The Archive

What are the expectations for the team?
If it weren’t for a scrappy qualifying campaign it would have been the semi-finals. Although it is a tough group, Turks are expecting their team to go through.

Are there any players who have appeared in TV commercials?
It doesn’t take much for a Turkish player to appear in a TV commercial. Any player with a half-decent face who plays for Fenerbahce, Galatasaray or Besiktas is in a TV ad. A group of players appear in a domestic cola brand’s commercials, while Villarreal’s Nihat Kahveci is doing an ad for the energy drink Powerade.

Is the coach popular?
Fatih Terim is officially the most successful football coach in the country’s history. But he hasn’t won any silverware for some time and he’s eager to prove himself on the international stage. One of those efforts came at a press conference a few months ago, when he decided to address the foreign reporters’ questions in English. This included the possibly philosophical observation that “Everything is something happened”.

Which players are good interviewees and who are the worst?
Should he make the squad, Leyton-born Colin Kazim-Richards, now with Fenerbahce, will come up with some interesting story about his supposed gangsta roots in London. Midfielder Tümer Metin is always an honest interviewee who tries to say something other than cliches, which very few other Turkish players are able to do.

Are then any players with unusual hobbies or business interests?
Defender Servet Cetin likes to sing Turkish folk songs during team camps. Most Turkish players have brothers who open kebab houses which the player finances, effectively making them the partner. Hobbies rarely go any further than playing on the PlayStation and backgammon.

Will there be any rehearsed goal celebrations?
None at the moment. The classic celebration is running to the bench to hug the coach or kissing the substitute who had said before the game that the player would score.

Are there any players involved in politics?
None directly, but some are known to have certain affiliations. There are a number of Galatasaray players, most notably Hakan Sukur, who are followers of a neo-Islamic teacher, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Philadelphia as he is wanted in Turkey for conspiracy to overthrow the secular state. Galatasaray’s success in the 1990s, which culminated in their UEFA Cup triumph, was based around a number of players from conservative backgrounds in rural Anatolia. Club officials never made an issue of Sukur’s beliefs and the team struggled for a while when he left. Such players are unlikely to flourish at Fenerbahce, who have close ties to the military, which is ardently opposed to religious movements.

What will the media coverage be like?
The television coverage of the championship is likely to be poor as the rights were won by ATV, a privately owned channel that is closely linked to the conservative Islamist party currently in power. ATV has little experience of broadcasting top tournaments and currently hold no rights to broadcasting a domestic competition. Selçuk Yula, a former Fenerbahce striker in the 1980s, is among their pundits. He has a good understanding of the fabric of football, but he’s a huge Fener fan and it becomes way too apparent on some occasions. He’s likely to enter a confrontation with the channel’s other critic, Kazim Kanat, a Besiktas supporter whose comments in the past have bordered on anti-Serbian racism, when he criticised Fenerbahce’s purchase of Serbians while they already had Bosnian and Croatian players in the squad.

Alp Ayhan

What are the expectations for the team?
Fairly low – although the Czech Republic topped Group D, ahead of Germany, it was a problematic qualifying campaign. The low point came after the 2-1 loss to Germany in Prague, when a tabloid journalist visited the team hotel and reportedly found five players celebrating Tomas Ujfalusi’s birthday with prostitutes. Coach Karel Bruckner almost resigned over the incident, and Karel Poborsky was later hired as a sort of national-team babysitter.

Are there any players who have appeared in TV commercials or other advertising?
That nice Petr Cech has become a one-man advertising industry over the past couple of years, simultaneously pitching Samsung, the Ceska Sporitelna bank and, modelling leisurewear alongside his wife Martina, Marks & Spencer.

Is the coach popular?
After leading the Czechs to three successive tournaments Bruckner is respected, but if he hadn’t decided to retire after Euro 2008 he would probably have been edged out. One of the conditions for his retaining his job after the 2006 World Cup disappointment was the appointment of Petr Rada, a potential successor, as his assistant.
 
Do any of the players have famous girlfriends or wives?
Jan Koller’s wife Hedvika has appeared in the Czech edition of Playboy, Tomas Rosicky has been involved with beauty queen-turned-weather girl Radka Kocurova for several years, and defender Radoslav Kovac’s girlfriend Klara Medkova was runner-up in the 2003 Miss Czech Republic contest – a position that the Czechs, rather unfortunately, refer to as “vicemiss”. Keeping track of who Milan Baros and the recently divorced Ujfalusi are seeing keeps large sections of the Czech Republic’s tabloid press in work.

Are there any players involved in politics?
Baros’s experiences have probably put his team-mates off any political involvement. Baros campaigned for the right-of-centre Civic Democratic Party (ODS) during the 2006 election. When the ODS took power, Baros applied for a grant to set up a football academy in his home town, prompting a row within the party over whether he had been promised the money in exchange for his participation in the campaign.

What will the media coverage be like?
Prima, the free-to-air commercial station that has the Euro 2008 TV rights, has announced that Vladimir Smicer will be the “face” of their coverage. This is the first time Prima, who currently show English Premier League games, have covered a major football tournament, so it’s a bit of a step into the unknown. In February, there were reports that Prima had been trying to sell the rights on to Ceska Televize, the state broadcaster that normally handles major tournaments, which doesn’t inspire confidence.

Will there be many fans travelling to the tournament?
Demand for tickets has been intense, exceeding that for the World Cup in Germany. Czech fans aren’t the most boisterous supporters – typically, a chant of Cesi do toho (Czechs go for it) fizzles out after three or four repetitions. That said, the sight of several thousand fans jumping up and down and chanting Hop! Hop! Hop! Kdo neskace neni Cech! (If you’re not jumping, you’re not Czech) is oddly impressive.

Sam Beckwith

What are the expectations for the team?
Enormous and unrealistic. The recent friendly results have started to calm down expectant fans. But most people in Switzerland know next to nothing about football so they still think we are a great team and can win it.

Are there any players who have appeared in TV commercials?
Most of the players are involved in ads for Carlsberg, one of the team’s main sponsors, and for Swiss Federal Railways, where such players as Ludovic Magnin and Philippe Senderos expound the virtues of travelling by train. In the case of Senderos, you can just imagine him sitting in one, mouth agape, listening to his iPod. Alexander Frei, who is the figurehead of Swiss football, has done ads for Nike and Familia, a brand of muesli. He’s also promoted JVC and Mazda and whenever a Swiss version of a football game comes out, he’ll be on the box here. Tranquillo Barnetta does adverts for a children charity run by McDonald’s and VW. Coach Köbi Kuhn is fronting a campaign for T-shirts sold at Denner, a Swiss supermarket chain.

Is the coach popular?
Not any more, especially now that Ottmar Hitzfeld is joining after Euro 2008. The main tabloid, Blick, even suggested getting rid of Kuhn before the tournament.

Which players are good interviewees and who are the worst?
Senderos and Johan Djourou are very affable and make themselves readily available for interviews with local papers. Frei has a reputation for speaking honestly though he is also said to hold some fairly right-wing opinions.

Are then any players with unusual hobbies or business interests?
Swiss players are generally very ordinary. Some quite enjoy going for a hike in the mountains or prefer to just stroll around town like every other Swiss citizen. However, Daniel Gygax is an amateur DJ and has been known to miss training sessions at Metz due to his commitments to nightlife.

What will the media coverage be like?
Coverage quality on TV depends very much on where you are in the country: populist and positive in the German part; analytic and uncomplacent in the Italian part; amateurish and shambolic in the French part. The coverage as a whole is getting quite strident. The two best known ex-players working as pundits the monosyllabic are Stéphane Chapuisat on the Swiss-French TV channel, who makes Alan Shearer sound like Stephen Fry, and Kubilay Turkyilmaz on the Swiss-Italian channel, who is grumpy but interesting and critical.

Will there be any rehearsed goal celebrations?
Probably. Some are hoping for one on a Swiss theme such as William Tell or Swiss wrestling, which involves grabbing your opponent by his pants and throwing him around.

Do Swiss fans have any favourite chants or songs?
There are quite a lot of songs but in several languages, so those that are sung by everybody are rather simple. The Schweizer Nati (Swiss Nation) chant was quite spectacular in 2006, but it did worry the hosts as Swiss Germans pronounce “Nati” as in “Nazi”.

Yuri Goffinet
Thanks to Cartonrouge.ch

What are the expectations for the team?
Generally lower than they should be given the quality of the players available. The Selecção had a bumpy ride in what looked at the outset to be a perfectly accessible qualifying group. Since then, in the warm-up games against Italy (13) and Greece (1-2), they were outclassed. Asked about the team’s chances, coach Luiz Felipe Scolari has been loath to commit himself: “There are 16 teams and we have the same 6.2 per cent chance as the others. After that, we’ll have a 12.4 per cent chance, and so on.” Cristiano Ronaldo is more confident: “We have every chance,” he told Spanish magazine Don Balón.

Are there any players who have appeared in TV commercials or other advertising?
As might be expected, Ronaldo is ubiquitous. One recent campaign for the bank BES has him floating wispily out of a football: “I am the Genie of the Ball and I grant you three wishes.” The supermarket chain Modelo, another official sponsor, has gathered players from five generations: a portly Eusébio, Fernando Chalana, Paulo Futre, Rui Costa and Ronaldo: “Live the dream of generations and support Portugal” (by, among other things, buying a scarf at the supermarket for €1).

Is the coach popular?
Opinion is split. Fans seem to be generally happy with him, especially since he’s overseen the most successful period in the Selecção’s history, and his urging people to hang Portugal flags out of their windows and get behind the team met with a good response in the last two tournaments. Most journalists, on the other hand, believe that he should have done even more with the players at his disposal. He is also disliked for his somewhat arrogant, prickly manner at press conferences. Portugal had just qualified with a nervous 0-0 draw against Finland at Porto’s Estádio do Dragão and, in a steadily escalating huff at some uncomfortable questions, he exploded with the now celebrated “I’m a donkey?! I’m a terrible coach?!” before storming out.

Which players are good interviewees and who are the worst?
Ricardo Quaresma is fascinating for his tics (including a trademark nose-scratch). Ricardo and Simão always look like they’ve just been told a great joke and will burst out laughing at any moment. As for what any of them say, it’s generally very non-committal stuff that toes the party line.

Are there any players with unusual hobbies or business interests?
Goalkeeper Ricardo keeps Doberman Pinschers. Midfielder Raúl Meireles has a set of tattoos that wouldn’t look out of place on Prison Break. Ronaldo and Quaresma apparently collect bling.

Do any of the players have famous girlfriends or wives?
The “pink press” makes sure that Cristiano Ronaldo’s girlfriends achieve immediate fame by association. He was with the B-list television presenter Merche Romero, eight years his senior, when he was in Portugal, and she’s still milking the reflected fame. On his arm at the time of writing is Spanish model Nereida Gallardo, who has apparently got as far as meeting the family.

Will there be any rehearsed goal celebrations?
If they make the cut, Nani will be doing his broken-neck-defying somersaults, while catwalk model and occasional footballer Miguel Veloso will be positioning himself strategically at the celebratory huddle to allow photographers to get the best shot of him.

Will any former players be involved in media coverage?
Among the pundits currently working for state channel RTP are Jorge Costa and Paulo Sousa, dour being the order of the day in both cases. Costa was sacked from his first coaching job at Sporting Braga this season because it appeared that he barely had a clue. Sousa’s contract with the Portugal Under-16 Selecção was not renewed last summer, presumably for the same reason.

What will the coverage be like ?
Portuguese TV commentators are notoriously low-key; even when a game is boiling with action and drama, tactics and statistics will be at the forefront. In contrast, radio coverage is always good for breathless enthusiasm and wacky “Goooooooooooooolo!” celebrations. In the press, one of the curiosities will be to see how many different reasons columnists, notably Miguel Sousa Tavares ( a diehard Porto-lover and Scolari-hater), can find to criticise the national coach.

Phil Town

Relegation to the Conference could spell the end for Mansfield or Wrexham largely thanks to their destructive chairmen

It has been a while since relegation to the Conference was tantamount to dropping into a black hole. In the past ten years, seven clubs have been promoted back into the League after falling out. That won’t be any consolation to fans of Mansfield Town and Wrexham, who remain stuck at the foot of League Two with games running out fast.

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