I was on EURO 2008, look at me. I was in church on Sunday, look at me. I bought a car better than yours, look at it. That's the thought process of someone who never went to a soccer stadium, but had to go to EURO 2008. And there are plenty of them, looking silly with those hats and colors. These big competitions are actually masquerade balls for the stressed people to detach themselves from all reality. I could never understand that need to be someone else. But maybe that's just me, I'd prefer a hooligan over a bigot any day.

There was an euphoria in Croatia, everyone was a fan, although there are only 3000 die-hard soccer fans here. You know, the ones who watch their beloved team against a weak team even if it rains or snows. I'm one of those. That same euphoria poured onto betting; the Croatian local bookies reported a 30% increase of placed bets. When asked did they lose a lot of money, their reply was "Don't worry. We always win." Isn't it interesting how most people jump on the same bandwagon? Everyone is the biggest fan of Croatian NT, everyone bets, everyone bets with heart, and everyone even chooses the same bet. During the first stage of the cup, bookies were a bit worried, but whatever was won there was lost in the knock-out stage or spent on beer. And that bandwagon was the losing one. Croatia lost, the bet was lost, goodbye weekend warriors. Until the next time. The bookies and the pubs will be waiting.

The biggest story of this tournament is Russia. A team who shouldn't even be on this tournament, they slipped in because of Croatian win over England. I was amazed with Zenit Sankt Peterburg, and I'm even more amazed with Russia. Their soccer is absolutely stunning. But that's not the only reason why they're so successful on this tournament. Everyone knows Cristiano Ronaldo. Although he's a young player, I bet each one of us watched him 50-60 times on TV. Where and when did you see Pavlyuchenko? Or Zhirkov? I saw Arshavin 3 times before this cup. So there's absolutely no way, and no time, to know or learn what are these players capable of. Also, all of them are playing the same style of soccer. For example, some Croatian players play German soccer, some play Italian soccer, Croatian soccer...it's hard to mix that. Russian players all play the same style, and Hiddink turned it into something amazing. Netherlands was my favorite to win the trophy this time, but now it's Russia. I hope they become champions, because they deserve it the most.

We all know the matches, at this level, are so tight that one goal decides the winner. One goal, one mistake, or one referee's mistake. For example...Spain scored 2 offside goals against Russia. There was at least 1, maybe 2, penalties for Russia. That's enough to decide the winner regardless of what was going on on the pitch. Next, in Croatia-Turkey match, Turkey scored in 123rd minute, although there should have been only 121 minutes of play. So, it makes no sense to play these matches, or bet on them – the referee will decide a tight match anyway, sooner or later. Or the match will be decided on a defensive mistake. That's also one of the reasons why I'm such a huge fan of Russia right now, because they seem to be the only ones above this. They don't need any help from Lady Luck or the referee. But, there will have to be some electronical improvements to the current system. A "smart" ball, definitely. Also, the same thing american football and tennis have – a TV review of the incident – right there on the stadium. It's actually pretty surprising that the referees can't use TV replays in this time and age, but have to rely on their own instant judgement – same judgement as they would have if we were in 18th century. Referees need help, because this makes no sense. Or maybe the big teams want it to make no sense? We've seen much more situations where the underdog wasn't allowed to beat a big team, than vice versa.

Dan Horvat, BrainBetting.com

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1. Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 26-06-2008 10:51 Go ahead. Click the banners. You know you want to. Report

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