EURO 2008 DIARY DAY 5: SWISS CHEESES … 0 GRATERS … 1 (Let your Barnetta get more Tranquillo)

Stop all the Cuckoo clocks, cut off the Toblerone,
Prevent them skiing slaloms in their Alpine home.
Silence the big cow bells and with muffled horn,
Knock out the co-hosts, let the statos come.

We’ve watched Korea, Japan, the US of A:
None of those hosts have gone out this way,
World Cup, The Euros, two countries or one;
I thought hosts lasted longer: I was wrong.

It’s time for mourning, troops. It’s time to bow your heads and remember the first victims of Euro 2008. Let’s be sombre. Let’s be sad. Unless, that is, ye happen to be Austrian - in which case, let’s have a pint, a guffaw, a snaffle of schnitzel and enjoy a huge “THANK FUCK IT WIZNAE US!!!”. Switzerland, ye see, have just beaten their neighbours to the title of WORST TOURNAMENT HOSTS OF ALL TIME.

Okay, okay - right - aye, I know some of you will maybe feel The Third Reich’s hosting of the 1936 Olympics wiznae the best and that Franco and Mussolini did a fair job of spoiling the sporting integrity (Copyright Peter Lawell) of the 1964 Euros and the 1934 World Cup respectively but, I’m talking sporting technicalities here, I’m talking about the hard stats … and I’m talking fitbaw.

Yer hosts, no matter how unheralded a soccer nation they may be, generally get to the semis, usually make it to quarter-finals, almost always get to the knock-out stages and NEVER, but NEVER go out of the tournamet in the second game of the group stage. The second game??!! Jeezus!!

If someone wins the Deutschland-Hrvatska game on Thursday then, yup - fair dues - Austria could be make it two hosts out for two, but the Viennese will be whirling for 24 hours over the fact the Swiss did it first. Sod “goal difference” - when it comes to this kind of unwanted record being stapled to yer name, ye want to be bringing CALENDAR difference into the equation!

Switzerland, luckily, strike me as the very nation which could stomach that kind of “SHAME”. All the skiing, mountain air and scenery, bottled water, bank vaults full to bursting, general standard of living and atmosphere of serene neutrality really isn’t conducive to riots in the streets of Geneva, Basle, Zurich and Berne simply because the fitbaw team got done over. And even if the Quadri-lingual populus did decide to pull out their Amry Knives and slash, cut, stab, unscrew, file-down, un-cork and magnify their way along their local thoroughfares this evening, IN OUTRAGE AT THE HUMILIATION WROUGHT UPON WAR-LIKE SWITZERLAND by this footballing fuck-up, their infrastructure’s so good and their taxes so wisely dispensed that there’d be no trace of the carnage by sun-rise Thursday.

The Austrians were expected to be by far the worst of two very indifferent host sides. Methinks the Austrians are slightly prouder of their football heritage and a good bit more ashamed of staging an event such as this when they’re at their lowest ever soccer ebb. So, good for Austria - they lasted longer than at least one other team. And good for UEFA - if yer gonane forfeit the credibility of a tournament by not allowing the holders to defend their trophy with automatic qualification but you’re going to grant thoroughly average hosts a bye to the finals then ye might as well have TWO pish hosts as that way the “local interest” factor has twice the chance of surviving.

EH!!

(Sorry ’bout that. It’s an old gripe)

Anyway, I didn’t get to see today’s drama in anything other than ITV highlight form. Big Gunther and myself have been invited to Wayne and Colleen’s big do (THAT’s why England didnae qualify - the dates clashed!!) and tonight was our last chance to get measured up for our outfits . So while you guys were listening to Tyldeslely and Pleat and Steve “whathisname” Wilson and Mark Bright, I was trying on leather tuxedos at NIGEL’S BIG CHAPS BOUTIQUE. Therefore, I’m gonnae leave it up to youse, the troops, to give marks out of ten for the Wednesday commentary-pundit teams. Give us yer personal opinion of the coments made by our broadcsters on Day 5 and I’ll work out the average and accordingly update the league table, shown below.

The results will be announced just after the National Lottery draw.

All I will say is that I caught David Pleat, on ITV1, getting in a fankle over just who it was Portugal were tearing to pieces. In his excitement he managed the “Republic” bit but, knowing it wasn’t the “Republic of Czech”, went for “The Republic of Czechoslovakia”. Not a name I’ve ever heard so that’s genius, David. Genius. I mean - fuck me - if you’re being paid to comment on a tournament featuring 16 teams and some of the country’s names are a bit beyond ye, ye think ye’d maybe take a minute each night and try to run through those names. Some of them are really easy, David. Honest: Greece, France, Spain - start with these 1-syllable jobs before moving onto Hol-land, Po-Land, Tur-key … just leave Switzerland and Romania to Tyldesley.

Talking of names, I’m gutted to see Switzerland exit before the quarters if for nothing other than the fact they have the most exotic squad list. The players’ names are quality. The Turks didn’t just emigrate to Germany - some of them went to Switzerland and so ye have that islamic angle mixed in with the Germanic, Italian and French twists to the Swiss team roster. We once had Kubilay Turkilmaz (I’d love to have heard Pleat trying that) and Stephane Chapuissat. Now we have Hakan Yakin and - best name in the competition - Bayer Leverkusen’s Tranquillo Barnetta.

Marco STRELLER sounds like an inter-galactic law enforcer who does things his own way; Daniel Gygax some sort of lubricant; Valon Behrami is now, in my small mind, something ye can get with rice (perhaps Alexander Frei-d rice) and nan bread, and if ever a name alone could punch you out, it’d be Pascal Zuberbuhler.

Oh yes - the friendly face of creeping racism from yer editor here, whose own internet moniker means “Corner WHORE” in German and whose real name, in Swedish, translates as “obese, useless, unfit, mercenary git who is well past his sell-by date”.

Just as well really that I didn’t catch enough of the games today to give ye a full off-loading of my one-note, anally-retained opinions as, with Germany-Croatia next up, my hands could do with a break from the keyboard and your eyes could do with a rest from the reams of blue-on-white bitching and moaning I’ve been doing over the first four days. Tomorrow, in Klagenfurt, could be classic. I could need 10,000 words off the wrist just to let me sleep on Thursday after witnessing the magnitude of Deutschland-Hrvatska. 1996 at Old Trafford, 1998 in Lyon. 1-1 in major finals for Germany and Croatia. And 1-1 is probably a result which suits them both tomorrow as …

Leave it Eck. Leave it for now. Do yer talking AFTER the game …

Today was the first of the second round of group games and, did you notice, none of the four teams who played today wore the same strip as they did in the first game?! Mmm …

As I drove to the shop I did hope and pray that the heavy Basle rain I heard about on BBC Five Live would result in the Switzerland-Turkey game being abandoned. Initially I hadn’t been to bothered about missing this clash. If I had to miss one then this would be as minimally painful as any … but then someone reminded me of the bloodbath in Istanbul the last time Switzerland and Turkey met in a competitive fixture. I didn’t want to miss a minute of tonight’s game but I had to miss it all. Not, however, if it was rained off. And how nice if, for once in 2008, a postponement of a football match had actually SUITED a Rangers fan!! :-)

From the highlights it looked like two bad teams hammering it out on a swamp - Gretna v Kilmarnock at Fir Park sprang to mind. But I doubt a tournament on as small a scale as this one will miss either of the hosts. Travel is too cheap and easy for most foreign fans interested in events this summer and when six of the stadia used hold only 30,000, the atmosphere coming acorss on yer telly will not change simpy due to the lack of a HOPP SCHWIIS! HOPP SCHWIIS or three. Did feel sorry for their manager though. Kobi Kuhn has enough personal stresses without this on his plate. Hope his wife makes a full recovery.

What does irk me though is this continuing trend of players not celebrating goals at a major finals tournament because they’re scoring against the land of their forebears. It’s a bit disrespectful to the country which gave him his chance and his caps. Maybe Kakan yakin’s lack of ecstacy, simultaneously muting his team-mates’, prevented Switzerland getting up the psychological head of steam they required. Either that or his piss-poor finishing put them out.

They look far from convincing but don’t write off Turkey. Remember Denmark in 92 began with a loss and a draw and Greece stumbled through the second and third games of their 2004 Euro Championship finals group stage. Sometimes it’s a thin win over dim opposition which starts the hugest of balls rolling.

Portugal, on the other hand, have Deco. Fuck Ronaldo - he’s a great player but he ain’t no god and he ain’t the best in the world and we’ll soon all be encouraged to hunt him down and kill him for treachery when his move to Chamartin is confirmed. Sionko continues to ail me - he’s playing just too damned well and getting better with each game. He could have had a hat-trick today,yes, but one against Portugal is noh bad. I think we might regret selling Libor. Or - wait a minute - does he not regret leaving us? After all, we were the ones who ended up in the Champions League and then the UEFA Cup final.

What Deco did for the second Portugese goal was sublime. He also dug in to score their first but the thing which convinces me most of all that Portugal will be there or thereabouts is Phil Scolari. He’s a winner, the big guy and Jose Mourinho’s last act before joining Chelsea was to make his team champions of Europe. Maybe Big Phil can do the same.

Or maybe they’ll get stuffed later by the MIGHTY JERRIES!!! Oh, I cannae wait for this Klagenfurt classic. Straight from work to pub for this one. Torsten Frings is being connected to his battery charger as we speak …

EURO 2008 Microphone League standings after Day 4: Need your ratings for Day 5, troops.

Tyldseley&Pleat - 10/20

Whatshisface&Peacok - 4/10

Whatshisface&Bright - 4/10

Motson&Bright - 3/10

Drury&Beglin - 0/10

Pearce&Lawrenson - 0/20