EURO 2008 DIARY; DAYS 8,9 & 10: HOSTS … 0 FAVOURITES … 0 (Favourites go through 10-9 on penalties)

Tut mir leid, yes. But not Tut Mir wirklich leid. I’m sorry I promised ye a classic between Austria and Germany but, even though a technically unbrilliant game has just ended with a 1-0 German victory and very few chances or flash-points, I’m not VERY sorry. Coz the occassion was still brilliant. The fact of this match taking place at all, in this competition, ensured a fleeting acknowledgement of the big Teutonic rivalry from the BBC and ITV and a few newspapers across the land. Millions of Brit football fans were given a brief education about one of the most interesting dioramas of the continental game. A few hundred of those armchair neutrals - maybe even a few thousand - will now be bitten by the Osterreich und/oder Deutschland bug which has kept me warm at night from age 8 onwards. On Sunday night the Beeb showed a snippet from a much-longer documentary shown on its less populist channels a few years ago. It was a brief summary of what we’d discussed on these very pages last Thursday night: The historical back-drop to this famous/infamous fixture. The black and white clips of Mathias Sindelar dribbling round a packed Hohe Warte stadium in Vienna (It’s still there, Hohe Warte - next to the observatory from which it took its name, in the Heiligenstadt district. I’ve been and it’s amazing, a living relic to early 20th century football mania) for the Austrian Wunderteam will have made this tournament worthwhile in theirselves. Someone new out there will take an interest in Sindelar. Someone out there will discover there’s more to football than just your own club and country. A few thousand other folk will now leave EURO 2008 with a sense of perspective - and a lust for the exoticicism of “foreign fitbaw”. Maybe next time Austria play a friendly at Hampden I wont have the entire Jock Stein Stand to myself, and someone will be stood between me, behind the goal, and Hans Krankl in the technical area!

Tonight wasn’t a classic game by any manner of means but when any tournament gets to this stage, the results start to count for enough excitement. When we saw the away team link arms during the Deutschlandlied - on and off the pitch, it was worryingly emotive. Germans don’t usually do the sentimet thing - they’ve been down that road before and it got us all into a lot of trouble. And then there was the huge “Deutschland” card display in the away end. And the Austrians giving it linked arms and laldy during their national anthem! Add in a cross-border rivalry and a few days of same-language-different-country bitching between players past and present in the Teutonic tabloids and ye have all the atmosphere ye need to compensate for a lack of on-field fireworks.

This, of course, is to discount Michael Ballack’s match-winning free kick. If there’s a minimalist feel to a Germanic match - if it goes all form-and-function, all Bauhausian - then I’m more than contented. Its’ like watching Italy go for 0-0, Argentina go for 24 short passes or Uruguay go for throats with their studs - there’s nothing sweeter than seeing a football nation live up to its stereotype. Tonight, Germany did just enough. And that’s the song that made them famous.

Apart from a few hefty tackles from the aptly-named Hoffer, Austria rarely troubled and Ballack’s 49th minute winner - the first goal of this tournament scored straight from a free-kick - was all you need to know about the unavoidable pragmatism inate to this fixture. He’s the captain of Germany, they were favourites to win, they weren’t too smart in the first half, they took four minutes of the second half to warm up to it and then he hit a dead-ball from 30 yards which travelled with all the stillness of a football cadaver, all the accuracy of a cutting remark and all the speed of a witty retort until it had burst the Austrian net and setlled the game. Everything else, including a hilarous spat between the two managers and the ref and the fourth official which saw the gaffers being clapped into the directors box by the prime ministers of their respective countries, was just so much parenthesis.

Except, perhaps for the death of Mario Gomez, struck down in his prime by a Wullie Hills betting slip which I hold in my wallet. It has him at 16/1 to be tournament top scorer. All it took was a fiver of my hard-earned to turn the guy into the dud of the century. During qualifying he was back-heeling the ball into the net from an acute angle, twixt defender and goalie. Domestically he was topping the Bundesliga scoring charts and in Club Europe he made VfB Stuttgart one of only two clubs to score in nine UEFA games at Fortress Ibrox in 2007/2008. The moment I laid my gambling curse upon him, Gomez has failed to touch the ball. Tonight, just to emphasise the point, he miss-hit the ball from four yards out and then, as his sklaff looped upwards and then down towards the net, all six-foot-two of him failed to get it over the line from one foot under the bar - he was outjumped by a five-foot-nothing Austrian defender who’d began four yards behind the German striker. In-no-way-super Mario was withdrawn early in the second half and didn’t shake hands with anyone before bursting into tears on the bench.

As perviosuly mentioned, the Ernst Happel Stadion technical areas are the largest in the world - the bench is right at the back of them. It was a walk of shame too long for Gomez to bare. He’ll join Marcell Jansen in the spa for the rest of the tournament. It’s there he’ll receive an envelope from Glasgow, containing a betting slip, the Sterling-to-Euro exchange rate and my pay-in details.

How long this tournament will last for the Germans - into the last 8 for the first tme in 12 years - relies on the kind of change of form which Gomez has suffered in the last ten days. Germany need Portugal to forget how to play short passes. And Germany need to find a way of plugging that 18-yard-wide chasm between Jens Lehmann and the Mertesacker-Metzelder pairing. If the Germans find a way past Portugal then two of the great stereotypes of European football will be reinforced: Germany always find a way to get by - Portugal always find a way to chuck it.

But I’m not so sure. Right now I only see Holland stopping Portugal. But, then again, I’ve just explained my form with predictions …

Lawrenson and Pearce get 2/10, simply for Jonathan Pearce’s fortitude in the face of his side-kick’s sickening, unrelenting sarcasm. This has become a theme. A man with only negativity and slander in his make-up is allowed to represent the BBC’s views on football to the planet. Why? Pearce is actually quite good - he’s full of untrivial trivia and has respect for the games he covers. Lawrenson, however, just sprays shite.

I didn’t hear who was doing the BBC3 commentary on Croatia’s win over Poland but I know it would have been better. Croatia score maximum points and the Poles and the Austrians go out. Austria only concded one goal per game and they managed one of their own. That was a hell of a lot better than their public expected of them and I’m glad, for such a proud football past, that they weren’t humiliated in any single match.

Their co-hosts went out earlier and, as a result, were allowed to beat the already-qualified Portugese last night. Nice for their manager and his recovering wife. Nice for Hakan Yakin to grab a couple of goals and take himself to joint-second in the goal-scorers chart for a day or two anyway. But, mostly, it was nice, nice, BRILLIANT for Turkey.

On Father’s Day the Turks scored the mother of all comebacks to start the final round of group games rolling with a Chernobyl-sized bang.

Obviously, family loyalty called and I visited my old boy for his usual Father’s Day treat - a few lines of Charlie off a stripper’s bronzed boobs. And, of course, once you’re IN the Lap Dancing club, ye bump into all the other Dads and Mums of the extended family. Ye have to catch up on all the news - who’s in what nick, for what offence and for how long, etc, etc. So I was late getting home. When in the car I heard it was 1-0 to the Czechs at half-time. When in the chip shop I saw it was 2-0 to the Czechs in the second half. Every pundit was telling us how lucky Turkey were to be only 2-0 down.

By the time I was sinking my pickled onion in front of my own telly, the Turks had pulled one back and were throwing themselves around the pitch like dervishes. I’ve never seen a team so possesed. They seemed to be high on something - passion, I suppose. And I hate COLIN Kazim Richards for spoiling the whole Ottoman Aesthetic with a name like COLIN!!! The mania of Turkey’s play was captivating in itself. It was fucking insane, the drama which unfolded unparalleled, even at this tournament. I couldn’t believe Cech dropped the ball but I coudl believe the winning goal - so wild was everything else leading up to it - and I actually ended up a bit gutted that the Czechs didn’t find time for one last lobbing of the ball onto Koller’s giraffe-like frame with Tuncay now clueless in goals. Cannae belive Koller’s scored FIFTY FIVE times for his country - couldnae watch him doing that pathetic flop and rollover when the Turkish goalie pushed him. Sad, Big Man - sad.

Would love it if he’d equalised though and we’d seen the first ever group game decided by penalties. The Czechs were the first team to lose by a Golden goal so … just cos Tuncay was in goals …

Anyway, what we got was exciting enough and tt’s typical of this summer that the players waited until I was in the hoose and settled before the real thrills began. Nice. Considerate. But why, oh why do they insist on playing that “Carnival de Paris” (sic??) tune over the PA systems at the grounds when a goal is scored. When the Turks, of all people, have come back from 2-0 down with quarter of an hour to go, to win 3-2 and qualify for the quarters the day after the Greeks went out, ye want to hear them do their infamous deep-throated roaring. The Turks cheer goals from the bottom of their scrotums - and that’s just the women! - I don’t want some jingly-jangly Euro-pop tune ruining the sound of historic throaty momentousness. It mostly irks me because the tune is SO DAMNED CATCHY AND JOLLY. At the very moment they should be on their knees weeping with joy I bet evern the Turks were smiling cheesily and jigging like Bewitched when that tune kicked in over the Servette PA.

Coz it was double joy for them. The Greeks going out on Saturday - the Greeks being deposed as holders - will combine with these two sensational comebacks by the Turks, against all sorts of injuries and suspensions, to make them think they’re gonnae do it now. And why not? They finished fourth at the 2002 World Cup and they pumped the Greeks in qualifying for these finals. They have that “Denmark 92″ look about them, Turkey. Why the hell shouldn’t they do it!

Day 8, Saturday, saw me heading down to sunny Maybole to complete 100 grounds. But Johnstone Burgh knocked the ball out of play, it came to me at knee height, I attempted to casually dink it back onto the pitch and forgot I was wearing freshly washed denims, The leg couldn’t get the height, I got under the ball instead of over it and manged to scoop it over my head, over the six-foot high, barbed wire-topped perimeter fence behind the ten people congregated on the tiny slice of terracing, and down into the six foot drop of a flowing burn behind the ground. Bushes of nettles and rushes and reeds and god-knows what else which seemed to have grown untouched by human hands or machines in the last few centuries: A size 5 Mitre lay hidden amongst them. Even the wee boys - compulsory at all Junior grounds - who scuttle wildly and gleefully after any stray match ball, took one look at where this one had landed and said “fuck that for a game of soldiers … let’s go and have an actual game of soldiers”. No-one gave me any abuse. Which was worrying. The Johnstone Burgh right-back asked me if I wanted a game for them. Which was nice. THe spectator to my right said it had been an unlucky touch. I would have left the ball where it was , assuming Maybole JFC had some well-worn in-house method for retrieving footballs landing just behind this fence. They’ll have been picking balls out those bushes for years, I thought. But no. Two 70-year-old committee members began risking life and plastic hip by clambering through a hole in the fence and fishing through the razor-sharp bushes along the banking. Shame kicked in more accurately than I’d kicked the ball. The auld fellahs were persuaded to take the five-mile trek to the other side of the burn, from where they could be my eyes. They spotted a bowl in the verdant wilds - they guided me to it in their Burnsian dialect. I spent half an hour and three pints of sweat impersonating David Bellamy before finally emerging with the prize. I asked the kindly locals, offering to help me back up from the burn bank, to turn away and watch the game because what had to follow would be even more personally humiliating. I knew the only way a 22-stone man in newly-washed jeans was getting back up that incline was by impersonating a pregnant seal emerging from the North sea. It wasn’t pretty. It put me off my half-time pie. I hadn’t missed any goals but I had spent HALF AN HOUR outside the boundary of the stadium. Do i qualify? Have I officially bagged Maybole’s Ladywell stadium? Am I a centurian? Can I apply to the 100 Grounds Club website for my membership badge?

Who knows? How fitting that I ended a Rangers season of exhaustive effort but minimal trophies with a half-attained personal glory of my own. Bugger. So I made damn sure I was at least back in sunny Glesage in time for the Spain-Swden game in Innsbruck. I await my six-points-on-the-license from the average speed cameras on the A77. But it was worth it. Espana -Sverige did not dissapoint. Well it couldn’t, could it - EURO 2008 just refuses to dissapoint.

A guy called Silva, had his name written in gold on his beatiful Spanish strip and the huge swathes of Spanish and Swedish shirts in the crowd accidentally combined to make one huge Spanish flag in this lop-sided belter of a stadium. Its’ Sooo dramatic to look at is the Tivoli Neu and the game it witnessed was equally so. Just as it looked like a draw had been agreed - two star strikers score the goals to make it 1-1, Puyoll goes off, Ibrahimovic exploits that for the equaliser and then he himself goes off at half-time - David Villa again promised to make Spain Euro stars.

I still won’t believe it til I see them win their Quarter final, Spain. They were this good in their 2006 World Cup group - and so many others first round groups before that - and they’ve only ever made a final when they’ve played Denmark in the semis (1964, 1984 - look it up) and the Danes would need to get an even later call up than they did in 1992 for that to happen this summer. But there’s no denying the matador elan of the Spanish side over the last two games. Tasty.

Of course, no-one is allowed to say Greece are anything other than the enemy of football, lest Jim Beglin and Peter Drury track you down and kill you with a barrage of verbiage. But I thought it hilariuus when Sam Allerdyce began sticking up for the Hellas fellahs on the ITV couch. Sam understands better than anyone what Otto Rehhagel is doing with Greece. Like Bolton, like Newcastle, sometimes ye just have to get behind the ball and DESTROY if ye want to survive.

But Greece haven’t survived. And my first bet of the tournament has hit the dust (well, Gomez will need an epidemic to strike his fellow strikers in the Germany camp and he’ll need to get a hat-trick in the quarters, semi and final if my “top-Goalscorer” bet isnae also dead in the water) without yet managing a goal.

I like Greece - I admire them and I lament their loss. Not least because they’ve been treated like shit by the jealous ignoramii Beglin and Drury. Zero out of ten to them, after 6/10 for the lovely Champion and Pleat combo in the last of this tournament’s 5pm kick-offs. Beglin said “Russia played better in losing 4-1 to Spain than Greece did in losing 2-0 to Sweden”. Now that’s just pushing it a bit too far. That’s just vindictive.

Drury said “USSR’s best performance in the European championships was when they reached the final in 1988″. Mmmm. That’s just WRONG! They fucking WON IT in 1960, Peter - as well as also finishing second in 1964 and 1972.

I’ll be charitable, by way of morally high-grounding myself, and give them 3/10 for the Turkey-Czech Republic game. Partly coz they got caght up in the genuine excitement but mostly coz I only caught the last ten minutes.

But - hey - let’s just hope Greece go out with a bang, rattling in a few goals against the Spaniards this week … even if that’s bound to creat comments of “too little too late” and “now, why couldn’t they have done that from the start”. It’s little wonder my most common chant at the screen this last ten days has been “AT LEAST THEY FUCKING QUALIFIED!!!”

For now, though, I’m gonnae brace myself for the channel-flicking nightmare/luxury which is the simultaneous broadcasts of Italy-France and Holland-Romania tomorrow evening.

I may have epilepsy by the time this tournament is over but - I’m telling ye - it’ll have been bloody worth it. Just bang on the Carnival de Paris CD and watch me jerk about that floor in a whole new light. I’m not having a fit - I’m Dancing, man … I’m dancing with cheesey joy!! EVERYBODY! Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah … DAAAH DAH-DAH DAAAHA - DAH-DAH Dah-Dah-Dah! … Dah-dah …

EURO 2008 Microphone League standings after Day 10:*

Motson&Lawrenson - 0/10

*NB - I’m ignoring the commentaries on the “second” simultaneous group game during the last of the first round matches, ye know the one on BBC3 or ITV4. Fuck it - I’ve only got one set of lugs and it’s not as if this league table has ever been that comprehensive, authentic … or even worthwhile.