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EPL Talk Gets Behind Holland!

The Gaffer — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:48:01 +0000

Here’s a photograph of me, The Gaffer, partying with two friendly Dutch fans in the streets of Berne, Switzerland before the Italy against Holland match.

I’ll be at Slainte’s Pub in Boynton Beach this afternoon cheering on the Dutch. Come back later tonight for a full report as well as articles throughout the day from the EPL Talk bloggers.

The Euro 2008 Stadium Experience: Berne

The Gaffer — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:34:50 +0000

Experiencing Euro 2008 from the comfort of your home, office or local pub is so different than seeing the game live in person. But what goes on inside a stadium in the buildup to a Euro 2008 game?

For the first round of Euro 2008 matches that began at 2.45pm ET, most — if not all — of the stadiums televised the noon ET game on the giant screen TVs to encourage fans to get to the stadium early and to reduce traffic congestion in the buildup to the match.

When I watched the game between France and Romania on the giant TV screens before Holland played Italy in Berne, there were two problems. One, it was very difficult to watch a game on a giant screen TV no matter where your seat was in the stadium. Two, the stadium organizers had a DJ playing music throughout the game so it definitely took away the atmosphere of the match. But luckily we didn’t miss much as the French played an absolutely boring game against the very physical Romanians.

I was really impressed with the pre-match events organized by the Swiss. Sure, there was the predictable dancers running across the pitch carrying banners to pump up the crowd. But there was also a host who spoke to the crowd in English and explained what would happen in the build-up to the match. He then introduced two men. One spoke in Dutch to the Oranje army. The other man was Italian and spoke in his native tongue to his fellow countrymen.

Both the Dutch and Italian men tried to pump up their fans. The English-speaking host then explained how he wanted the Dutch and Italian fans to work together to ensure that the match was celebrated in the spirit of the game.

He then got the fans involved in a novel crowd participation game. A very large canvas sheet in the shape of a soccer ball was given to the Dutch fans at one end of the stadium. The host then encouraged the fans to pass the soccer ball canvas over their heads to the opposite side of the stadium where the Italian fans stood. The object of the game was to see if they could get it to the other end within 60 seconds.

While it was fun to watch the fans fumble the ball, it was definitely a good exercise to get the crowd working together as a team.

As the time sped forward toward kick off, the DJ continued to spin his records. The Italian and Dutch fans tried to sing above the din of the music but to no avail. The blasting music was detrimental to the atmosphere in the ground. By the time the game was almost ready to kick off, the fans were singing but not as loudly as they could have been. I really feel the music was to blame for this.

The site for all of these pre-match activities was Berne’s Wankdorf Stadium. Despite it’s laughable name, the ground is one of the best smaller stadiums I’ve ever visited. Recently rebuilt in 2005, the ground looks boxy from the outside, but inside it’s quite compact while still allowing enough leg room in the 32,000 all-seater. What surprised me was how well designed the concourse was than ran beneath the upper deck. The restrooms, for example, were as modern as what you’d expect to find in most larger hotels. And the way the concourse was designed allowed for easy flow of football supporters in and out of that corner of the ground.

Other than the annoying DJ, I give the Euro 2008 stadium experience at Berne’s Wankdorf Stadium a massive thumbs up.

Key To Holland’s Success: Orlando Engelaar

The Gaffer — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:11:25 +0000

Watching the Holland against Italy match earlier this week in Bern, the biggest relevation for me was seeing how Orlando Engelaar mastered the midfield for the Netherlands. The tall, lanky Dutchman was a key part of Holland’s success.Playing in the center of the park, the 28-year-old FC Twente midfielder dictated possession. He masterminded many of Holland’s attacks by playing key throughballs to the Dutch wingers and attackers. And when Italy charged forward, Engelaar quickly stifled their attacks oftentimes heading the ball away by outjumping Luca Toni.Incredibly, Engelaar only has 7 caps for Holland. He played his first match for the Dutch just last June, and he is one of the tallest players in the Eredivisie. Not surprisingly, Engelaar is captain of his club side FC Twente.When I reviewed Engelaar’s statistics at the Castrol Performance Index site, I was surprised by how much ground the midfielder covered. As you can see in the image, Engelaar covered almost every blade of the pitch and even advanced into the far corners of the field.In the heat map, you can see that he concentrated his efforts in the middle of the park, but he also tended to play more on the left but left the right side of the pitch alone.According to the same stats site, he covered 11,143 metres in the game (second only to teammate Rafael Van der Vaardt). That’s the equivalent of almost seven miles!If you take a look at Engelaar’s heatmap from Friday’s match against France (also from the Castrol Performance Index site), you can see that he focused more of his time in the center of the pitch and rarely traversed into other areas. Whether this was part of Holland’s tactics or maybe France prevented Engelaar from moving out of his position is unclear, but the data is interesting indeed.It’ll be interesting to see how Engelaar develops during the rest of the tournament. If I was one of the Premier League scouts, I’d be contacting his club in the next few days to see if there’s a possibility of signing this player. He seems to have everything. He’s fantastic in the air, calm under pressure, has wonderful passing abilities and excellent ball skills.

Tales Of Euro 2008 Ticket Scalpers

The Gaffer — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:15:32 +0000

The Guardian’s Barney Ronay wrote an excellent article this week about ticket scalpers at Euro 2008. While in Zurich, I didn’t see one scalper. But the minute I walked off the train in Bern on the day of the Holland against Italy match, there were scalpers everywhere.

That day, I probably saw about 20-30 different scalpers. As Ronay said in his article, none of the police bothered the scalpers so they were free to roam the street soliciting people for tickets. There was a dozen of them roaming around the train station. One of my favorites was the bloke wearing a “I Love Soccer Moms” T-Shirt.

Along the journey to the stadium, we walked past supporters haggling with scalpers regarding ticket prices. Several of the discussions became quite heated over the veracity of the tickets and whether they were legitimate tickets or not. I’m by no means an expert on ticket scalping, but I was curious about the scalpers who were handing their potential customers cellphones. I’m not sure whether this was for them to call to confirm that the tickets were real or not, but it seemed an unusual way to do business.

About three hours before the match was scheduled to begin, scalpers were offering 750 Swiss Francs (equivalent of $750) for tickets. The face value of the tickets was $130 (at least mine was). Goodness knows how much the $750 price increased by as it got closer to kick-off time.

Hup, Holland, Hup

The Gaffer — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:00:07 +0000

Here’s a brief video I shot of the Dutch friends we made in Bern. It’s one of those delightful football songs that’s almost impossible to get out of your head after you’ve heard it.

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