One of the biggest soccer event after world cup is European Football Championship which is just round the corner and will be held in Austria and Switzerland between 7 - 29th Of June 2008. Billions of audience all around the world will be glued to their TV when matches between the top football teams of Europe will start. On 29th June they will witness the two finalists battle on the 53,000 seat Ernst Happel Stadium at Vienna for title of European Football Champion 2008.
Total of 16 teams will participate in the tournament among which Austria and Switzerland have already qualified for the tournament as the host nation and remaining 14 teams have also been finalized on the basis of qualification matches which include:
Switzerland, Czech Republic, Portugal, Turkey in Group A
Austria, Croatia, Germany, Poland in Group B
Holland, Italy, Romania, France in Group C
Greece, Sweden, Spain, Russia in Group D
A record number of betting activities is massively going on to predict the result of the championship which is only second to the football world cup in terms of money spent.
The new trophy for Euro Cup 2008
Euro Cup 2008 will see a new trophy awarded top the winner of the tournament. A new version of the old trophy created by Asprey London is the almost replica of the older trophy which was created by Arthus-Bertrand. This new trophy does not hold a small character juggling a ball and the place has been covered with a marble plinth. The trophy had to be expanded on its silver base to make it more stable. The weight of 8 Kgs and height of 60 cm completely represents the glorious history of European football as the name of all the winning teams has been engraved on the back of the Cup.
The qualifying games
The qualifying matches of Euro 2008 started just after Word Cup 2006. Austria and Switzerland had already qualified for the games as the host nations and 14 teams had to been chosen for the finals in 2008. The qualifying games were different than the format of previous years. The winners and runners up form each group were automatically qualified for the Championship. This change in format ruled out all the possibilities for play - offs between teams finishing second place which were directly selected for the championship.
Slogan and Mascots for Euro Cup 2008
"Expect Emotions" is the slogan for the Euro Cup 2008. This slogan was chosen from different other ideas place on the UEFA meeting. President Michel Platini stated that this slogan describes the value of what Euro Cup 2008 has to offer. He said Euro Cup means all kind of emotions i.e. joy, disappointment, relief or tension". "Trix and Flix" are the two official mascots for the UEFA Euro 2008. These mascots were chosen after vote from the public of two hosting nations.
Absence of England
One of the most disappointing facts of this year will be England's disqualification in the tournament. After the unexpected loss against Croatia, England was not able to qualify for the games. England lost in their group failing to reserve a sport in Euro Cup 2008 finals. The loss of England against Croatia saw the Coach of English team Steve McClaren being sacked. Besides, this Scotland lost out to Italy and France losing in their Group and Wales was already disqualified after their loss and Northern Island didn’t made to the end. So this is for sure that 2008's Euro Cup won’t see any country participating from the United Kingdom.
The Prize Money
UEFA has announced that the total of €184 million will spent as prize money in this tournament among all the 16 member teams. This amount of prize money is higher than that of previous tournament of Euro Cup 2004 held in Portugal which was €129 million. Each participating team will get €7.5 million while every team will get extra prize money on the basis of their performance. Every Team that wins in the group stage will get €1 million, while for a draw they will receive €500,000. A win in the quarterfinals will attract €2 million while the team which wins in the semis will get €3 million. Besides this the runner up team will receive €4.5 million and the winner of the tournament will be awarded a hopping €7.5 million. It is calculated that the final winning team of the tournament will receive a total of €23 million in prize money.
It will be extremely difficult to predict the winner of this tournament as one might see early exit of some powerful nations as the teams are pecked in highly competitive groups. Among the favorites will be world cup 2006 champions Italy who will be competing with likes of France and Spain. Germany too has good chances of winning the tournament as it has some great talents of Football world. Besides this Portugal is one team that cannot be overlooked as they have good possibilities of knocking few of the best teams around. Analysts expect that Portugal and Germany have good chances to excel till the semis since they have very good track record in the Euro Cup finals of yester years.
What will happen in the euro cup 2008 in Austria and Switzerland will only be decided through time but huge speculation have been started on the games and the winning teams. Many betting agents and sites all around have started roping in their full strength to cover the Euro Cup 2008 and is expected that this game will attract a huge number of betting that any previous game. Big names of the European Football are already out of the finals, so it will be more interesting to see which country might be the final winner. Will it be the power center like France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the dark horse Czech Republic or the debutant Austria? This is the hot puzzle of time and will only be solved when the ball kicks off on 7th June 2008 between the match of Switzerland and Czech Republic.
Euro 2008 Austria-Switzerland | Euro 2008 Fixtures
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