Countdown To Euro 2012: 12 Days To Go - Croatia

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Croatia

How'd they get here: Defeated Turkey in the qualification play-off

Last Appearance: Euro 2008

Best Appearance: Euro 1996, Euro 2008 (Quarter-finals)

Schedule:

                        June 10 vs Ireland

                        June 14 vs Italy

                        June 18 vs Spain

The Story:

No longer one of Europe's dark-horses (Croatia finished 3rd in the '98 World Cup behind prolific goal scorer Davor Suker), Croatia will see advancing past the group stage a successful trip in what is to be head coach Slaven Bilic's last time (he's leaving for club side Lokomotiv Moscow after the tournament) leading his country. Bilic's side has several top-tier talents but unfortunately for him they are all found on the attacking side with Croatia's back four leaving plenty to be desired.

Former Tottenham defender Vedran Corluka has fallen out of form (he basically sucks now) and no longer earns his pay from the North London club, Domagoj Vida is an unproven 23 year old, Gordon Schildenfeld plays in the German Second Division (this would be like a Team USA player who plays in the NBDL), and Josip Simunic is a 34 year old who is looking at his prime in the rear view mirror. When this is your probable starting defense, you had better hope that your team can score A LOT of goals.

Countdown To Euro 2012: 14 Days To Go - Poland

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Poland

How'd they get here: Automatically qualified as co-hosts

Last Appearance: Euro 2008

Best Appearance: Euro 2008 (Group Stage)

 

Schedule:

June 8 vs Greece

                        June 12 vs Russia

                        June 16 vs Czech Republic

The Story:

The other co-host of this year's competition finds itself at #14 in this Euro 2012 Countdown. The Poles come into the tournament with an unproven squad hoping to give the home faithful something to cheer about. The benefit of automatically qualifying for the tournament as a co-host might prove to be detrimental to Poland's chances as this team has not played a meaningful game as a country for quite some time (they completely missed out on the qualifying process and have only played friendlies in preparation for the tournament). However the fact that they lucked out in the draw ending up in Group A puts them in a much better position than fellow co-host Ukraine to actually get out of the Group Stage.

Countdown To Euro 2012: 15 Days To Go - Ukraine

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Ukraine


How'd they get here: Automatically qualified as co-hosts

Last Appearance: Never (1992 as the U.S.S.R.)

Best Appearance: N/A

 Schedule:

                        June 11 vs Sweden

                        June 15 vs France

                        June 19 vs England

The Story:

  One of the competition's co-hosts appear to be stumbling to the starting line as the tournament draws closer and closer. First there is the political turmoil surrounding the imprisonment and beating of ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko that has caused quite a stir internationally with some world leaders (such as Germany's Prime Minister) threatening to boycott games played in the Ukraine. The politics have even taken a dangerous turn with an attack in the city of Dnipropetrovsk (not a city that will host the competition) injuring 26 people. Something not lost on the nations competing as only 3 countries have adopted Ukraine as their residence for the duration of the tournament.

The country's soccer team is also hoping things will work out when the tournament begins as they are a group of young unproven players led by aging stars who aren't what they used to be. Ukraine's team is coached by Oleh Blokhin, previous winner of the Ballon d'Or (awarded to the best football player in Europe) as a player. Blohkin coached Ukraine in their only other appearance at a major competition (the World Cup in 2006) and will hope to bring that experience to lead his country to a surprise quarter-final berth.

Countdown To Euro 2012: 16 Days To Go - Greece

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Greece

How'd they get here: Won qualifying Group F

Last Appearance: Euro 2008 (eliminated in the Group Stage)

Best Appearance: Euro 2004 (Champions)

Schedule:

                        June 8 vs Poland

                        June 12 vs Czech Republic

                        June 16 vs Russia

The Story:

It's hard to decide what's worse for Greece, the crippling economic crisis that has caused rioting in the streets and a fallout that is being felt throughout Europe or me ranking them last in this thing I made up last night. It's too hard to call so I'll just call them 1A and 1B, just kidding, this ranking is definitely #1 on the list of things Greece wishes it could turn around. However if you've ever seen any Disney sports movie you might realize that this is setting up quite nicely, "a team of underdogs join up to overcome all the odds lifting their country out of crisis at the same time they lift the trophy". So what are the odds we'll be watching 'Euro 2012: A Greek Odyssey' starring Emilio Estevez (he really needs the work) as the team's coach sometime in the future? In my opinion, not so good.

Countdown to Euro 2012 - An Introduction

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Have we all recovered from Chelsea thrillingly parking the bus for 300 straight minutes en route to becoming the European club champions? Luckily for everyone but Chelsea fans (who might never stop celebrating this improbable championship run) we have another huge soccer event coming up in just 17 days. The event I'm talking about is of course Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine, UEFA's premier international competition where 16 nations (this number will rise to 24 starting with Euro 2016 in France simply so UEFA can make more money) compete to become Europe's best footballing nation. With the competition just 17 days away I thought it'd be a good idea to do a countdown to Euro 2012 with a new blog post each day leading up to the tournament. 

Each blog post will be a team preview of each of the participating countries starting with the team I think has the least likely shot at winning followed by teams with better chances until June 7 (one day before the tournament starts) where I will write about the team I believe will win it all (spoiler alert: it will be Spain unless there's an injury). Why do this? For one it will give me an opportunity to write something about I like each day until the tournament starts but more importantly because my country's (Serbia) team didn't make the competition, this will give me an opportunity to learn about each country's squad and which ones will be fun to watch and which certainly won't (I'm looking at you Greece). Not having your country qualify does have benefits as you can watch the games from the outside simply cheering for your favourite player or for a good competitive game as opposed to being completely emotionally connected to your nation's performance. With that being said though, I would still immediately trade the passive outsider feel of watching the tournament for the slim chance at having Serbia win the trophy even with the sure emotional scarring that comes with being invested in any sport. Let's just move on before I start to get sad about how we couldn't beat Estonia even once in our qualifying group.

Hopefully these posts will be fun and entertaining reads as we learn more about the teams that will participate in this year's European Championship. 

I'll leave you with the official song for Euro 2012, Endless Summer by Macy Gray Oceana.

Until tomorrow when the countdown begins with team #16!

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