Not So Jolly Old England

Sadly for England, its run in the Euro 2004 ended last night on penalty kicks, after a questionable call by the referee, pictured to the right, disallowed what would have been the winning goal as the game neared its end. The English commentators were pretty hilarious afterward -- they just wouldn't stop talking about the biased refereeing. Speaking of which, football referees over here have their own Web sites, and in some cases fanclubs!!!! I just can't imagine that happening in North America. Take a look for yourself.

I don't really know if England should have won or not. A Belgian friend here thought the call was totally fair, so maybe the English are just pissing and moaning because they lost.

Anyway, I'm about to jet off to Barcelona for the weekend, so this is going to be a fairly short post. But, if you care to keep up with European football, I highly recommend the minute-by-minute accounts of big games published by the Guardian. They're really very entertaining, and give you a good sense of the drama of the game, too.