Friendly Day for Four Euro Teams … Make That Three

Today, four of the sixteen teams going for Euro glory had warmup friendlies against sides that didn’t manage to qualify for the big show in SwissAustria. Three came away with pretty decent wins. The fourth ran into a wall, and that wall goes by the name of Erwin Koeman.

Dirk Kuyt (pictured) opened the scoring for Holland in what ended up a 3-0 romp over Ukraine. Switzerland had a nice win as well, preparing for their Euro home stand with a 2-0 result over Slovakia. Croatia only managed a single first-half goal, but it was enough to take care of Moldova, 1-0. Three matches, three wins, and three clean sheets … not a bad way to prepare for Euro 2008. And then there was Greece.

The defending European champions had, like the others, a relatively soft opponent lined up for their pre-tournament friendly. Unlike the others, though, Greece’s opposition, Hungary, has themselves a new coach. This was Erwin Koeman’s first match in charge of The Magical Magyars of Hungary, after a disappointing end to his stint at Feyenoord, where he steered the Dutch giants to a 7th place finish in this year’s Eredivisie. But he started off his international career with a bang today, beating Greece 3-2, on the strength of goals from Balazs Dzsudzak, Roland Juhasz and Krisztian Vadocz. After Greece opened the scoring, the match was all Hungary, and the scoreline actually makes it seem closer than it was, with Greece’s second goal coming as a late consolation, the match already out of reach.

No kind of good news this for the defending champions. After watching the video of how Hungary opened up the Greek defense, Russia, Spain and Sweden will be hungry for their own goalfests when play in Group D starts up on June 10.