, Saha & Wiltord — not only had a 38-game league season, but also a Champions League campaign and an FA Cup run alongside international commitments. Most of the other French players had similarly long seasons. (And indeed, only six of 23 play in France.)
The Czech squad plays in almost as many countries as there are players, but they have played much less football over the past six months. Even the Dutch and Portuguese squads feature players that have mainly been involved in domestic competition this year. Same with the Greeks and Danes. (Squads here.)
michael g: well, you can get the matches in the US if you’re prepared to pay for them. At $20 for the first round, and $25 for the knockout stages, my cable bill for this month is going to make upsetting reading. The pains of being an expat…
Fox Sports World ran a few games live and will have some of them on tape delay.
All the highlights are available on their news wrapups.
Michael,
Broadcasts are pay per view (cable or clubs are your options).
On the topic of fallen giants, I propose we change the topic. The fallen giants are being disposed by superior TEAMS. Those who love the complexity of football witnessed something very special during the Greek victory over France. I suppose one must love football more than your team to get it.
p.s. Martin Tyler is a god.
i really think that the smart money here is on the Czechs, 71 minutes and they’re beating the Danes 3-0. I would not want to have to mark Jan Koller.
For what it’s worth, i entered a quarterfinals-and-on bet with the soccer-mad Scottish bartender of a neighborhood watering hole; we flipped a coin to determine picking order and he won.
I ended up with czech republic, portugal, holland, and greece.
I’d like to claim brilliance, but of course i felt that greece had no chance, and i was deeply uncertain about portugal and holland.
at this point, i’m looking to a czech-portugal final.
And it’s been a great tournament, excellent action, a variety of playing styles, and of course as a true sports fan, i don’t care if the big-name teams are still alive or not.
PS. My own bet as to why the mighty have fallen is that the players on the mighty just have to play too damn many games; how many members of the Greek team, for instance, have played anything close to the number of matches that the best of the french, italian, english, and spanish have played?
You’ll all just have to take it on faith that last Friday I told my office-mate I thought the Czechs would win it all. She said what about France, and I said well, yes, but did you see the Czech comeback against Holland? Nobody else in the tournament has even come close to that. And their reserves — reserves! — made beating Germany look easy.
What you won’t have to take on faith is that A Fistful of Euros has been all over this subject, here and here.
ps Congratulations for noticing that the Tennessee Titans and the Minnesota Vikings could, in fact, play each other in the Superbowl. It’s a fact probably not widely appreciated in France, where people are more likely to look for a Superbowl team from Los Angeles, which hasn’t had a football team since the Raiders went back to Oakland where they belong, and the league has gotten along quite nicely without the LA Whatevers.
pps I realize that Portugal is a small country, but I’m finding the attendance figures almost quaint. I mean places like Columbus, Ohio; Ann Arbor Michigan; Knoxville, Tennessee; Boulder, Colorado; or Baton Rouge, Louisiana pack like 60 thousand to 80 thousand people into football stadiums during the regular season. These are neither major metropolises, nor are we talking about a matter of national pride. Yet there are only 40 thousand or so in the stands in Portugal? What gives?
It never ceases to amaze me how smart, scientific people on a site like this become blathering idiots when sports is the topic of discussion. How can rational people not see the silliness of reading grand theories into a fact (say England losing to Portugal or France to Greece) that may have been generated (considering how 1-0 is a typical score these days) by a single lucky bounce or a referee’s whim? Had the ref agreed with his linesman on Sol Campbell’s goal or one of Thierry Henry’s headers been a few inches to the left, we would now be discussing England and France’s current “success” instead of their “failure”, complete with attendant “explanations”. Any scientist proposing a theory based on such a small and capricious sampling would never have anything ever published again, yet here we are seriously considering all sorts of nonsense on the basis of a stroke of luck or the referee’s bias for or against a particular team on a particular day. Yes, I know, these sorts of discussions go better with beer… just let me order another pint and I’ll tell you why English (substitute the country of your choice) football is going to hell!
OK, so I was wrong. But who’d’a ever thunk that the Dutch would win a penalty shootout?
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review