ARCACHON, FRANCE—The four-hour train trip from Paris got us into lovely Arcachon, an Atlantic coast town two hours north of the Spanish border, just in time to catch Saturday’s opening match between the Czechs and the Swiss. The Sportstrotter fiancé and I watched at Café de la Plage, a classy bar just a football throw-in from the ocean, where we enjoyed the first of four weekend meals involving oysters (they’re a bit too salty for breakfast, you know). Our weekend count hit thirty-three oysters, a feeble dent in the area’s annual haul of some 15,000 tons. But we did our best. The match atmosphere subdued in this not-yet-hitting-its-stride summer holiday town, with the bartender refusing to put the game sound on, opting instead for an enthusiastic song and dance to Elton John and Billy Joel. Still, we caught Vaclav Sverkos’s goal off a slick through ball in the seventy-first minute, the young Czech forward slotting home the goal fifteen minutes after coming on as a substitute and ruining the day for the giddy Swiss fans in Basel, who were dealt a double blow along with a 1-0 loss when their top forward, Alex Frei, was knocked out of the game (and, reportedly, the tournament) with a knee injury that had him in tears on the sideline. Not a great day for the colour-reversed Red Crosses. (Aside: I am unable able to link to Sverkos’s goal, so here’s where I bitch out UEFA for policing online video hosting sites and aggressively shutting down all web videos. I guess they figure that when fans realize the goals have been taken down off YouTube, they’ll rush over to uefa.com and pay boatloads to watch them. UEFA must have noted how successful this type of policy has been for the newspaper and music industries.) We missed Saturday’s evening game, Portugal versus Turkey, because we were enjoying a birthday dinner at a restaurant called Chez Yvette. Turns out Yvette isn’t much of a soccer fan. By all reports, Portugal were stylish and commanding in a 2-0 victory. No goals for Cristiano Ronaldo yet, but a guy named Pepe did score, so that’s cool. Too bad I haven’t seen the goals (thanks, UEFA). After a long day of wine tasting in the Médoc region north of Bordeaux, I caught Sunday’s early encounter between Austria and Croatia on a tiny TV in my hotel room. The graininess didn’t hide Austria’s general lack of talent, as the Croats scored early on a penalty drawn after a rather sloppy Austrian challenge in the box. The only good news for Austria was that they had a player emerge as an early candidate for hairdo-of-the-tournament. I can’t remember his name, but surprisingly, the bleached mohawk didn’t belong to “Jimmy� Hoffer, who I tagged as a coiffure dark-horse in the preview. More on hair in the days and weeks to come. The night match was the best of the tournament so far (though Portugal-Turkey was rated four out of six stare in the Sunday edition of l’Equipe). As we observed at the Au Bureau Irish pub in central Arcachon, Germany and Poland squared off in a surprisingly offense-minded encounter, with both teams pushing forward with gusto, especially the Germans, who displayed an impressive level of pace and ingenuity towards the goal. These aren’t your grandpa’s Germans, or even his West Germans. Lukas Podolski (if the name sounds strangely Polish, it’s because he was born there. Ouch) scored both goals for Germany, each resulting from defensive lapses in the Polish rearguard. Before the game I thought to myself, “You’re nuts to have picked Romania’s Mutu for the Golden Boot, the top scorer will surely come from the Germans playing in this fairly weak group and running up scores in their first three games,� and, sure enough, Podolski’s the two-days-in star of the tournament. I hate it when I’m right after being wrong. (Saving grace for Poland: my adopted favourite F1 driver, Robert Kubica, earned his first ever win at the Grand Prix de Canada in Montreal on Sunday, moving the Pole into the lead of the driver’s standings. Still, I’m sure even Kubica would have sacrificed his personal triumph for a Polish victory over the Germans.) On the itinerary for Monday: team Sportstrotter travels to Saint Emilion for more wine tasting, though the schedule’s been designed to ensure we’re seated in front of a television by 18:00, when France begin their campaign against the aforementioned Mutu and his Romanian brethren. Prospects are similarly bullish for the nightcap, with Italy and the Netherlands squaring off in the first 2008 contest between two teams with a legit shot of winning the whole shebang. To recap: SATURDAY Winners: Czech Republic, Portugal Top Player: Petr Cech made three key saves against Switzerland to earn the clean sheet. Goal: I missed both Portuguese markers, but I’m sure at least one of them was more scintillating than the Czech’s goal, a decent finish that came off some sloppy clearing by the Swiss. In-game beverages: 2005 Chateau Lagupean (Graves white), 2005 Ange d’Or (Sauternes white), 2007 Turcaud (Entre Deux Mers white) SUNDAY Winners: Croatia, Germany Top Player: Has to be German Lukas Podolski, stinging the land of his birth with two clinical finishes. Goal: Even though it came off a badly mis-hit shot by Miroslav Klose, Podolski’s second was a fantastic shot, a stinging left-footed volley from sixteen yards out that curled away from Polish keeper Boruc and into the top left corner. In-game beverages: Stella Artois
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