Euro 2008

Turkey ended a great run in the Europe 2008, heading home after a thrilling 3 goals to 2 defeat in the hands of the Germans. Reduced to only 14 outfield players due to suspensions and injuries, the Turks took the game to the Germans in the opening half of play and were rewarded with a goal in the 22 minute of play by Ugur Boral. The Germans responded in style though, with Lukas Podolski crossing the ball in for Bastien Schweinsteiger to flick in the equaliser in the 26 minute. That is how the game ended in the first half. Germany took a 2 to 1 lead in the 79 minute of play through a Miroslav Klose header but the Turks came right back with an equaliser four minutes to the end of the match through Semih Senturk. Defense man Philipp Lahm sealed the victory for Germany in the 90 minute of play. The Turks (the comeback kid of the competition) head home with a team that found itself in this competition. Watch out for them in South Africa 2010. This edition of the Germany team has quite a few players that have been hiding in the German Bundesliga. Michael Ballack and Miroslav Klose have been stars in the German national team since the 2002 World Cup. But how about Lukas Podolski and Bastien Schweinsteiger. Both players are deadly in Coach Joachim Low's 4-2-3-1 formation. Podolski can flat out play, has great speed and can both set up goals and finish just as well. Bastien Schweinsteiger is the showman of the team. The Guy has recovered fully from the red card that he picked up during the Croatian game on match day two of the competition. He covers a lot of ground and scores some great goals. The flick in for the equaliser was just a thing of beauty. Defense man Philipp Lahm can defend as well as attack as a winger, scoring the third goal for his side to seal the victory. Germany would now wait for the winner of the Spain versus Russia game scheduled for today,Thursday the 26 of June, to know their opponents for the finals due to take place on Sunday the 29 of June.This classic game will be remembered for something else though.There were quite a few power outages during the second half of the encounter and watching the game somewhere in Douala,Cameroon I thought it was a problem with signals getting to us in Africa.But it turned out the power failure was due to a severe thunderstorm that hit the Vienna area where the satellite feeds were coming from. We got to see the first two goals of the match live and Lahm's late winning goal.Germany's second goal and Turkey's equaliser came when the TV sets were displaying apology's due to power interruption. Never seen anything like this on a live major competition.Spain will be playing in the finals of Euro 2008 on Sunday 29 of June after defeating Russia by 3 goals to 0.It will be Spain's first participation in the final of the European championship since 1984 when they lost to France.Spain dominating a Russian team that had completely ran out of steam after such a brilliant run into the semi-final.The first half ended in a goalless tie, but goals from Xavi Hernandez(50'),Daniel Guiza(73') and David Silva(82')completed a brilliant all around performance of the Spanish team.Andres Iniesta got the man of the match award but Cesc Fabregas was just as brilliant, setting up goals for Danial Guiza and David Silva.Spain's leading goalscorer for the competition;David Villa, picked up an injury in the 34 minute of play and was substituted for Cesc Fabregas.Villa will thus be missing Sunday's final match against Germany.