"Well done to Portugal."

Finally, a chance to give someone a good word about. Well done to Portugal for the last 2 weeks or so. Not for beating England in that tense game on June 24, but for the entire organisation of the event as a whole. (The better team DID win, though.)

Perhaps the Greeks could learn a few lessons of how to organise a tournament. The skills used have been wonderous. Take for example, THAT game against France. England hooligans brought minor shame to the country by rioting in Portugal, but how well did the Portugese police deal with that? They were a well-oiled machine who had clearly been given their instructions well in advance. The thickos who were sent home, allegedly rioting in Lisbon and elsewhere are a slight blip but it was very well handled.

There's a certain stadium in Portugal that goes by the name of "Braga Municipal"; capacity 30,000. This is one of several stadiums built especially for Euro 2004, and it is magnificent. Why? Because it's been built inside a mountain! Yes, they've actually found a gap in a mountain and have plonked down a football stadium. That's just cool.

Here is where I apologise to any Americans or other non-europeans who have managed to stumble across this column by the sheer chance of mis-spelling something else, and in case you don't know, I'm talking about Euro 2004. A soccer tournament held every 4 years, involving just teams from Europe. These are held the same year as the Olympics, but the Greek's have made a complete hash of building and preparing for it.

I know this is quite a short column, but it's only really an intermission between my last one and the forthcoming one. And anyway, I'm only getting one thing loud and clear - Congratulations Portugal! Your organised handling of the event has stunned the Greeks, and it's been very well co-ordinated. Well done.

(Just a sidenote, how come virtually ALL the England players are known in tabloids as either a shortened version of their surname, or a nickname? E.g., Becks, Roo, Lamps, Calamity James, Golden Nugget Scholesy etc. Just a thought.)

Thanks for reading.