EURO 2008

Trekker_1983 · Post by **Trekker_1983** » June 7th, 2008, 7:09 pm

Anybody here following the Euro 2008 (Austria - Switzerland) too?

I know there are alot of Europeans here and they're broadcasting the event all around the world anyway.
I used to support England. But since they didn't qualify this year, so I will probably support Holland or France.

Post by **origami_8** » June 7th, 2008, 8:24 pm

It is hard to avoid

Where I live, everything is decorated with Euro or Austria flags. The newspapers do not know any other subject and in the supermarkets you get Soccer-stickers with every purchase you make *sigh*

Trekker_1983 · Post by **Trekker_1983** » June 8th, 2008, 1:24 pm

hehe.. I guess they're working hard to promote the event.
And Austria will play this evening against Croatia..

I hope Austria will win, because Croatia got rid of England

Adam · Post by **Adam** » June 9th, 2008, 12:58 pm

origami_8 wrote:It is hard to avoid
Where I live, everything is decorated with Euro or Austria flags. The newspapers do not know any other subject and in the supermarkets you get Soccer-stickers with every purchase you make *sigh*

I guess it's the same in every country. Yesterday I was watching Comedy Central and even they had several football-related commercials..
Everyone is talking about the games, and speculating about who will win. I honestly don't understand what the fuss is all about, as I just don't see how it could be so amazingly entertaining to watch 22 grown men chase a ball. Sure, it can be fun to watch, but it's just so overhyped that I refuse to watch it.

Anyway, the only teams I support are the Polish and the Dutch teams, because I consider both countries to be my native countries.

Post by **TheRealChris** » June 9th, 2008, 1:40 pm

as I just don't see how it could be so amazingly entertaining to watch 22 grown men chase a ball.

I really got to find the book where this quote is from. it must be a very famous book, because everybody that never really thought about sports seem to be in need to quote that sentence.
its funny, because you can change that standard phrase into every kind of sports like
why does a grown up man hits a little ball as far as he can instead of walking to that damn hole and put the ball in?
why does two or four people hit a ball over a net over and over again, instead of buying their own ball and play with it?
why does a bunch of people fight for one ball to throw it into a basket that hangs too high in the air?
why does people step onto long (sometimes wooden) boards and glide over the snow instead of walking?
why do people running a far distance instead of easily walking it?

hey you're right, there's nothing like competition or (even more stupid) fun, sports is just dumb and useless... now I got it

oh by the way: reading novels, listening to music or watching movies is also dumb and useless. what is so funny about watching people play a story when your mind can think of so many better things

why listening to music when you can play by yourself?

Adam · Post by **Adam** » June 9th, 2008, 5:26 pm

I should have underlined the word "amazingly" there.

Like I said, it can be fun to watch, but it's just insanely popular, and I don't really know why. And by that I mean that there are actual riots when a team loses a game. The competition-part makes it enjoyable for most people to watch, but people often take it a bit too seriously. It is, after all, only a game. A game played by well-trained professionals, but a game nonetheless.

Oh, and Why don't people just play football themselves, instead of watching it on TV?

Reading novels, listening to music and watching movies can show you how other people express themselves and you can learn a lot from them. For example, after listening to Rubinstein's recordings of Chopin's music I thought his interpretation of Chopin's music was better than mine, in some cases. By listening to his recording I was inspired to alter and improve my playing.

The same can happen with sports, and therefore one could consider them usefull aswell.

By reading your post ('literature'?

) I noticed that my thinking was flawed. Perhaps I should've put it a bit differently in my previous post, though.

Post by **origami_8** » June 9th, 2008, 7:08 pm

In my opinion with sport it is the same as with theatre. Playing yourself can be a lot of fun but watching is just boring. There are also a lot of tv series that I do not like watching because they are boring in my opinion.

It is much more fun to do something yourself so I can't understand why people watch a match where the only difference in hours is the position of the players and the ball. If they would go out and play themselves I could understand it very well but not sitting in front of their television set, drinking lots of beer and bawling every time the ball hits the goal.

Trekker_1983 · Post by **Trekker_1983** » June 9th, 2008, 7:47 pm

Ofcourse they can play football themselves. But playing football yourself and watching professional players in big event like the Euro Championship are two very different thing.

Watching football matches on tv is entertainment, where you can watch well trained professional players play some good football that you can't achieve by playing it yourself. It involves alot of things such as entertainment, excitement, pride (when your nation is participating) etc.
Some people may like it, some people may not. And there's nothing wrong with that.
But it will start to get wrong when people bring bad things that are not related to the game, such as hooliganism, racism etc.

I made the thread to discuss the event, but looks like no one's interested..

Oh well... Italy vs Holland game is on.. gotta get back on TV!

Post by **origami_8** » June 25th, 2008, 9:23 pm

It is really amazing how robust those EM-flags are. Yesterdays hailstones hit holes through the leaves of the trees, our supermarket was closed because of the watermasses, just now the street lamps went of because of the storm and the EM-flags are already intact.
Hopefully the electricity in here won't go out as well

Trekker_1983 · Post by **Trekker_1983** » June 25th, 2008, 10:10 pm

Hailstorm

Sorry to hear about that.. Hope everything will be fine again soon.

So that explains everything. The semi-final broadcast on Germany vs Turkey, in Wien, was cut off 3 times. Probably because of power outage.
Missed some important parts of the match, including 2 dramatic goals...

Post by **origami_8** » June 25th, 2008, 10:28 pm

Well, I think the storm is nearly over now, just a bit thunder and lightning and a few raindrops, really nothing to worry about. The street lamps where off just for a few minutes. OK, I still wouldn't want to go out but it is far better now.
The Fan Zone in Vienna has been closed because of the storm because they expected wind speeds of 100km/h.