27 Jun, 2008
The superb Spanish amrmada demolished Russia 3-0 in the second semi-finals of Euro 2008 to steam-roll their way into the finals of a major tournament for the first time in 24 years.
This semi-final was touted to be the most intriguing re-match of the tournament after the way Russia recovered themselves since the 4-1 drubbing by Spain in their opening game some 16 days ago. In the end, the supposedly in-form Russians revealed not a glimpse of the way they peeled the Oranje apart and left it to Spain to show they are still 3 goals better than Russia.
The Russians contained and matched the Spaniards stride for stride in the first half, which ended all square. It was after David Villa got injured that his replacements, Cesc Fabregas came on to provide the inspirations and the killer passes which led to all 3 goals!
The momentumn is surely with the Spanish now. After beating Italy in 88 years and breaking the peanlty shoot-out curse of June 22, and they must surely believe that they can go all the way. Bring on the Germans!
26 Jun, 2008
Germany beat Turkey 3-2 with a 90th minute winner on Wednesday to book a place in Sunday’s EURO 2008 final.
Despite being decimated by injuries and suspensions, Turkey took the game to Germany, and was clearly the better side throughout. The very least Turkey deserved was a draw to take the semi-final into extra-time after their dominant play but their fairy tale run was finally undone by Philipp Lahm’s late goal in Basel.
Turkey, playing in their first Euro semi-final, had captured the imaginations of the neutral with their never-say-die attitude and staging remarkable come-from-behind victories in their previous three matches to light up the tournament.
The story of Turkey is one of true grit and determination. Every true football fans will agree this Turkish team has earned respect and admiration for the way they won everyone over at Euro 2008.
24 Jun, 2008
Jim, the author/administrator/founder of The Net Fool Dot Com is celebrating his 19th birthday, which happened on 14th June, by running the June Birthday Bash where he will be giving away a Brand New Flip Video Mino and a $50 MLRewards Card .
The cool guys over at Market Leverage , Jim’s most recommended affiliate network on the net, had given him one of the newly released Flip Mino video camcorders at absolutely no cost, and sponsored a second set to give away to readers of The Net Fool! Not only this, but they decided to kick in a $50 Market Leverage gift card on top of it all to sweeten the deal!
Market Leverage is a leading pay-for-performance affiliate marketing network that provides Advertisers and Publishers with effective online media solutions to maximize their profits. Registration is free, and as a Publisher, you get access to hundreds of top-notch advertisements, leads, referral and commission based sales with the highest payouts in the industry. You simply won’t find a higher-paying service, and you get your own representative whom you can talk to about the latest offers, or last night’s baseball game.
The contest is easy to enter and as it seems to be the norm these days, there are a number of ways to obtain more chances to win. Besides the mandatory subscription of The Net Fool’s feed via email, there are various other ways to earn tickets and increase your chances of winning those fantastic prizes:
- Mandatory –> Registration and 1 Ticket: Subscribe to our RSS feed via email
- 1 Ticket per Submission: Submit one of our posts to social media networks Digg, StumbleUpon and/or Mixx
- 15 Tickets: Make a 300+ word blog post that links back to the contest at theNetFool.com and Market Leverage
- 25 Tickets: Create a video and submit it to YouTube
This contest will run till June 25th at midnight and the winner will walk away with the brand new Flip Mino and the runner-up will get the $50 Market Leverage gift card, you can’t afford to miss it!
23 Jun, 2008
The Spaniards took the bull by the horns and converted their jinx to jubilation, with a 4-2 quarter-final penalty shoot-out victory over Italy, finally laying the ghost of 22 June to rest. The hero of the night was goalkeeper Casillas, who saved two spot-kicks to set up Fabregas to convert the winning penalty.
Before this, Spain have been forced into a penalty shoot-out on 22 June in quarter-finals at major tournament and their nerves had failed them on those occassions.
Those three painful penalty losses:
- To Belgium at the 1986 World Cup;
- To South Korea at the 2002 World Cup.
In the end, Spain progress into the semis against exciting Russia. They will have the chance to lay to rest another ghost as Russia’s coach Guss Hiddink was in charge of South Korea, the team that did them in at the 2002 World Cup.
22 Jun, 2008
The Russians are coming! Guided by man-motivator and master tactician extraordinaire Guus Hiddink, the Russians over-ran favorites Holland with their superior fitness to win 3-1 in extra-time and powered them into the semis.
Russia’s Dutch coach Guus Hiddink risks being public enemy number one in his homeland after pulling off his latest masterstroke to eliminate the team who were tournament favorites after emphatic wins over continental heavyweights Italy and France in the ‘Group of Death’.
The result is the third time in as many quarter-finals the pool winner has been knocked out by the team finishing second in their respective group following Portugal’s defeat to Germany and Croatia’s elimination at the hands of Turkey.
The disappointing defeat will be the swansong for Edwin Van der Sar’s Oranje career, and also coach Marco Van Basten who incidentally was the player who scored what was deemed as the best goal ever in the 1988 European Championship Finals when the Dutch won against the former Soviet Union.
