2:52pm Tuesday 17th June 2008
By Ben Barnett
Spain’s rout of Russia and the Swedes functional win over holders Greece completed the first round of games tonight.
And after four days and eight matches the battle to retain possession of the remote control is going rather well.
Okay so the girlfriend is quite partial to the odd match - her attention always perks up when Sergio Ramos is playing for Spain - but the dogged Sweden victory shutdown her interest as her preset reminder to watch the constantly irate Gordon Ramsay make spag bol or whatever it was this week on the F-Word flashed up at the bottom of the screen.
Unexpectedly she stated it was her intention to watch this probably-more-lively source of entertainment on the portable TV upstairs leaving me in sole command of the bigger TV set in the living room. Result.
At this point the second half was starting with the score 0-0.
Rather obligingly the Swedes must have responded to my obsession with watching (almost) every match as beanpole striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic smashed in an excellent goal before Petter Hansson bundled the ball past the George Clooney lookalike in the Greek goal for a 2-0 win.
Cue gratuitous shots of beautiful people jumping up and down in the stands.
There are many F-words that come to mind to describe Greece’s situation in this year’s tournament but the most suitable to explain how they won four years ago is undoubtedly ‘fluke’.
Spain on the other hand were fluent with a capital F while Russia were flaky.
To glance back at the tournament so far, we’ve had Frei’s injury induced tears, van Nistelrooy’s stay-on-his-feet honesty amid amazing Italian humiliation, beaten holders and miraculously no red cards, bring on round two.
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