The England team have lost to Portugal 6-5 on penalties in the Euro 2004 quarter-final match. I am feeling really disappointed that the Three Lions played very well but they finally lost.

They were just unlucky to lose the rising star Rooney. He got an injury in the first half and then substituted. Maybe it was going to be different for England with Rooney on the pitch.

England 4 – 2 Croatia

Scholes, Rooney (2), Lampard 


The Three Lions advances to the next stage, where they will face Portugal in the quarter finals next Thursday.

I know it’s been all about football lately, but I think that just football fans are aware about the importance of the European cup.

To make a change, I’ve found some interesting articles about Saudi Arabia when I was googling this morning.

You can read the impression of a BBC correspondent, who had a 10-days visit to Saudi Arabia in order to attend an economic conference. The same conference was a subject of many articles in the Saudi papers as some unveiled women spoken in that conference.

On the other side of The Atlantic, an American correspondent wrote what her newspaper called “Inside Saudi Arabia: a five part special report“. The report is too long to be read as it is written for a classical newspaper, but if you have some free time why to waste it reading my Euro 2004 posts?

Still in the States, where you can find out more about the Saudi women long way to gain their rights, and how are they keep on living in such a society that treats them in a way I must say it is “SO BAD!”.

Also about women and the relations between the sexes, a Canadian paper published this article.

Something funny? Have you ever heard that Barbie dolls are banned in Saudi Arabia? Yes they are, and I can be sure you won’t understand why! Or you can read about how young guys like me are “crawling” in the malls to hook up the — Saudi way!

Finally, if you think you had enough of Westerners writing on something the may not be able to understand, you can read about Saudi’s life after 9/11 by a Saudi guy.

I know some parts of these articles my be similar, but small differences are what make life looks this way. Have a nice reading!

This is the flag of Saudi Arabia 

Seven days ago, the Euro 2004 started with a big surprise on the opening day when Greece defeated the host Portugal. Nobody ever thought that Portugal, one of the favourites to win the cup, would show up with such weak performance. The Brazilian coach Luiz Philippi Scolari was blamed for keeping good players like Deco and Christiano Ronaldo out while oldies like Rui Costa were doing nothing on the pitch. When the coach finally waked up, it was almost over and Ronaldo’s late goal couldn’t save the local team.

On the second day, the long awaited clash between England and France was really worth waiting. The English fans were so happy to see their team taking the lead by Frank Lampard header from the free kick assist by the captain David Beckham. In the middle of the second half, England got a penalty kick and the English fans started singing because they thought that’s it but the French keeper Fabian Barthez saved Beckham’s shot and gave his team-mates a new hope. Even though, the French couldn’t make any real chances on David James. The match was on the way to end when France got a free kick in the loss time. Zinedine Zidane swings it and… Goal. A minute later, France got a penalty because of Steven Gerrard’s wrong pass and Zidane scores again. The match ended 2-1, which looked like a nightmare to England fans like me who couldn’t believe what happened in the last unbelievable minutes.

There were no big surprises on the rest of matches. Italy kept the result scoreless against Denmark which played so much better than Trappatoni’s boys, while Sweden shocked Bulgaria 5-0 thanks to Henrick Larsson and co. Germany’s boring style helped them to keep their one goal lead against Holland until minute 80 when Man Utd striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy, aka Rudi, equalized for the orange team. We still have no idea why their coach Dick Adovcat still insisting on playing with one forward only while he got plenty good attackers like Makaay and other players.

In the second round, Russian were the first team to kiss the tournament good-bye after they lost to Portugal 0-2. Greece proved they didn’t come only to enjoy sunshine and made a difficult draw 1-1 with Spain. The day after, the English lions roars high and beat Switzerland 3-0 by Rooney and Gerrard, while France were lucky again and the could sneak out with a 2-2 draw against Croatia.

In today’s matches, Denmark made a reasonable 2-0 win over Bulgaria and Sweden’s two coaches were smart enough to take advantage of the Italian coach mistakes to get their team a late equalizer by Zlatan Ibrahimovic preventing the Azuri from getting their first win in the championship.