Euro 2008 Guide (Part Two)

Group A

Czech Republic

Not the team they once was when Pavel Nedved, Patrick Berger and Karel Poborsky were all pulling the strings. Along with a much younger Koller and an in form Baros the Czech team had all the ingredients for a fantastic side. However now Nedved, Berger and Poborsky have all gone and with influential midfielder Rosicky missing too you have to wonder how far they can go in this competition. However they will still fancy themselves to beat Switzerland and Turkey from their group and with Petr Cech in goal they have the best keeper in the world. At the back they are solid too; key players Grygera, Jankulovski and Ujfalusi have 176 caps between them.

Portugal

Phil Scolari has a knack of doing well with teams he takes to big finals like this one. Four years ago he took this Portugal side to the final and should’ve won against Greece in the final, this year he and his side will be looking to go one step further. Everyone will be focusing on Ronaldo but the Portugal squad is brimming with flamboyant players like Simao, Nani, Quaresma, Moutinho and Deco. They aren’t short of experience at the back either with Ricardo (goalkeeper, 75 caps), Miguel (47 caps), Paulo Ferreria (47 caps), Ricardo Carvalho (43 caps), Fernando Meira (49 caps). All over the pitch Portugal have talent, which is why this year could just be their year.

Switzerland

The co-hosts will not expect to finish top of this group or even second however as the old cliché goes “football’s a funny old game”. Not that funny though. Alexander Frei is the man up top for the Swiss with 35 goals to his name with Hakan Yakin in midfield the creative star. At the back the Swiss are experienced and hard to break down at times with the likes of Muller, Magnin, Spycher and new Liverpool signing Philipp Degan adding much protection to their goal. Protection is something they are definitely going to need when the likes of Ronaldo, Koller, Nihat, Deco, Tuncay, Baros etc are going at them.

Turkey

I am torn whether the Turkish team will finish above the Czech’s in this group; I think it will depend on how key players perform. Former Newcastle midfielder Emre being one of the players who needs to show why he is highly rated on the International scene. Nihat up front will score the goals in the Turkish side along with Tuncay who plays his trade for Middlesbrough in the Premiership. Captain of the side is experienced infamous goalkeeper Rustu Recber who is an experienced character. The problem with Turkey is that they don’t have enough goal scorers or flair players to really mount an attack on the European Championship trophy. Having said that they are hard to beat and on their day can cause problems for many sides across Europe.

Euro 2008 Guide (Part One)

Group B

Austria

There is no CHANCE in hell that Austria will win the tournament and if you’re being totally honest Austria did only qualify because they are hosting it along with Switzerland. They are in an interesting group with Germany, Croatia and Poland so I don’t expect them to even get out of their group. You’d expect both Germany and Croatia to beat them and even Poland will fancy their chances against the hosts. To win matches in International tournaments you need a strong defence, influential midfield and forwards who will score. Austria only has one of these qualities, therefore have no chance.

Croatia

Had Eduardo not suffered one of the most horrible injuries you’ve ever seen a few months ago I’d fancy Croatia to have gone very far. Unfortunately for them and the neutrals Eduardo is missing from the tournament however they have many other talented players such as Modric, Petric, Kranjcar, Srna and of course the two Kovac brothers Robert and Niko the captain. Croatia are my dark horses but if they finish second in the group and Portugal wins their group (which you expect they will) the two will meet in the next round. Against Portugal you just can’t see Croatia A) scoring and B) keeping a clean sheet. Never the less it should be interesting to see if Croatia can prove me and the critics’ wrong, if anyone can it’s the Croatians.

Germany

We all know about the Germans in International football competitions, they are brilliant and performing in the big tournaments and I expect them to turn up in June. They have forwards who can score serious goals and don’t be surprised if the top scorer from the competition is a German when you have Klose (39 goals), Podolski (25 goals), Kuranyi (19 goals) up and coming 22 year forward Mario Gomez who has 6 goals in 10 games. Defensively the Germans are strong too with centre backs Mertesacker and Metzelder along with the impressive full back Philipp Lahm. However apart from Ballack the midfield is not looking as strong as it once did, the same goes with the goalkeeper position which will suffer without German legend Oliver Kahn. Either way expect Germany to be around the semi-final places because they are so good in knock out competitions.

Poland

Can’t say I know much about the Polish team but what I do know is that all three of their goalkeepers play their trade on the British Isles. I don’t expect Poland to qualify from this group when you consider how strong Germany and Croatia will be in their group. I suppose stranger things have happened in these tournaments (Greece winning it four years ago comes straight to mind). I am sure Poland will have a strong following from this country and also that the commentators will have great fun in trying to pronounce the names of almost every player.

Euro 2008 Preview

So England are not in the tournament; big fucking deal. I for one am glad England are not in the competition because the likes of Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney, Wes Brown, Owen Hargreaves, Michael Carrick will all get the summer off. I’m not a big follower of England for reasons I will not delve into. Anyway I love International tournaments like Copa America, European Championships and of course the World Cup.

The BBC and many tabloid newspapers have been voicing their “Who Will You Support?” campaign in a plea to get more people interested. I said from day one I was going to support Portugal and I stand by that because I love big Phil Scolari, Ronaldo, Nani, Veluso, Quaresma, Mouintho, Pepe, Ricardo – fuck it the whole team (I may become Portuguese just because I love Nando’s so much as well).

I suspect the usual suspects to be challenging for the crown the likes of Italy, Germany and France. Many are suggesting it could be the year of Spain when you look at the talent they have in Torres, Silva, Villa, Fabregas, Puyol etc. Could it be the year of Croatia? I like their team spirit and have many really good passers of the ball. Undoubtedly they will miss their main scorer Eduardo, just like Italy and France will miss their captains Cannavaro and Vieira respectively.

Through a lengthy working out going through every fixture I have come to the conclusion that Portugal will knock out Germany in the Semi-Finals to face Spain who will knock out France in the Semi-Finals. To get a final of Portugal against Spain, which I think is the final we all want to see, probably the two best attacking sides in the competition against each other. Who would win out of those two? I think it could come down to penalties, and then my money would be on lucky Ronaldo and Portugal.

Album: Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell

When ‘A Lesson In Crime’ was released hype and buzz surrounded this Canadian outfit and rightly so considering the brilliance of the EP come album. That was over two years ago and since then the band put out ‘Smith EP’ which featured one of my favourite songs of last year, ‘Box’. They also released the single ‘Your English Is Good’ along the way to which thankfully has made it to the album.

All these releases in the space of a couple of years show that this band is certainly not afraid to get material out there quickly. However some times quantity does not beat quality, The Pigeon Detectives comes to mind straight away.

Many fans of the band were upset with the track listing of the new album because it only had ‘Your English Is Good’ on it and none from the first release ‘A Lesson In Crime’. To me this was refreshing from a band; it could have been so easy to fill the album with songs they’d re-recorded from that first EP, thankfully they did not.

First single from ‘Elephant Shell’ is ‘Tessellate’ which is certainly a strong first single providing us with some great vocals from Dave Monks. Singer and bass player Dave Monks certainly does have an unusual voice and this is strong on ‘Tessellate’ which is brimming with sharp guitar chords and sweet piano sounds.

‘Centennial’ starts the album off and does not disappoint and has all the Tokyo Police Club trademarks we come to expect from listening to ‘A Lesson In Crime’. ‘In A Cave’ follows the first track on and remains my favourite song from the album. For some reason when I first received the album this was the opening track so it was the first song I heard and it still remains the song I always go back to first when I put the record on.

The impressive single from last summer ‘Your English Is Good’ is on the album and is still as powerful as before. “Oh, give us your vote, give us your vote. If you know what’s good for you.” Not sure what we’re voting for but if their manifesto is as good as this song I’ll certainly be voting.

This album includes many, many more highlights including ‘Listen to the Math’ which is a little slower than we come to expect with Tokyo Police Club. ‘Juno’ which shares the same name as recent film about teenage pregnancy, although I don’t think it’s about the same topic. All the same ‘Juno’ provides yet another reason why this is a really good album. ‘Graves’ is a song any good respectful indie band would be proud of, and you can hear some Strokes riffs in there to boot, which is never a band thing.

It was always going to be hard to follow up the impressive first release ‘A Lesson In Crime’ but I am sitting on the fence to whether or not it beats it. My only complaint with this album is that at 27 minutes and 58 seconds it is a little short however if you’ve got a spare 30 minutes and you want some easy listening indie then look no further than this album.

7.4/10

Mario Kart: Nintendo Wii

For everyone who ever had a SNES, NES or N64 when they were younger the best thing about having the console was Mario. In particular for me it was playing Mario Kart with your mates, everyone crowded round a small television playing 4-way split screen Mario Kart. Someone was always Mario, Luigi and Dong Kong and I was ALWAYS Yoshi for some reason. You raced your mates like your life depended on it. Sadly this great fun has been missing from all our lives for far too long, which is why many of us Nintendo geeks were ecstatic when Mario Kart was released for Nintendo Wii.

There were some questions surrounding the game; would it let us down? Would it be far too advanced for us to really compare it to the retro days of Mario Kart on our old Nintendo consoles? Would Nintendo try and complicate things too much by adding too many new characters?

Thankfully Nintendo came up with the goods and have provided Nintendo Wii owners across the world with perhaps the best game to have come out on Wii thus far (although Super Mario Galaxy is flawless). What Nintendo has now that it didn’t have 10/15 years ago is online accessibility which has created a whole new world for Nintendo gamers. Playing against 11 others online on several different tracks is something never experienced before by Nintendo geeks. Racing people from across the globe on Mario Kart is a new experience for everyone and one that all Mario Kart owners are thoroughly enjoying.

But do not worry if you do not have internet access on your Wii there is plenty more things to do so that you don’t get bored quick. The career mode will take you plenty of time to complete perfectly through the different engine sizes. Then if you’ve had enough of that you can always get your friends round and play them on split screen with characters old and characters new.

All this great entertainment without even mentioning its unique selling point: the Nintendo Wii Wheel. Which means you can now play Mario Kart as if you were driving yourself, move your wheel left and you go left, move it right and guess what happens? I’m sure you’ve got the correct answer. Press B and fire shells, release bananas, turn into a rocket and much more brilliant weapons and speed ups. In Mario Kart Wii Nintendo have created a racing game which is perfect for everybody in the family. Well done Nintendo.

100%

Walk The Line

Really I should’ve watched Walk The Line on it’s release some 3 years ago but alas I did not. When it was released it didn’t really catch my eye and I didn’t really think much of Johnny Cash’s music.

Thankfully I finally got round to watching it and despite me still not really liking the style of Johnny Cash I thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so I went out and purchased it (for 5 quid, along with a Johnny Cash CD – also 5 quid). Obviously the film is about the career of Johnny Cash however there is much more to it than that. You find out about his family life, his personal life, his drug and drink problems and everything that goes with being a rock star.

There was times in the film where I disliked Johnny Cash but overall you end up really loving his personality. Joaquin Phoenix (who wanted to be known as Leaf Phoenix as a kid because his siblings were called River, Rain and Summer) delivered a performance like no other. To think that Joaquin Phoenix played Commodus in Gladiator is unbelievable when you watch this performance of Johnny Cash. It really put Joaquin in a different light, and then when I found out he was vegan I liked him even more so. Reese Witherspoon collected the Oscar for Best Actress at the Academy Awards and rightly so because her performance was excellent. However, how Joaquin Phoenix did not win Best Actor is one of life’s bizarre mysteries I suppose.

The film is a sensational story of Johnny Cash but it is made by the performance of Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash. When I see a real picture of Johnny Cash then think of how Joaquin looked in the film it is remarkable how much a like they looked. What is even more outstanding is that Phoenix sung all the songs himself and sounded just like Johnny Cash. Someone who I was talking to actually thought Joaquin was miming and could not believe it when I informed them it was him singing.

What makes this film so brilliant is the way one minute you have a moment of laughter closely followed by a moment of seriousness to then a moment where you are going through the emotions with the characters. Not forgetting the outstanding casting of the actors, the exceptional performances from the lead characters and of course the sublime soundtrack.

This film has everything you’d ever want from a film.

* * * * * * * * * *

Eurovision 2008

Understandably this post should’ve come seven days ago however I’ve been up to my eyes in work (hahahaha). It’s just late and I got a spur to write about it mainly because my girlfriend purchased the newest Sebastien Tellier album today and we listened to it on the car on the way home.

Anyway back on track; the Eurovision contest is always a great laugh usually because a mixture of Terry Wogan’s commentary and the acts involved. It has become an absolute joke recently though and for all the wrong reasons. The Eurovision is not about the music it’s all about politics and who is “in” with whom. What a surprise that countries such as Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland all voted for each other. Or that the Eastern block all voted for each other and who was surprised when Spain and Portugal gave each other the top points? Certainly not me.

I do not think the UK deserved to get any points considering the song this year was done by X-Factor reject and ex-bin man Andy. It was a dreadful song and the way Andy pranced around stage made you cringe to think he had kids watching him. The United Kingdom deserved nothing but surprisingly got 14 points (or something pathetic like that).

I actually can’t remember the song that won it anymore (which says a lot about the song) but remember that it was Russia and that Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia etc all voted for Russia. IF the votes were purely based on how good the song was then Russia would’ve stood no chance. On music there was only one winner and that was France. Sebastien Tellier’s Divine was easily the best song eight days ago. How the hell he did not win is beyond me, the song stood out like a throbbing sore thumb compared to the “talent” it was up against.

Poor Sebastien, I am sure you’re gutted but do not worry Mr. Tellier because the rest of my family and I think you were ace. You are the real winner of Eurovision 2008.

Sebastien Tellier - Divine (Credit to GWFAS)