Andrei Arshavin is already 27. Did you realize that? That’s just two years younger than Henry when he transferred to Purgatory and Shevchenko when he transferred to his little three-legged stool behind the Chelsea bench. I’ve enjoyed watching Arshavin as much as everyone else during the two games he’s played at Euro 2008, but I wonder if we’re getting slightly ahead of ourselves to declare that a 27-year-old who’s spent his entire career below the Richter scale in St. Petersburg (averaging just under six goals a season, for what that’s worth) is the second coming of Cesc Fabregas. More»

Weirdest exchange between Derek Rae and Tommy Smyth during the last two quarterfinal games (tie):

1. On Hamit Altintop

Smyth: ‘Hamit’ means ‘golden ball,’ you know.
Rae: ‘Altintop’ does.
Smyth: Right.
Rae: ‘Ball that is golden.’
Smyth: One or the other.
Rae: I’m surprised you don’t remember our Turkish lessons during those very pleasant days we spent in Istanbul a few years ago.
Smyth: Oh, I remember.
Rae: Tommy, I’d have thought you’d remember that ‘top’ means ‘ball.’
Smyth: ‘Golden ball,’ that’s right.

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First: Zach recently asked why Americans focus so much on diving in soccer, when American sports have their own problems with cheating. This is something I’ve wondered about, too, and after giving it some thought, my latest guess is that it’s not the diving Americans mind so much as the writhing on the ground feigning injury. Basketball, as I wrote in that earlier post, is rife with flopping and theatrical attempts to draw fouls. But basketball players seldom follow up a flop with forty seconds of convulsions designed to suggest that they’re being beaten with dining trays in an invisible prison riot. I think it’s those melodramatic performances of weakness, which have no real counterpart in American sports, that underlie the disgust fans feel toward diving both here and in Europe. More»

A thrilling group stage has gone the way of the snows of yesteryear and the car keys of late last night, but before we move on to the quarterfinals let’s take a moment to name the best goal from the third round of games. Well, I’ll take a moment to name one. You take a moment to nod slowly and admire my wisdom. Otherwise: comments. Videos after the jump.

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Southgate Rankings are an attempt to quantify the subjective sense of belonging that accrues around a team over time. The further a team is over the red line in the table—the Southgate Parallel—the more strongly they are felt to belong in whatever class the line delimits (in this case, the quarterfinals of Euro 2008). For more information about the Southgate Rankings and how they work, see this post.

Southgate Rankings, Euro 2008 (2)

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I’m interested in the bones of Michael Ballack. I don’t know why. They’re prominent but not expressive, like the aristocrats in Proust. They demand to be noticed, like a pipe wrench, but have nothing to say, like a supermodel. They’re functional, like a supermodel, but insentient, like Tyra Banks. Anyway, I’m interested in them. More»

It’s hard to take for Petr Čech’s sake: one of my favorite players, and one who’s already dealt with a heartbreaking loss this summer. Also in a game that took place under driving rain, and that somehow became more than it was supposed to even as the sales pitch surrounding it told us it was supposed to become so much. The moment of actual greatness demonstrating the ability to overcome even the skepticism induced by your average match hype.

I fell hard for Turkey in the second half of this match. Hopelessly outclassed in the first half, they came back with the right tactical adjustments and with a cold style of grieving retribution. The flooded midfield couldn’t stop Plasil from making it 2-0, and at that point it was as if the conflict thinned away for them and punishing the Czechs was just a drastic way to mourn their own failure. Nihat never looked so alive as he did when he thought they’d killed him. The team never looked like surviving until they’d suffered the mortal blow. More»

The second round of the group phase is in the books, which means it’s time to pin a shining blue ribbon on the lapel of its most exciting goal. Once again, I’ll be pronouncing a winner from the Olympian heights of being the only person who knows my account password, but you’re warmly invited to name your own choice in the comments. We have more nominees (and videos) this time. . . More»

It’s over between me and Poland. I would like to state that more graphically. The cold hard bluish toes of my enthusiasm for Poland are poking indecently out of the autopsy blanket that’s covering the rest of the corpse. You know you’ve picked the wrong team to follow in Euro 2008 when your hard drive suddenly turns into an Ozymandias desert of ruined data and you find yourself thinking things like, “Wow, I’m glad I have no choice but to spend the next four hours painstakingly extracting fragments of source code with a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass, because otherwise I’d have to write a preview of the Poland-Croatia match.” At that point you make bleak confessions to yourself and come to terms with having made a mistake. More»

What you might as well be reading:

• Martin Samuel on Luton Town’s unjust punishment. (The Game)
• A Ladies’ Roundtable on Euro 2008. (Ladies…)
• Guardian sports pages from the alternate universe in which England qualified for Euro 2008. (A More Splendid Life)
• A German team helps their opponents win promotion by deliberately losing 54-1. Amazingly, their cunning plan fails to go unnoticed. (Ananova)
• Big Phil is officially bound for Chelsea. Wherever shall we find a cheap comic hook to inform our coverage of him. (The Independent)
• It’s life and death for Poland in Euro 2008. (Poland Offside)

Back later today with an honest-to-God post.

UPDATE: Back sometime tomorrow with an honest-to-God POST.