Description

The course of Euro 2008

On the football fields of Austria and Switzerland, the hosts failed to make it out of the group. The Greek team, the sensational champion of Europe four years ago, also failed to repeat their success – this time in the group they lost all their matches and were the only team in the entire tournament not to win even a single point.

In the “group of death” after three games, France ended its adventure with the tournament. An interesting outcome took place in group A, where Turkey in the last match against the Czech Republic managed to go from a score of 0–2 to 3–2, which gave it promotion to the quarterfinals.

Also, the quarterfinal match involving the Turks (against Croatia) provided sudden twists and turns: although in overtime, in the 119th minute, the Croatians went into the lead, in the added time Turkey equalized and led to a series of penalty kicks, which they eventually won.

In the semifinals, however, after a thrilling match against Germany, the Turks had to acknowledge the superiority of their opponent. In addition to Germany, the other finalist was Spain, which had the most problems in the quarterfinal clash with Italy, won only after penalty kicks.

The final took place at Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna and ended in a 1–0 victory for Spain after a goal by Fernando Torres. For the Spaniards, it was their second triumph at the European Championships (they won the first title in 1964), which broke the popular saying “we play like never before, but lose like always”.