So we are finally here, the Premier League 2012-2013 season is upon us and with less than 15 hours to kick off it's time to look at what has happened over the very, very busy Summer. Of course as we all know Summer was not only the time for transfers (which I will get on to a little bit later) but also the summer of the European Championships (Euro 2012), so lets start this by looking at those.
The Euro's which was hosted in Poland and Ukraine kicked off on June 8th and finished with the final on July 1st with Spain successfully defending the title they won 4 years ago in Austria and Switzerland. As a result of their triumph Spain became the first nation to not only defend the European Championships but also the first nation to win 3 successive major international titles.
The Euro's started with Group A and co-host Poland scoring a 1-1 draw with former champions Greece (who infamously won the tournament in 2004) with Russia later destroying the Czech Republic 4-1 in a truly impressive performance. Sadly despite Russia's fantastic performance on the opening day they flattered to deceive and they went out at the group stage after drawing with Poland and losing to Greece in a huge upset. Despite the Czech Republic and Greece qualifying from the Group it was young Russian striker Alan Dzagoev that really made his name scoring 3 goals in his teams 3 group matches.
The second set of matches were in the dreaded "Group of Death", Group B. This Group really was an amazingly tough Group on paper with Germany, Portugal, Netherlands and Denmark and it seemed like any of the teams had the pedigree to qualify. Sadly, despite the class of the Dutch team, which included a number of household names such as Wesley Sneijder, Rafael Van Der Vaart, Arjen Robben, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Robin Van Persie they failed to click and suffered an embarrassing loss to Denmark in their opening fixture, this was then followed by losses to both Germany and Portugal as they ended up being one of only 2 teams not to score a point. Whilst the Netherlands were the laughing stock of the group the Germans were the class act winning all 3 of their games as they lived up to their reputation. Joining Germany were Portugal who's win over Denmark in their second game was effectively the deciding match.
In Group C we saw Spain managing to qualify top despite not looking at their best. In their opening game they drew 1-1 with Italy before walloping the Republic of Ireland 4-0 (though they really should have had 8 or 9) and then scraping past Croatia. Italy, who had drawn with Spain in their own opening game also only managed a draw with Croatia before beating the groups poor whipping boys the Republic of Ireland. The poor Republic of Ireland finished not only pointless but also with the worst record ever seen in a European Championship, conceding an impressive 9 goals whilst scoring just 1 (a Sean St Ledger header against Croatia). Despite Croatia falling at the first hurdle they did show some impressive ability (as is expected of the Croatians) with Bayern Munich's Mario Mandžukić being arguably the pick of the bunch.
In the final Group, Group D, England and France both qualified despite neither team really looking at their best. In the opening round of matches England and France both drew (1-1) with each other whilst co-host Ukraine managed to eek out a 2-1, come from behind victory over the Swede's thanks to a brace by Andriy Shevchenko. Sadly losses to both England and France ended Ukraine's hopes for qualification, though they did run England close losing 3-2 in one of the tournaments most exciting matches. Whilst England qualified with out a loss, France were much less fortunate and lost 2-0 to Sweden in their final group game, in part due to an excellent goal of the competition contender by the enigmatic Zlatan Ibrahimović.
The quarter finals began with Portugal narrowly beating the Czech Republic thanks to a second half goal by Cristiano Ronaldo. The following day Germany defeated Greece 4-2 in a match that was closer in scoreline than it appeared on the pitch (due in part to a Greek penalty in the 89th minute). Portugal were joined the following day by their semi final opponents Spain who inflicted the second successive 2-0 loss on France whilst England were sadly disposed of, on penalties to the Italians (4-2) after both Ashley Young and Ashley Cole missed their penalties.
In the first Semi Final Portugal held Spain to a 0-0 draw in a match that seemed to really push Spain to the brink. Despite holding on 0-0 for 120 minutes Portugal failed to hold their own at penalties with João Moutinho and the seemingly petrified Bruno Alves both failing to score and like England they fell by the wayside 4-2 on penalties. In the other Semi Final Italian Mario Balotelli stole the show scoring twice in the first half (including an absolute blinder) to see off the German's 2-1, and book a rematch with Spain in the final.
Sadly for Italy the final was a nightmare as Spain took advantage of a weary looking Italian team and played them off the pitch in an embarrassingly 1 sided match that saw Spain dominate much of the match and score 4 unanswered goals. Whilst the victory left Spain in a state of jubilation it left the Italians heartbroken, and not for the first time in recent competitions, having also been losing finalists in Euro 2000 and the 1994 World Cup.
For the stat lovers out there:
The competition had 6 players tied on 3 goals-
Fernando Torres (who won the Golden Boot due to playing less time than Mario Gomez, with the two players tied on assists)
Mario Gomez
Mario Balotelli
Cristiano Ronaldo
Alan Dzagoev
and Mario Mandžukić
For Premier League fans the list above should be very exciting as it shows not only that Balotelli (Man City) can perform at the highest level but also that Fernando Torres is getting back into the swing of scoring goals.
Also over Summer we had the Summer Olympics, which again featured some football...but more about that in the next entry.
The video below is thanks to CR10Productions
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