The European Soccer Championship starts today

with Germany playing Poland in three hours. The Netherlands plays Italy tomorrow. Stay tuned! Everyone is very excited about the European Cup on this side of the pond....very high energy. Businesses, cars, and homes are displaying their country's flag. If Germany wins its first game, and it should, horns will be honking!

BBC will probably give updates if you get that channel.

Germany sponsored the last World Cup, and it was such a big deal. Even though the U.S. didn't do so well, Americans were great about supporting the team, wearing the stars and stripes draped like a cape just as the Europeans were doing with their own flags. I would like to fly the US flag from my car, but it's not our championship to play, so I'll cheer for Germany...got the German flag in the car window like everybody else!

Copa America has way better, more exciting games.

My wet soccer dream: CONMEBOL and CONCACAF merge their respective tournaments into an all-Americas shootout. Mexico is already a regular at Copa America.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world can't get enough of soccer or books.

Does the U.S. suffer from a nation-wide form of ADHD?

If anything will promote soccer in the U.S., it will be the military's children who play it on various teams on bases overseas where it is quite popular, especially in Japan. Mia Hamm is an Air Force "brat" and got interested in soccer while her father was stationed in Italy.

And the US team is now good enough to hold its own against anyone. Re: 2006 World Cup.

with the exception of the U.S.

But, yeah...the U.S. team is starting to make a showing, which is a good thing. I'd like to see Obama promote the sport, since he had played in his youth.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/euro2008/index?cc=5901

http://en.euro2008.uefa.com/

ESPN Classic will have Germany vs Poland at 5:00pm Eastern.

the Czech beat the Swiss (1-0) and Portugal beat Turkey (2-0)!

Thanks for that information. I hadn't heard!

Since Switzerland and Austria are hosting, it's too bad Switzerland lost its first game. The host nation always has so much hope!

I did feel a little sorry for the Swiss, because for much of the time they played the better game (though, overall, it was pretty much like watching paint dry . . .). Petr Cech seemed very distracted; I was frankly surprised the Swiss didn't score.

The second match was a lot more lively and for a time it looked like it might not resolve from a draw, but Turkey ran out of steam and started falling apart in the second half (imo - and I'm no expert, and a girl to boot! ;) ) Not too many theatrics from either side, which was a surprise . . . you rather expect lots of falling over and writhing on the floor from those teams!

Good Luck today - I'll root for you (I don't have a dog in the race, though I'm leaning toward Portugal at the moment, just 'cuz)!

Austria and Croatia are just getting ready to start . . .

(for folks in the US - they're actually covering the matches on ESPN *shock*!)

I hope we will win the Championship!!!

2-0!

:bounce::bounce::bounce: