Fantastical footballing of European countries for winning of delightfully coveted championship!

This is where we see the best of the best. The top 16 European national teams contend every four years for the championship.

This event is more important than any other football confederations tournaments and rivals even the World Cup.

The prestige is tremendous as is the prize money. There are 7.5 million Euros to each team that qualifies for the tournament with a chance of winning a total of 23 million (if the eventual champion wins each game it plays in the tournament).

Now that the tournament has finished the first and second stages and is down to the last four teams (out of the 16 that qualified) I figure It’s time for a short coverage of these semifinalizers that are in the top football confederation in the world.

These are the best of the best.

Germany:

Croatia’s musically inclined coach Slaven Bilic in a pre-game press conference (before dealing Germany it’s only defeat of the tournament) said the music group he most associated the German team with was Rammstein.

I’m guessing (though I don’t claim to read minds) that what Bilic meant was the teams powerful and precise style of play rather than on stage lewdness or pyrotechnics.

But like the familiar saying goes, “It ain’t over until somebody invades Poland.”

Or something like that.

Germany is a usual favorite and has shown themselves worthy of the top four by beating Austria and Poland in the group stage (and losing to Croatia) and then beating Portugal in their quarterfinal match.

Russia:

I don’t know much about these guys, accept that they have a habit of showing up for major tournaments (by qualifying of course) only to crash out early on. This time things are looking different with the team qualifying for their first European semi finals. (thanks wikipedia)

In the group stage Russia lost to Spain but beat Sweden and Greece, and then stunned everyone by beating the hitherto amazing Netherlands 3-1 in the quarterfinals. (psssst! You guys weren’t supposed to do that!)

Spain:

Known as the greatest underachievers, Spain, for all their great players and high expectations has only won one major tournament in the history of the team, a European championship in 1964 (or was it 1694, who cares) and has as their best over World cup finish, a 4^th place finish in 1950.

Well here they are again, with more high hopes and yet another great team. They’ve earned their spot in the top four with a perfect start in the group stage, beating Russia, Sweden and Greece, and then knocking Italy out in the quarterfinals.

Turkey:

Most of the Turkish players play in their domestic league rather than abroad. The good performance of the national team therefore reflects quite well on the level of football in the country.

In 2002 Turkey finished 3^rd place in the World Cup, they then failed to qualify for both the 2004 Euro Cup and the 2006 World Cup, but with this current Euro Cup, Turkey is back in style.

In the group stage they beat Czech Republic and Switzerland while losing to Portugal, then in the quarterfinals won an upset victory over favored (and unbeaten) Croatia.

The semifinals now line up

Germany vs Turkey

Russia vs Spain