Soccer - Semifinals of the Euro 2008

On Wednesday, June 25th 2008, the first of the two semifinals took place in Switzerland. The venue was the St. Jakob Park in Basel which was especially built in 1954 for the football world cup. Back then Germany was playing in the same stadium in the semifinals against Austria, achieving a victory and later winning the World Cup 1954. After the expansion in 2006/2007 the stadium has now a capacity of 38.500 seats. For the European Cup this year the organizers moved the seats a little bit together so that 4.000 additional spectators can find space.

At the semifinal-game Germany against Turkey was very spectacular. Already after 22 minutes the Turkish defence player Ugur Boral scored his first and so far sole goal in an international match and put his team into the lead. After a sensational assist of Lukas Podolski, Bastian Schweinsteiger could achieve the draw to 1:1 after only four minutes. The score remained until the 79th minute when the top goal scorer of the FIFA World Cup 2006, Miroslav Klose, loosened the intensity with a header on goal. Just seven minutes later everything was possible again when Semih Sentürk from the Turkish team achieved another draw.

In the 90th minute when everybody was already attuned for overtime, the 24 year-old German player, Philipp Lahm, scored the victory goal and lead his team to the finals. The German national team will enter for the first time after 1996 in the finals of a European Championship. All three goal scorers of this game are playing for the German National Champion FC Bayern Munich.

The Turkish team had a little advantage in respect of ball possession with 55:45 percent and also in respect of the amount of shots directed to the goal the Turkish team lead the statistics with 11 shots. But the German team could turn their three chances into three goals perfectly. The national coach, Joachim Löw, was very satisfied with his team and also congratulated the opposing team to their excellent performance: "The Turkish team was technically strong and made the game an exciting one."

While the German team celebrated their victory on the following day in Berlin the two national teams from Russia and Spain still needed to battle for the entry in the finals. The second semifinal game on Thursday, June 26th, took place at the Viennese Ernst-Happel-Stadium which was opened for the first time in 1931. The biggest stadium in Austria has nowadays space for 50.000 and since the renovation in 2005 is one of the best technology wise. 

At the half time of the game between Russia and Spain the score was 0:0. In the second half the Spanish team sewed the game up in their favor. They did not let the Russian team come to their half. From 11 scoring chances the Spanish team achieved three goals and are now qualified for the final game against Germany on Sunday, June 29th which will take place at the Ernst-Happel-Stadium as well.

Spain entered for the first time since 1984 into the finals of a UEFA EURO. The two teams already played against each other 13 times whereby Germany won 8 times while Spain managed to win five.