Sportazine

Leonidas, King of Sparta. Licensed under CC BY-SA

Greece vs. Russia (1-0)

This time, it was not against the Persians, but another near east foe – The Russians. This time it was less a stand to hold your ground, but more like the calvary.

After being at the bottom of the group with 1 point, Greece goes through after a 1-0 win over the Russians. The Greeks scored their goal right before the half-time whistle. I still figured the Russians had a goal in them in the second half. It didn’t happen. Arshavin apparently can only put two good games together, as his “brilliant” performance at Euro 2008 was just two games after he served a two-game suspension (notably, just like Rooney is doing this tournament).

Yesterday was not a good day for my bracket, or my brother’s. We both had Russia and Poland going through. I picked Russia to win the group and he picked Poland to win the group. Neither went through.

It also wasn’t a great day for my fantasy, though I only had Dzagoev in the side. He failed to score or get an assist

Other News and Notes

I want to apologize again for the short coverage today on Greece v. Russia. I am still preoccupied trying to find someone to help with one of the games tomorrow. Right now my plan is to report on Italy v. Ireland despite two votes for Spain v. Croatia. I only get to see Aiden McGeady play but so often. Perhaps if there were enough more votes for Spain v. Croatia I might change my mind.

My old friend, Jon Bersuder, is going to be bringing you coverage of yesterday’s Poland v. Czech matchup. He is supposed to get that out before game time today, but that’s not looking likely at the moment. No biggie, as far as I’m concerned.

I take today off completely from games to interview Italian metal band Nanowar. Eric and Evan will be bringing you coverage of today’s games.

Quick Preview for Today’s Games

Evan and Eric are bringing you reports from the Group B matches today, but I wanted to weigh in before kickoff to say that I modified my fantasy team and now my Group B contingent is Manuel Neuer, Fábio Coentrão, Philipp Lahm and B. Schweinsteiger. I thought about putting Bendtner in my team, but I wanted to have a fresh Wayne Rooney in my side. I also figure that Big Z tends to score a lot of goals in meaningless matches and the Sweden match is meaningless, so keep him in. So, clearly I am expecting a good game from Germany and not a good game from Netherlands. Bye-bye bracket if I’m correct on that!

Don’t forget that Game 3 of the NBA Finals is tonight. Since Eric is writing on the Euros tonight, don’t expect any coverage from us on it.