These men stepped up to the plate, brought their A game, gave it 110 per cent etc…
As everyone knows, the semi finals and finals of important competitions are an appalling waste of time. Everyone’s too frightened to touch the ball, to the point where grown men just gather around staring at each other, too paranoid to even speak. Hence, the team of the tournament has been chosen based on the real football that The Spoiler has already witnessed…
GK Iker Casillas (Spain)
For single handedly snatching football glory away from the Italians, and looking a little bit like a child attempting to grow a beard. Out-goallied Buffon.
DL Yuri Zhirkov (Russia)
Once you’ve finished rolling around on the floor in hysterics because his name sounds a little bit like “jerk off”, you’ll notice that he’s been a prince amongst left backs. Brilliant.
DC Giorgio Chiellini (Italy)
Whilst it made for the most face-scratchingly boring non-England match since Glasgow Women’s Deaf and Dumb Wheelchair Team took on the local hospice’s Coma XI, don’t forget that the Italian defence was brilliant. Particularly this man.
Keeper’s hesitance to wear shirt more than once causes a kerfuffle
Now for a slightly bizarre story from today’s edition of the Spanish newspaper Marca (who were, incidentally, the media ringleaders when Real Madrid started sniffing around Ronaldo).
Apparently, Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas has only taken three jerseys to Austria/ Switzerland - one for each match of the group stage. If his side reach the quarterfinals, new shirts will need to be sent to him from his homeland, but the current Spanish transport strike would make this impossible. Hence, Marca are suggesting that the indefinite strike - which has been called over soaring fuel prices - will affect Spanish team selection if it continues past June 21 (the date of Spain’s first potential quarter-final match).
Quite why they couldn’t (a) fly the shirt over or (b) go and buy one from any sporting goods store in Austria/ Switzerland or (c) put one of his qualification stage jerseys in the wash, remains a mystery.
Yet more semi-clothed madness from the qualifying nations
Yesterday we introduced you to four of the best reasons to stay tuned throughout Euro 2008, and today The Spoiler brings you three more of the finest WAGs the continent has to offer. First up is Anine Bing, partner of Sweden’s Anders Svensson. This Danish lovely was outlawed by Birmingham City Council, as residents of the nation’s second city kept crashing when they became transfixed by a steamy billboard campaign in which she featured. See more pictures of her here, but try not to think of them while driving.
See the supporting ladies of Iker Casillas and Tomas Rosicky after the jump
Spain’s number one WAG hangs with Spain’s number one keeper
After shooting to prominence by winning Miss Spain in 2003, Eva Gonzalez, 27, has managed to resist using her sexy powers for evil, in spite of getting the same start in celebrity life as Danielle Lloyd (who won the British equivalent in 2006). Unlike Miss Lloyd, she has chosen not to work her way through every high profile football player who spills a drink on her in a night club, but has
Real Madrid stopper embarrassed by over-enthusiastic tribute
For centre forwards there are apparently few more terrifying sights than a world-class goal-keeper tearing from his line like a pitbull that has just slipped his chain. With this in mind, the slightly demented folk at Madrid’s Museum of Wax felt it time to re-create Spanish number one Iker Casillas in all his furious, striker-crippling glory.
Trouble is, they used 53 kilos of wax to fashion a gurning monstrosity that looks
