Austria Euro 2008

Pre-Order The New England Football Kit 09/11

2009-03-17T08:23:00.002Z

This is what they're saying the new England Home Football Kit will look like:

Personally, I don't think its much different from the old one, and I hope they're not releasing yet another new kit just to rake it in to pay for Wembley that they hideously over-spent on!

If you did want to buy or pre-order the new England home football kit for the seasons 09/11 then here's a couple of shops:

* Kitbag
* UK Soccer Shop.

What Are The Most Popular Football Products?

2009-03-17T07:38:00.002Z

It's always amazed me what people search for on the internet and eventually buy. Just looking over the top searches for football, at Price Inspector it throws up some surprising and some less than surprising searches.

Obviously football boots are way up there at number 1. And what's the most popular make of football boot? Well its Adidas Predator - probably because of all that advertising.

Looking at the first instance of a football team, Liverpool is top of the list with Liverpool Football Shirts, with Utd second (the league won't finish like that!) with Manchester United Jacket.

Interestingly, "Gascoigne" is listed at 41 - and I have no idea why.

And the last on the list, "Aston Villa Mug", there fans are mugs for booing Martin O'neil for being 5th in the league - muppets!

Football Easter Eggs

2009-02-24T07:13:00.003Z

Go on, you know you want to buy your son or daughter (or even yourself) a football Easter egg!! Thorntons are doing some really cheap ones for just £3.50 which you can't really argue with!

The Tournament Is Over ... What Now?

2008-07-08T08:41:00.002Z

Well obviously there's the World Cup but there's also Christmas and annual trudge around the shops trying to find the perfect Christmas present. Now if you are your kids are into footy then I've created this list of Christmas presents for football fans which may give you some ideas of what to get.

It's time to look beyond football shirts!

Euro 2008 Loser Football Shirts Reduced

2008-06-18T15:08:00.002Z

The latest teams to get knocked out not only have to face the indignation of going home early but also have to see their shirts reduced in price!

Subside Sports have just sent me over the latest shirts to be slashed (in price that is):

07-08 France Home shirt - £26.99

08-09 France Away shirt £26.99

07-09 Czech Republic Away shirt £26.99

08-09 Czech Republic Home Shirt - 26.99

To say I'm shocked about France being knocked out is an understatment! What's happened to them - well at least we won't see Mr Henry scoring goals against us in future!! I'm still remembering our World Cup 06 opening game against them :-(

You Can Still Support England With a Joe Bloggs T-shirt!!

2008-06-05T05:25:00.003Z

You can still be proud of England with a Joe Bloggs England T-shirt!!

That one is for men, but they've got loads of Boys England T-shirts as well from £8 up!

So be proud of your nation during the Euro 2008 tournament and wear a Joe Bloggs England T-shirt!!!

Top Selling Euro 2008 Football Shirts: Ronaldo Plays #17 Don't You Know?!

2008-05-29T17:18:00.004Z

The fantastic guys at Subside Sports (Simon Swan) have given me some interesting news about the sales of Euro 2008 football shirts:

1) Portugal Shirt with C. RONALDO printing – Cristiano Ronaldo has recently elected to wear the number 7 shirt during Euro 2008 even though he historically played in the number 17 shirt for the national side!! Doh!

2) Italy Shirt with DEL PIERO printing – After the player has recently been called back into the squad for the Euro 2008 campaign, there has been massive demand for his printing!

3) Spain Shirt with CESC printing - not Fabregas!

4) Italy Shirt with CANNAVARO – The captain of the Italy World cup winning side!

5) Netherlands shirt with V. NISTELROOY printing

6) Germany Shirt with BALLACK printing (boooo!)

7) France shirt with TREZEGUET printing

Cheers Simon!

Euro 2008 Football Kits Group D - To Preview & Buy

2008-05-28T11:37:00.003Z

Now I feel Group D is much more of an open group. You've got Greece (the holders), Russia, Sweeden and Spain all vieing for the top two places. It won't be easy - but at least these kits are more easy on the eye!

Greece Home Shirt 2007/09 from
Kitbag
I'm sad to say I actually like this one. But it is kinda cool. Its simplicity at its best. A white shirt with the Adidas stripes down the side and golden writing for the player names on the back - v. nice.

Rating: 8/10
Manufacturer: Adidas
Buy From Subside Sports - £39.99
UKSoccerShop - £44.99
Kitbag - £9.99

08-09 Russia Home Shirt by Nike from SubsideSports
Now this is another snazzy football shirt from Russia. It's a bit like the Greece one - in that its white! But this Nike one has a touch of class about it with the flag colours accross the shirt's middle. I just hope that everyone that buys this is slim as apparently you're not supposed to wear horizontal if you're "chubby" - according to Trinny and Suzzanna!

Rating: 8/10
Manufacturer: Nike
Buy From Subside Sports - £39.99

Sweden Home Football Shirt 2007/08 from Kitbag
Now I've still got horrible memories of Sweden shirts from when they knocked us out of the Euro 90 (?) tournament! Thinking about it, I should have fobias about most international football kits seeing as virtually every nation has knocked us out of a competion!

It is a pretty nice looking shirt, but a bit garrish if you ask me. It's not as stylish as the others though. At least Umbro get a look in!

Rating: 7/10
Manufacturer: Umbro
Buy From Kitbag - £34.99
UK Soccer Shop - £39.99
Subside Sports - £39.99

Spain Home Football Shirt 2007/09 from Kitbag
Spain hey? For some reason I have an allergy to Spanish international footballers - I just can't put my finger on it! But, anyway, this Spanish shirt is ok, nothing amazing. Its very red which isn't a bad thing, but it's a bit bland. It looks like they had their factories in Asia somewhere working hard creating the logo which could easily take up the year's supply of cotton to produce.

Rating: 6/10
Manufacturer: Adidas
Buy From Kitbag - £39.99
UK Soccer Shop - £39.99
Subside Sports - £39.99

Euro 2008 Matches On TV - BBC & ITV

2008-05-25T21:01:00.002Z

This is a list of the channels you can hopefully watch the Euro 2008 tournament:

Date				Group	Venue	Coverage	KO
Sat 7	Switzerland	v	Czech Rep	A	Basel	BBC	17:00
Sat 7	Portugal	v	Turkey	A	Geneva	ITV	19:45
Sun 8	Austria	v	Croatia	B	Vienna	BBC	17:00
Sun 8	Germany	v	Poland	B	Kagenfurt	BBC	19:45
Mon 9	Romania	v	France	C	Zurich	BBC	17:00
Mon 9	Holland	v	Italy	C	Berne	ITV	19:45
Tue 10	Spain	v	Russia	D	Innsbruck	BBC	17:00
Tue 10	Greece	v	Sweden	D	Saltzburg	ITV	19:45
Wed 11	Czech Rep	v	Portugal	A	Geneva	ITV	17:00
Wed 11	Switzerland	v	Turkey	A	Basel	BBC	19:45
Thu 12	Croatia	v	Germany	B	Kagenfurt	ITV	17:00
Thu 12	Austria	v	Poland	B	Vienna	BBC	19:45
Fri 13	Italy	v	Romania	C	Zurich	ITV	17:00
Fri 13	France	v	Holland	C	Berne	BBC	19:45
Sat 14	Sweden	v	Spain	D	Innsbruck	ITV	17:00
Sat 14	Greece	v	Russia	D	Saltzburg	ITV	19:45
Sun 15	Switzerland	v	Portugal	A	Basel	ITV	19:45
Sun 15	Turkey	v	Czech Rep	A	Geneva	ITV	19:45
Mon 16	Austria	v	Germany	B	Vienna	BBC	19:45
Mon 16	Poland	v	Croatia	B	Kagenfurt	BBC	19:45
Tue 17	France	v	Italy	C	Zurich	BBC	19:45
Tue 17	Holland	v	Romania	C	Berne	BBC	19:45
Wed 18	Greece	v	Spain	D	Saltzburg	ITV	19:45
Wed 18	Russia	v	Sweden	D	Innsbruck	ITV	19:45
Thu 19	Winner Grp A	v	RU Grp B	QF1	Basel	ITV	19:45
Fri 20	Winner Grp B	v	RU Grp A	QF2	Vienna	BBC	19:45
Sat 21	Winner Grp C	v	RU Grp D	QF3	Basel	?	19:45
Sun 22	Winner Grp D	v	RU Grp C	QF4	Vienna	?	19:45
Wed 25	Semi-final 1	v		SF1	Basel	?	19:45
Thu 26	Semi-final 2	v		SF1	Vienna	?	19:45
Sun 29	Final	v		F	Vienna	BBC	19:45

Portugal V Turkey - Saturday 7th June - 7:45pm

2008-05-25T20:37:00.002Z

Portugal may have had a dodgy start to the Euro 2008 qualifying rounds but they came good at the end with the boy Ronaldo. During the last two years they've made slight improvments in the FIFA world rankings but it was the move from 22nd to 8th that made the world sit up and notice.

Turkey are ranked 25th and did make good progress up until 2004 where they have slid from 7th.

Portugal may have only finished second in their group, but they know they've got the firepower to beat Turkey without really breaking into too much of a sweat.

This should be a confortable game but I feel Turkey will get a late goal after Portugal going two-nill up.

Austria 2008.co.uk prediction - 2:1

Switzerland v Czech Republic - 7th June Preview

2008-05-25T20:14:00.002Z

The opening game of the Euro 2008 tournament will be one of the joint hosts: Switzerland against one of the favourites: Czech Republic at the Jakob Park Stadium.

Switzerland who are ranked 48th in the world will surely not be able to beat Czech Republic who are ranked 6th? To be honest I wouldn't put any money on it. The interesting thing is that in so many opening games of internation tournaments there are shocks.

Does anyone remember August 1993? Well then they were apparently ranked 3rd in the world! Like ow the heck did that happen? Between then and the end of 1998 they slipped down to 83rd in the world and have been, as recently as July 2006, ranked 13th in the world. It was just a bad 2007 that saw then drop quite quickly.

Czech Replulic have however, been on an upward trend since 1994 when they were ranked 64th in the world. But in two short years they managed to get up to 4th. They may have come off the pace since 2006 but I doubt they'll fall to the Swiss. But what about the injuries ....

Thea Arsenal pair of Eduardo and the national captain Rosicky won't be playing and this may dent their chances. But the world's best stopper will be in goal for the Czechs so I can't see them conceeding.

Austria 2008.co.uk prediction: Switzerland 0:3 Czech Republic

Euro 2008 Fantasty Football League

2008-05-23T08:13:00.002Z

If you'd like to play Euro 2008 Fantasty Football then why not sign up to the original Fantasy Football League? These guys first started in 1991!!

So is Ronaldo a shoe-in for the golden boot? Will Spain shock us all or will Germany win on penalties??

Sithy up with Fantasy League for the chance to win big time!!

Euro 2008 Football Kits Group C - To Preview & Buy

2008-05-20T07:28:00.003Z

Continuing or look at the ugly and boring Euro 2008 Football Kits with group C. At least there's a bit more variety with this group!

Holland Home Kit
Ah something that's not red, white or blue. The glorious orange that used to play so great football and now is the perennial also-rans. But the shirt is like their style of play - nothing special! It's orange with the usual logo and a Nike swoosh. Even the collar is under-stated. But what did we expect from the Dutch? They're a very understated nation!

Rating: 7/10
Manufacturer: Nike
Buy From JD Sports - £39.99
Womens Shirt - Kitbag - £9.99

Italy Home Shirt 2008/10
At last, some pure class!! The Italy Euro 2008 shirt is a work of art, it's pure quality - that is if you can ignore the prancing pumas. The emblem is nice and simple and has gold edging. If they play shit, they'll still look good!

Rating: 9/10
Manufacturer: Puma
Buy from: Kitbag - £39.99
UK Soccer Shop - £34.99
target="_blank">Subside Sports - £39.99

Romania Home Shirt
I could only find the 06/07 home shirt which is as bright as ever. It seems that no-one wants to sell the shirt, which is a bit of a shame as it's not a bad looking football shirt if you ask me! It is mainly yellow with a red swooshy thing down the side and blue patches. You won't get lost in a crowd wearing this - unless you're at a Romania game of course!

Rating: 7/10
Manufacturer: Adidas
Buy from: UK Soccer Shop - £44.99

France Home Shirt
Not the best looking shirt if you ask me. It was probably designed to look stylish but it comes up way short! Perhaps because it IS a France shirt that I don't like it. There's a perfect red line over the front which I'm sure will frame some pot-bellies of the French fans having had a lifetime gorging themselves on red wine and smelly cheese! It's not the worst though!

Rating: 6/10
Manufacturer: Adidas
Buy from: UK Soccer Shop - £39.99
Subside Sports - £39.99

Latest Euro 2008 Scores

2008-05-17T08:24:00.002Z

Below you'll see the live scores from the Euro 2008 tournament (and other football matches):

Win a Footie Shirt of your Choice - from Subside Sports

2008-05-16T12:19:00.006Z

Subside Sports are giving you the chance to win a replica footie shirt of your choice plus we'll pay for the delivery to a UK address for you – As the famous sports pundit, Alan Patridge would say, "Back of the net!"

The odds are stacked towards Italy taking the crown after their World cup victory, or could it be an outsider as we saw during Euro 2004 with Greece?

For the full line up of teams check out the Subside Sports Euro 2008 page.
In order to stand a chance of winning just send in your prediction of which team is going to win Euro 2008? Competition starts from 17/05/2008.

You can enter here. In the form, where it says country, choose the nation that you think will win the tournament. You can shoose from:

Switzerland, Austria, Holland, Greece
Czech Republic, Croatia, Italy, Sweden
Portugal, Germany, Romania, Spain
Turkey, Poland, France, Russia

We won't give your details to anyone else - unless you're the winner then we'll get your delivery details and pass them to Subside Sports.

The winner will be drawn at random, we'll select all the entries that have selected the winning team, put them into a spreadsheet and then use a random number generator to pick a number corresponding with an entry. We'll then contact you via email. This should happen before Sunday 6th July 2008. We'll then arrange for your shirt of choice to be delivered to you.

Enter Here Remove Your Entry

*Replica Shirt up to the value of £39.99 and has to be in stock on www.subsidesports.com

Enjoy The Euro 2008 Finals With ...

2008-05-13T13:59:00.003Z

A new LCD TV with 20% from Comet - check out the details! I need a new one to use with my Wii but hey who says we have to watch the footy on them!!!

Come on! 20% off an LCD TV to watch the Germans get beat by Portugal in the final is worth any amount of money and agro from the missus when you've spent the holiday money on a fine piece of televisual fantasticness!

Bring it on Comet!

Euro 2008 Football Kits Group B - To Preview & Buy

2008-05-10T11:56:00.003Z

The Euro 2008 Group B football shirts have a bit more variety than the "all red" Group A football shirts.

Group B

Austria Home Shirt 2008/10
what's going on? Another red shirt and another from Puma with the crappy prancing ponies over the shoulders. I'm still waiting for a shirt that isn't either Puma or Nike, or in red - kit lovers are being seriously disapointed!

Rating: 6/10
Manufacturer: Puma
Buy from: Kitbag for £39.99
UKSoccerShop for £39.99
SubsideSports.com for £39.99

Croatia Home Shirt 2008/10
Another one from Nike but at least this is almost 50% white and has a blue kneckline! Phew! I wish Brazil or Cameroon were playing to add a bit of colour.

Rating: 7/10
Manufacturer: Nike
Buy from: Kitbag for £39.99
JDSports for £39.99
SubsideSports.com for £39.99

Germany Home Shirt 2007/09
At last its moving away from the red of all of the previous Euro 2008 football shirts and now moves in to a bit of white with a pretty cool black, red and yellow stripe. And another good thing is that it's made by Adidas.

Rating: 8/10 (minus 3 points because its Germany)
Manufacturer: Adidas
Buy from: Kitbag for £39.99
UKSoccerShop for £39.99
JDSports for £39.99
SubsideSports.com for £39.99

Poland Home Shirt - 2008/10
We're now fully in white, and despite it being a Puma shirt, they've got rid of the left puma and replaced it with a football logo and move the little creature to the middle. It's now a tad less crap. But its still not great!

Rating: 6.5/10
Manufacturer: Puma
Buy from: Kitbag for £39.99
UKSoccerShop for £39.99
JDSports for £39.99

Play The Football Pools - Euro 2008 Betting

2008-05-05T18:27:00.003Z

The Football Pools don't only do the old Littlewoods Pools but games such as Premier 10 where you use your fantastic football knowledge to predict the outcome, home, draw or away, of the top 10 football fixtures.

They also do Footy Bets which are fixed odds games with prizes up to £2000 for a one off stake. They also do games based on the Lotto, the Spanish Lotto and the Irishs Lotto.

The Lotto is boring these days you want to get playing the English The Football Pools!

O.s. you get a Free £5 too when you register. Here's my picks for next weekend!

So a £1 could win me £9,193?? Giddy up!

Euro 2008 Football Kits Group A - To Preview & Buy

2008-04-27T10:05:00.003Z

Here's a run through of all the kits you'll be seeing at the Euro 2008 tournament this June.

Group A
Czech Republic Home Shirt 2008/10
Puma may be coming back in to fashion (in certain areas of Feltham) but this is one of the most boring kits you'll find gracing a football pitch. It's got three pumas pouncing over the players' shoulders, it's a just a shame that most of the players are so slow they should have turtles emblazened on the shirt instead. There's the blue edging and highly detailed national emblem.

Rating: 6/10
Manufacturer: Puma
Buy from: Kitbag £39.99

Portugal Home 08 Shirt by Nike
Now the Potugal Home Shirt is more stylish in my mind, it's a retro-style football shirt. I don't know if it's just because its got the Nike swoosh on it that makes it look cool, or if its the fact that we'll see Ronaldo knock a few in whilst donning the national attire - but it's one of the best Euro 2008 football kits you'll find.

Rating: 8/10
Manufacturer: Nike
Buy from: £39.99
Kitbag - £39.99

Switzerland Home Shirt - 2008/10
So Puma couldn't be bothered to come up with a new design for Switzerland? It's the same as the Czech Football Shirt! Did they sit there and say "you know guys, I don't think we can improve of that shirt! We'll just copy it and put the Swiss badget on it!" A turd is still a turd! It's dreadful!

Rating: 6/10
Manufacturer: Puma
Buy From: Kitbag - £39.99
UKSoccerShop - £39.99

Turkey Home Shirt 2008/10
We're back in red. Group A is the group of blood. But the Turkish home shirt is a nice stylish shirt. I'm not sure what the white stripe is about, but at least it looks half-decent.

Rating: 7/10
Manufacturer: Nike
Buy From: Kitbag - £39.99
Subside Sports - £39.99

Raul Not In Spanish Squad

2008-04-27T09:58:00.002Z

It looks like Raul won't be playing in Euro 2008 as he was apparently left off the list of 31 players due to be vaccinated to play in the tournament!

Vaccinated? I thought this was Euro 2008, not Back Of Beyond 2008! I thought Austria and Switzerland are two of the most cleanlinist countries on the face of the planet!

Adidas's "EUROPASS" Match Ball

2008-04-07T09:31:00.002Z

Adidas have released the match ball for the Euro 2008 tournament and have called it the "EUROPASS" ball.

But don't you love marketing speak:

The adidas "EUROPASS" combines tradition with modernity. Its classic colouring - a white base colour with black dots - calls to mind the balls of bygone decades, yet its bonding with round dynamic elements in silver and red results in an innovative and very modern design which perfectly suits the host countries.

You've got to chuckle!

You're not going to believe the price though - a whopping £72.99 from JDSports. Buy and compare prices on the EuroPass Match Ball at Find4Me.

Domenech Bemoans Domestic Competition

2008-04-07T09:26:00.002Z

The France Coach Raymond Domenech has said that he can't give a definitive squad list for the Euro 2008 Championships because after the May 18th date there is the Champion League final, the French Cup and the Italian Cup.

My view is that he should get real. Many of my team's players have been injured playing for their countries - including France. So I have absolutely no sympathy!

2.500 Foriegn Police To Aid Tournament Security

2008-04-07T09:17:00.002Z

UEFA may be happy that England aren't playing in the Euro 2008 finals as they feel there'll be less trouble - but they're not taking any chances.

There will be 2,500 foriegn police helping with the tournament security. Germany are sending the vast bulk with 1,700, France 750, Croatia will provide 31, Poland 25, Sweden 15, Greece 12 and Russia and Spain 11 each.

I'm not sure how some of those nations can get away with donating so few! Perhaps it's because France and Germany are so close??

But watching how English fans are treated abroad - expecially in the Champion's League - I would have hoped for the foriegn fans to be protected by English police. I notice that there are no Italian poice going. I think this is because they don't have a clue about crowd safety!

Save 10% Off Football Shirts

2008-04-06T19:03:00.001Z

Right, I know its coming to the end of the season. But if you're lucky enough to have your team in the Euro 2008 finals then a £10 UK Soccer Shop Discount Code is probably what you need!

JVC Euro Ball Football Game

2008-02-18T08:56:00.002Z

These games that sponsors get made for tournaments are normally pants! But the Euro Ball game from JVC is pretty damn good!

The only downside is that we can't play as England. I'm trotting out as Portugal. Its a prety addictive game and my best score is 3-0 after a few plays.

See how you get on at Euroball!