As experts as been saying, i will agree on, and that is the opinien that this soccer tournament has been the best since world cup in 1970, it startet in in France 98 world cup, and has been followed up here in euro2000, the good old attacking kind of soccer has made a comeback and has fighting back all the negativisme about soccer woulden't survive in the next decade. i guess that soccer finally has com home to stay for a long long time ahead.
ricococo

the reason World Cup 98 Sucked because of the money -- in 50's, 60's, 70's in World Cups only best 24 teams played, and i still consider that a lot. Andin groups, there were a lot of clashes like Italy-Brazil, Germany-Argentina, USSR-Hungrary -- you see, all the best played each other.

in 98, in France, there were a lot of teams that had nothing to do in World Cup -- like Jamaica, USA (they played poorly), Saudis, Sputh Africa, etc. And the reason to expand the number of teams in a world cup was the money.

Also, 98's and 94's sworld cup sucked because of qualifying selections, and the teams that qualified.
i mean I would give Oceania or Europe an extra team in world cup rather than another team from Central America, which happened to be Jamaica.


and in 94, there haven't been a lot of great teams like England, France, Portugal, Denmark, etc.


so, the reason why soccer became less intertaining is because of the money.


Yes, i agree -- a lot of comebacks, like past times (this tournament -- Spain vs. Yugoslavia -- 4:3; Slovenia vs. Yugoslavia -- 3:3; Portugal vs. England -- 3:2; romania vs. England -- 3:2.......the past-- Hungrary vs. Germany, world cup final '54 -- 2:3; North Korea vs. Portugal, quarterfinal '66 ---3:5, etc.......) and the attacking style throughout the tournament madeit the best I've seen.

i think at this stage football as its best is only delivered in europe and south america..
other continents are way behind and they need a lot of work till they can provide the same amount of entertaining football and footballers that we see from europe and south america...
EURO2000 is simply better than the world cup because there's no tunisia,saudi,usa,south africa,jamaica,south korea..etc
( no disrespect )
i believe that it was a tournament to remember for so many reasons but most importantly for the entertaining football, good refereeing ( some may disagree but i think it's better than FRANCE98 where red cards where for free! ) and also brilliant players and goals!
the only negative was that we had to pay to watch it, that was a really big upset to the fans who can't travel and watch the games.
also another plus was the imergance of new teams like portugal, turkey, slovenia and the end of teams with great history like Germany, and also the end of the most overrated,overestimated,overexpected team England!

i think france will win it!

shez

All the teams in Euro 2000 are better than teams like Tunisia, Cameroon, South Africa etc etc...
But quite a lot of matches were extremely boring, hadrly bearably to watch. All matches involving Norway for instance, Italy played catanaccio throughout, 2 nice goals in their first 4 matches, then in in defensive mode. And don't give me that crap like all the teams are so evenly matched. No, Norway and Slovenia were crap, who couldn't take the game to those dirty Yugoslavs, but Spain did, scored 4 past them, and then the brilliant Dutch smashed them 6-1, and they could have had 10 past them, but saved them from embarrasement.

Euro 2000 has seen lots of goals, but little little exciting attacking-football, except for the Netherlands in all their games, Spain's last 2 games, and France's games except against Portugal.
Portugal - England was exciting up to a certain stage. When Portugal were 3-2 up, they froze and couldn't seem to attack anymore, and England were to crap to even pass properly.

So once again, Euro 2000, quite a few goals, but little exciting football. In WC 82 you had Poland, Brazil, West Germany, France, Italy, all had world-class sides.
Euro 2000 quite frankly had just the Netherlands and France who I consider world-class teams.

What has made the last two tournaments WC98 and euro 2000 great spectacles are two things.

Since the bosman ruling and the expansion of the EEC we have seen players moving to many clubs(for money yes) but now in almost every game in Euro 2000 the players know one another, they are not intimidated anymore or fearful. When Italy played Holland every Juventus player spoke to Davids when anything flared up, he played peacemaker. Davids rarely got forward because he knew the Italians counter attack game which releases Izaghi free and clear.

Secondly,Portugal and Romania knew even 2 nothing down and 2:1 down respectively that England would not change their tactics and would not flood the midfield, like the Italians and French do. they watch premier football every week on TV as the rest of the world does. Do you realize how many players in this tournament play or have played in the Premier, nothing England does is a secret. Plus our media tells the rest of the world everything anyway. Whose going to play what formation how there going to play. Mcamanaman given free role, that told Portugal to attack on the flanks. Do you think Zoff tells anyone anything.

Familiarity among the players has given us more open games even Brazil do not have that aura of invincibility because most of their players playing in europe now. There was a time only one or two played and you had no idea who the others were, you only knew they looked very good.

Serie a suffers the same way and ofcourse the Italian team has suffered, the Pope is definetley helping them, having Nesta Cannavaro and Maldini doesn't hurt either. Three of the best in the world in one defence only the French are better they have four of the best. Why do you think Del peiro was picked over totti, simple, reputation. the Dutch players know what he is capable of they were not going to go on an all out atttack with him on the field so he played behind a striker keeping a defender out of the back four therefore creating space for a lone forward to go one on one towards goal. Just by reputation.

Football heaven is smiling and we should to.

This is the "World Cup - Without Brasil and Argentina"

Europe is superior.