Euro 2012 Week 2

As the second week nears its end, this is when the tournament gets interesting. Now that the duds and the disappointments have been sent home to think about what might have been, we are left with the top eight teams. And there have been more than a few surprises it seems.

After looking so good in their opening game, Russia quickly fell away. It appears that Andrei Arshavin's pie eating and lack of effort rubbed off on the rest of the squad, for they looked truly unfit and disinterested when losing to Greece. This was made even funnier by the comments of their know-it-all fitness coach Raymond Verheijen, who was heavily critical of the fitness training methods of other teams, including England's.

But who could deny Greece some respite from their financial woes? They went a bit 300 (Battle of the Spartans) on us. I was just waiting for Karagounis to start shouting "Sparta!!" after he understandably lost the plot following a ridiculous yellow card for a supposed dive when it was clearly a penalty. The Greek captain missed the next game and was taken off before he had a chance to assemble his mighty legions against the referee.

From the passion of the Greeks there was the opposing calmness of the Germans. Maximum points for their group - they looked a very dangerous outfit indeed. And it was nice to see Lars Bend(er) one in. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Unfortunately, the only thing that could be construed as the Netherlands for the Dutch was the back of the net. That and getting anywhere near Cristiano Ronaldo, who used the power of two hairstyles in one game to complete Holland's misery. The "Group of Death" really did kill them.

The Republic of Ireland finally covered themselves in glory as well by only letting in two goals, meaning they were still one short of the all-time worst group record in a Euro finals. No wonder their fans were singing so loudly.

Meanwhile, Spain continued their conceptual art project entitled "Can we simply win by keeping the ball in midfield and doing very little with it?" It certainly seems to be working, and it would be a surprise if anyone, even the Germans, can spoil their philosophical exercise.

This is a good thing for England, as they amazingly avoid Spain in the next round. The return of "Wondrous Wayne" helped England to top the group ahead of France, who got caught in mighty Zlatan's devastatingly skillful football ego.

It has been a good tournament so far, but this is really when the fun begins. It's just a shame that UEFA continue to act in the most idiotic fashion imaginable. Apparently, fans' racist chanting demands a fine in the region of €10,000-40,000 ($12,619-50,476), but Denmark's "greatest boxer short flasher who ever lived," Nicklas Bendtner, gets €100,000 for being a bit silly. It appears a logo showing is more heinous than monkey chanting. So let's hope the tournament is not further marred by mindless underwear exhibitionism.