Five Things We Learned in Swissaustria, June 10th

June 10th, 2008 | by: Daryl |

1. Guus Hiddink has a masterplan
He’s figured that the sooner you get out of Euro 2008, the sooner you can get the Chelsea job. His plan is to be on Abramovich’s yacht before Big Phil Scolari. Losing 4-1 in your opening game is the fast-track out of Swissaustria.

2. Some things are worth waiting for
We endured 66 minutes of torture (mostly Greek defenders passing it back and forth) but it was (arguably) worth it for Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s outside of the right boot stinger. And if you thought 66 minutes was a long time, Zlatan’s waited two and a half years since his last blågult goal.

3. We might be seeing a lot less of Cesc that expected
A lot of people were expecting Fabregas to be all over Euro 2008. But there are many more centre mids in Spain than there are at the Emirates, so the talented young fella may have to bide his time. Diving header or not.

4. Spain has the fastest strikeforce in Swissaustria
Fernando Torres and David Villa made the Russian defenders look like they were playing underwater. You can keep your big-man/little-man partnerships, the future is fast-man/fast-man.

5. DON’T beware of Greeks bearing gifts
Petter Hansson didn’t look very wary when gifted a chance to make it 2-0, and he has a goal to prove it.

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Comments

By Nolan | June 10th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

It’s funny how after the English media hyped Torres and Cesc up as Spain’s main men, the true stars revealed themselves – Villa and Iniesta.

Posted from Argentina

By john | June 10th, 2008 at 4:01 pm

Agreed Nolan. Further more, after the first round only one goal has been scored by a Premier League player – and by one raised by a Spanish youth team (Cesc of Barca youth). Of the 16 goals:

La Liga – 6 (3 Villa, 1 Pepe, 1 Sneijder, 1 Ruud)

Serie A – 2 (1 Gio, 1 Ibrahimovich)

And the rest are a smattering of other leagues with 1 goal each.

By dumb-people | June 10th, 2008 at 4:10 pm

You people are insane, drawing conclusions on teams after 1 game, and drawing conclusions of players performances based on scores

Posted from United States

By Rob | June 10th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

Its pretty easy to say Cesc was in Barca’s youth, but they did let him go to Arsenal, so they didn’t rate him that much.

Posted from United Kingdom

By Marco Pantanella | June 10th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

Daryl wrote:
Guus Hiddink has a masterplan. He’s figured that the sooner you get out of Euro 2008, the sooner you can get the Chelsea job. His plan is to be on Abramovich’s yacht before Big Phil Scolari.

Ahah good one Daryl. I wouldn’t bee too hasty at dismissing the sneaky Dutchman though. If there’s one thing Hiddink has proven over the years, it’s that he can do magic with average teams (cf South Korea and Australia).

By James | June 10th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

Torres is still a star, don’t you remember who gave that assist? Besides Villa didn’t look too fit anyways.

Posted from United States

By mb | June 10th, 2008 at 5:13 pm

i’ve been surprised to hear how much criticism the Greek’s take for their defensive strategy. The goal is to win the game- and the best way to do that is to do the best with what you have. And that’s what the Greek’s are doing- it worked last time. Unlike others, I found the match to be very interesting, entertaining, and tense. I was proud the Greek’s were going to play the game their way. It was very interesting to see such a strategy being played so well. I sat wondering how Sweden would react- are they going to get so frustrated they take chances, will they sit back and wait forever, etc?

I enjoyed it.

Posted from United States

By Anselm | June 10th, 2008 at 10:08 pm

Barca didn’t let Fabregas go, Arsenal stoled him. In fact barca still want him back just like Pique.

Posted from United States

By Brigitterozario | June 10th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

Here’s one more thing we learnt:

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has balls of steel.

Posted from Australia

By ish | June 11th, 2008 at 3:53 am

lets see torres had an assist or two? Torres has a fast physical game not suited to the slow spanish build up since he cant utilise his speed as much. But during the killer pass or counter he is great and caused a threat to russia while he was on.
Fabregas i think he was offside for that goal but the pass to villa was perfect.
Also from those stats that means the italian are shit and need to import players to score there goals for them.(which is basically true)

Posted from Australia

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