Tue, July 6th 2004
For UEFA's official Euro 2004 website, the organisation had, before the tournament, various established coaches from across the Continent cast an eye over the competing nations and assess their prospects in the competition.
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Mon, July 5th 2004Portugal 0 Greece 1: Their victory was, in the end, all that might have been expected - the product of a disappointing game dictated for the most part by the Portuguese but settled by a single, second-half goal for their opponents.
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Mon, July 5th 2004
This was the night when "Hellas-mania" eclipsed "Portugal-mania". As the blue and white tinsel glittered, the fireworks went off and the Greek players hugged one another in almost disbelieving delight, even the most churlish could not but concede that sometimes, even in tired old football, dreams do come true.
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Mon, July 5th 2004
It would be stretching the point to suggest last night's result would have been immaterial to Greece supporters but they were certainly going to party whatever the outcome. For them this was history and an outpouring of national pride. Victory would complete the fairytale.
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Mon, July 5th 2004TV View: Perhaps not the final we expected, nor maybe even wanted, but you have to admit, The Nation of Explorers vs The Founders of Civilization, as the BBC billed it, had a rather splendid ring about it.
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Sat, July 3rd 2004
All the world may love an underdog but as they prepare for this evening's final of Euro 2004 at the Lisbon's Stadium of Light, Otto Rehhagel and his giant-killing Greek team seem intent on proving that other adage about us each also being able to have too much of a good thing.
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Sat, July 3rd 2004
For the sake of football, we had all better hope that Portugal win tomorrow. That observation might seem less than generous, at least from a Greek viewpoint, yet the reality is that a victory for the negative Greeks (something that is far from impossible) would cast a shadow over a Euro 2004 tournament that has by and large been marked by positive trends.
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Sat, July 3rd 2004
Like a heavily tattooed man bearing irremovable evidence of a love affair long ended, Portugal's Maniche is living testimony to the fact that things do not always work quite the way we intended in this life.
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Sat, July 3rd 2004
In the immediate wake of Greece's dramatic silver goal win over the Czech Republic in Thursday night's semi-final in Porto, the hero of the hour, goalscoring defender Traianos Dellas, waxed proud in a little speech that took him well beyond the confines of football: "Tonight, I gave great joy to my team-mates, to my coach and to my country. This is a very important year for Greece because we are hosting the Olympic Games. I can tell you that, despite all the reports, Greece will be ready to host the best Olympics ever . . ."
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Fri, July 2nd 2004Czech Republic 0 Greece 1: Even unexpected success sometimes comes at a cost. Take the Greek players who apparently took their own chances of reaching the semi-finals so lightly that they sold themselves rather short in the pre-tournament bonus-payment negotiations with their association and had to threaten a strike before last night's meeting at the Dragao Stadium in order to put the situation right.
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Fri, July 2nd 2004
Reporters, you all know, tend to be a cynical lot. We have seen it all, done it all and thrown away more free biros than we've had hot dinners (well, over the last three weeks in Portugal, anyway). We are tough.
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Fri, July 2nd 2004
Marco van Basten, one of the heroes of Holland's triumphant 1988 European Championship campaign, has emerged as one of the front runners to succeed Dick Advocaat if, as expected, the Dutch national coach resigns from his post next week.
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Thu, July 1st 2004
UEFA has opened disciplinary proceedings against Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy for insulting Swedish referee Anders Frisk after the final whistle of last night’s Euro 2004 semi-final against Portugal.
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Thu, July 1st 2004Portugal 2 Holland 1: Quite a way to mark an anniversary. Thirteen years to the day after he led Portugal to the second of their successive World Youth titles up the road at Benfica's Stadium of Light, Luis Figo shook off the torpor that has been dogging him through earlier games of this tournament to lead his country to its first final of a senior international championship.
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Thu, July 1st 2004Reaction: It wasn't exactly your average post-match press conference. For a start, when UEFA designated man of the match Luis Figo walked in, he was greeted with warm applause from the normally cynical hacks.
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Thu, July 1st 2004Greece v Czech Rep: In what has long been heralded as an era of player power, this evening's second semi-final of Euro 2004 at the Dragao stadium in Porto should provide a spiritual lift for those who prefer to worship what might be best described as the cult of the coach.
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Thu, July 1st 2004
At each successive post-match press conference, the smile on Otto Rehhagel's face gets wider and wider. After Greece had spoiled the opening party by defeating host nation Portugal 2-1 in Porto, Greece's German-born coach joked he was now the only driver in Athens who could use the taxi lanes and not get a fine.
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Wed, June 30th 2004
Czech Republic central defender Rene Bolf has been passed fit for Thursday's Euro 2004 semi-final against Greece but coach Karel Brueckner is still waiting on right back Martin Jiranek.
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The Swiss referee in charge of England's Euro 2004 quarter-final defeat has been forced into hiding after receiving a number of death threats from fans aggrieved at his decision to disallow Sol Campbell's header late in the game.
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Portugal v Holland: History may suggest the time has come for the hosts to bow out of this European Championship but when the Portuguese take on the Dutch at the Alvalade stadium in Lisbon this evening, for a place in Sunday's final, a nation of 10 million will be willing the country's 21st century heroes to emulate those of times past by bravely moving forward into previously uncharted waters.
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Portugal are in the home stretch and the winning post is tantalisingly close but the dangers of exorbitant national expectations, tiredness and, not least, tonight's semi-final opponents, The Netherlands, stand between them and an appointment with history. Or at least, that is how team coach Felipe Scolari and star player Luis Figo see it.
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For centuries the beautiful mountain village of Sintra provided a summer home for Portugal's royals who retreated to their hillside castles when Lisbon became too uncomfortable to bear through the hottest months of the year. These days the place is a popular tourist attraction although this week it is football's would-be kings of Europe who are relaxing at the retreat.
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Tue, June 29th 2004
It's one of the more unlikely reinventions of modern football. Dick Advocaat's famously divided Dutch squad will arrive here today proclaiming themselves to be united at last in their determination to win the country's second European title.
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It may still be struggling to put a hugely disappointing Euro 2004 campaign behind it but the French Football Federation (FFF) will attempt to sort out a key aspect of its future over the coming week and a half when it decides on Jacques Santini's successor as national team coach.
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France's goalkeeper Fabien Barthez has hinted at retiring from international soccer and said his decision would mainly depend on the identity of the new French coach.
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The chairman of the Euro 2004 referees' committee launched a stinging attack on sections of the British media today, saying their treatment of Swiss referee Urs Meier was unacceptable.
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Milan Baros, the top scorer at Euro 2004, has vowed to fight for his place at Liverpool after regaining his confidence with the Czech national team.
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Czech Rep 3 Denmark 0: It may have yielded a very slight shift in the pattern of the Czech Republic's steady progress through this competition but last night's disappointing quarter-final at the Dragao stadium in Porto came nowhere close to adding to the event's list of shock results.
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Dutch defender Frank de Boer looks likely to miss the rest of Euro 2004 after suffering an ankle injury in his side's quarter-final victory over Sweden on Saturday.
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Sweden 0 Holland 0 (Holland win 5-4 on penalties): It was a case of fifth time lucky for the Netherlands. After being knocked out of the last three European Championships as well as the France '98 World Cup in penalty shoot-outs, the Dutch finally laid their spot-kick bogey in Faro on Saturday night when defeating Sweden 5-4 in yet another dramatic epilogue to a quarter-final tie.
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Sat, June 26th 2004Czech Republic v Denmark: Karel Bruckner's displays of tactical genius may have been among the highlights of this tournament so far but there was a suspicion the 64-year-old was starting to believe his own publicity during the past couple of days as he prepared for tomorrow's quarter-final in Porto.
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France 0 Greece 1: In England this might be seen by many as therapeutic. Just a day after Sven-Goran Eriksson's men fell at the hands of host team Portugal, registered nobodies Greece bundled out the team which beat England so cruelly on the opening weekend.
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Sweden v Holland: History, tradition and the logic of this tournament suggest Holland will beat Sweden when they meet for what could well be another entertaining quarter-final in Faro tonight.
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Fri, June 25th 2004France v Greece: Having worked some sort of magic to take Greece here as winners of a qualifying group that also included Spain and then masterminded his side's progress to the quarter-finals, again at the expense of the Spaniards, Otto Rehhagel has been insisting this week that his side need a full-blown miracle if they are to beat France at the Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon this evening.
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Former Juventus coach Marcello Lippi has been was named as Italy's new coach starting on July 16th. Lippi, 56, will take over the day after Giovanni Trapattoni's contract expires.
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England made no official complaint about the penalty spot in Lisbon's Luz stadium before their quarter-final defeat to Portugal which, UEFA have comfirmed.
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Portugal 2 England 2 (AET): Pens 6-5: Lisbon's Stadium of Light became England's heart of darkness last night with Sven Goran Eriksson's men suffering a second night of heartbreak at the home of Benfica as Portugal marched on to the semi-finals of this tournament after a night of almost relentless drama that ended with goalkeeper Ricardo clinching victory for locals in a penalty shoot out.
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A remarkable evening, maybe not for the quality of football but for the sheer theatre of the occasion. Penalties dispense rough justice and England suffered the thin edge of the wedge for a fourth time in that format in a major competition. No team really deserved to lose on the night but England will reflect, much like Germany, Spain and Italy before them that unless you play close to your best in this competition then you're vulnerable.
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TV View: As that great Irish poet, Miley, oft put it: "well holy God". Fantastic, wonderful, crazy, magnificent stuff. Alive, dead, dead, alive. The story of England's night. At the end? Portugal: Alive, alive-O.
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Denmark coach Morten Olsen is concerned about striker Ebbe Sand’s fitness ahead of the Euro 2004 quarter-final with the Czech Republic on Sunday.
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Germans donned the sackcloth and just a handful of fans turned out at Frankfurt airport yesterday to welcome the German soccer team turned national disgrace.
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Thu, June 24th 2004
Portugal beat England 6-5 on penalties to move through to the Euro 2004 semi-finals tonight after a thrilling match at the Luz Stadium finished 2-2
after extra time.
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Spain coach Inaki Saez has tendered his resignation a day after saying he would not quit over his team's first stage exit from Euro 2004, Spanish media reported today.
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Latvia 0 Holland 3: A ground with a cliff face behind one goal and a stone-fronted mound behind the other is as close as Dick Advocaat is ever likely to come to seeing his team quite literally between a rock and a hard place.
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Czech Republic 2 Germany 1: Well a little schadenfreude for everyone in the audience. For the second night running, one of the aristocratic families of European football was shown off the premises. Germany slunk off to a cacophony of noise.
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Portugal v England: Luz, Lisbon, 7.45On TV: Network 2, BBC 1
Already unpopular in large areas of the country's south where their fans have been involved in sporadic outbreaks of trouble since this tournament began, the English now seem intent on outstaying their welcome in Portugal's capital where tonight, at the Estádio da Luz, they will set about the task of ending local involvement in Euro 2004.
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Win or lose against England tonight, "Big Phil" has already made his point. Luiz Felipe Scolari, Portugal's Brazilian coach, has already defied his critics at these championships, proving for the second time in two years that when it comes to organising a team for tournament finals, he knows a thing or two.
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Wed, June 23rd 2004
Germany crashed out of Euro 2004 after a 2-1 defeat by a second-string Czech Republic, who had already qualified, saw them miss out on the quarter-finals for the second successive European Championship.
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Italy coach Giovanni Trapattoni remained defiant today after his team's early exit from Euro 2004, refusing to resign and saying his team were "among the top four or five in Europe".
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France midfielder Claude Makelele admits the defending European champions are still not firing on all cylinders as the tournament enters its knockout stages.
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Sweden 2 Denmark 2: Talk from the Italian camp in recent days about how these two would somehow engineer a draw involving four goals or more and thereby ensure the elimination from Euro 2004 of Giovanni Trapattoni's star-studded squad prompted most people to pose the rather reasonable question: just how two teams pull that sort of thing off without the rest of the world smelling a rather pungent rat?
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Attracting foreign visitors may have been one of the key reasons for spending more than a billion euro on staging Euro 2004 in the first place, but the Portuguese would surely have breathed a collective sigh of relief on Monday night had England been eliminated from this European Championship and brought the tournament's most numerous legion of foreign fans home with them.
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Czech Republic v Germany José Avalade, Lisbon, 7.45On TV: Network 2, UTV Dutch supporters are likely to pay as much attention to this game as to their team's match against Latvia in Braga tonight.
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Latvia v Holland Braga, 7.45On TV: TV3 With his team needing to do better than the Germans, if they are to steal second place and a place in quarter-finals, Dick Advocaat is under immense pressure to come up with a winning formula ahead of this evening's game against the Latvians in Braga.
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Despite limping out of Euro 2004 with just one point and the suspension of Alexander Frei to contend with, some of Switzerland's leading players insisted in the wake of Monday night's defeat by France that they are in good shape to bounce back when the World Cup qualifiers get under way this autumn.
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Tue, June 22nd 2004
Conspiracy theorists, especially Italian ones, will be out in force after Sweden and Denmark secured the 2-2 draw required to see them through to the Euro 2004 quarter-finals at the expense of Italy, who snatched a late, but meaningless, 2-1 victory against Bulgaria.
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Czech Republic coach Karel Brueckner has confirmed he will rest several senior players for Wednesday's final Euro 2004 group game against Germany.
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England 4 Croatia 2: Trivia bores, of which the media is full, never tire of telling hapless strangers that the Stadium of Light here in Lisbon is so called not because of its illuminations, but because of it's situation in the suburb of Light, or Luz as those who live here call it.
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Switzerland 1 France 3: It's just over 400 years since the French tried to pinch a city away from the Swiss by sneaking into Geneva under cover of darkness and placing the locals under new management while they slept.
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England v Croatia . . . six minutes: 0-1; 68 minutes: 3-1; 74 minutes: 3-2; 79 ... minutes: 4-2 . . . look, they might be our bothersome neighbours but you have to hand it to them: there's never a dull moment.
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Images of teenage striker Wayne Rooney covered English newspapers today after the 18-year-old helped lead his side into the quarter-finals of Euro 2004 with two goals in a 4-2 defeat of Croatia last night.
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Switzerland striker Alexander Frei is once again in danger of missing September's World Cup Group Four qualifier against the Republic of Ireland in Basel after UEFA yesterday revived its case against him for spitting at Steven Gerrard during last week's Euro 2004 game with England.
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Denmark v Sweden: Bessa, Porto, 7.45On TV: TV3
Joan Laporta, the president of Barcelona, gave a strong indication yesterday that the club have agreed terms with Henrik Larsson, a free agent after leaving Celtic.
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Bulagria v Italy Guimaraes, 7.45On TV: Network 2, UTV: If you believe in the theory Italy give of their best when their backs are to the wall, then Bulgaria are in for a drubbing tonight.
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Mon, June 21st 2004
England mid-fielder Owen Hargreaves has been passed fit to take his place on the substitutes' bench for tonight's Euro 2004 final Group B game against Croatia.
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Switzerland striker Alexander Frei will not play in tonight's Euro 2004 game against France after being suspended by UEFA's Apeals Board over allegations of spitting at England's Steven Gerrard.
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So England return to the Stadium of Light at their moment of maximum vulnerability. Pleased with themselves, convinced that they are growing into the tournament, busy inflating a new superstar and not worrying enough perhaps about the frailties of a workaday team. They face a Croatian side who are more than a little entitled to feel that they too are growing into the demands of a tough competition.
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Did they have a hot time in the old town last night? Well, the Barrio Alto isn't quite so alto this morning. The fado players are hungover and, when they come to, last night will seem quite fado, fado. The echoes of car horns and klaxons are just fading but nobody awakes, nobody works, nobody stirs. Last night's fun. This morning's lie in. Liberation!
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Back in Athens the local tabloids had already elevated their adopted coach Otto Rehhagel alongside Socrates and Plato among the pantheon of great Greeks. This morning, with his side ensconced in the quarter-finals, the German will enjoy Zeus-like status.
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