They Still Call it FOOTball - Finally, Something to Cheer About!

If this is too hot for you, don't scroll down!

While sports fans in North America are glued to the NBA Finals, those of us across the Atlantic are in the middle of Euro2008, the European equivalent of the World Cup. Living here in Poland, the attention of the fans is sure to wane as the Polish squad was officially eliminated from the competition last night in an uninspirational 1-0 loss to the Croatians. At the same time, the German team assured their place in the next round with a win over the Austrian host team by an equally thrilling 1-0 score. Surfing around for interesting news this morning I came upon a much more titillating story of another match played between the Germans and Austrians, one that might even interest male sports fan back in North America.

Organized through a chat room, two women teams from Austria and Germany lined up Sunday hoping to inspire their male national counterparts before yesterday's match. However, their uniforms, or should I say lack there of, had a twist; instead of jerseys they were only covered in body paint and g-strings for the beach football confrontation. The match, made in man heaven, was played on the banks of the Danube river just outside the Austrian capital featuring women from both countries playing topless for national, um, pride. While reports I've read claim the technical side of the play was lacking, the game was tailor-made for press cover-age and post-game comments such as these:
"I was supposed to hold the balls but I really have no idea how to do that," said German keeper Jana Bach.
"I hope our men will take heart from that tomorrow. We played pretty hard, we even had some injuries, like I for example broke my toe nail," claimed 29-year-old bank employee Doris Fastenmeir.
"Maybe it is because I am not all that much into soccer. I am more into shoes to be honest."
As reported by Reuters, the German side took defeat in stride and joined the winners for alcopops and dancing at a beach club after the match.
Oh yeah, by the way, the Austrian defeated the Germans 10-5.



The real Euro continues tonight with Group C matches. What was labelled as the group of death as Italy, France and Holland were all grouped together along with Romania, has proven to be just that, with every possibility that both Italy and France could be eliminated. The two teams, who played each other in the finals of the World Cup, will both be knocked out if Romania beats Holland or a few other possible scenarios play out.