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post STRIKERS LOOKING FOR EURO 2008 GOLDEN PRIZE

June 8th, 2008

Filed under: EURO CUP PLAYERS @ 4:29 am



Luca Toni, Italy
After top-scoring in the Bundesliga with FC Bayern München and hitting ten more to end up as the 2007/08 UEFA Cup’s most prolific striker along with Pavel Pogrebnyak of FC Zenit St. Petersburg, Azzurri fans will be expecting Toni’s goal spree to continue here. Toni must produce if the FIFA World Cup holders are to get out of a demanding Group C.

Jan Koller, Czech Republic
Baroš will hope to hold on to his award but his compatriot Koller could succeed him having been scoring at international level for over nine years. The big man’s record of 54 goals in 87 appearances for his country is phenomenal, as is his consistency: he scored six goals in UEFA EURO 2008™ qualifying – just as he did in 2000 and 2004.

Cristiano Ronaldo Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal
Ronaldo may play on the wing for Portugal but he is still their greatest goal threat and comes into the tournament in the form of his life. The 23-year-old struck 42 goals this season, top-scoring in the UEFA Champions League and English Premier League for Manchester United FC and after finding the target in Moscow against Chelsea FC is desperate to make his mark on another big occasion.

Miroslav Klose, Germany
Germany have been tipped to go far at UEFA EURO 2008™ and that should give the FC Bayern München striker ample chance to add to the 39 goals he has already scored for his country at a rate of over one every two games. Klose is the only player in history to score five or more goals in successive FIFA World Cups, but is yet to score at a UEFA European Championship.

Thierry Henry, France
Fresh from playing his 100th game for Les Bleus, Henry will be keen to put a difficult first season with FC Barcelona behind him. His partnership with rising star Karim Benzema has set French pulses racing and though the youngster has been hogging the headlines of late, France’s record scorer shows no sign of giving up centre stage just yet.

Euzebiusz Smolarek, Poland
Smolarek’s nine goals in qualifying is more than any other player at these finals with David Healy’s Northern Ireland having missed out and Eduardo da Silva suffering injury. That has taken his overall international tally from four to 13, and it seems likely that the Real Racing Club Santander striker, who drew a blank at the 2006 FIFA World Cup, will be able to emulate his father Włodzimierz in scoring at a major finals.

Ruud van Nistelrooy, Netherlands
Having patched up his differences with coach Marco van Basten, Van Nistelrooy will be eager to make the most of this opportunity. Injury kept him out of the side for much of Real Madrid CF’s run-in but he is coming into form. He scored in four consecutive games for club and country up to his strike in the 1-1 draw with Denmark on 29 May, which took him up to 31 Netherlands goals - nine short of all-time leader Patrick Kluivert.

Fernando Torres, Spain
After Torres’s formidable first season with Liverpool FC, Spain fans have every reason to look ahead to UEFA EURO 2008™ with confidence. The question is, can their midfield provide the ammunition in such devastating style as Steven Gerrard does at Anfield?

Nihat Kahveci, Turkey
After more than one season of injury frustration, the Turkey forward struck 23 Villarreal CF goals in 2007/08 and also contributed vital strikes in qualifying for his nation. Good enough for Fatih Terim to leave out folk hero Hakan Şükür.

Zlatan Ibrahimović (Sweden)
“He’s probably one of the best forwards today,” says Sweden coach Lars Lagerbäck of Ibrahimović. The return of Henrik Larsson will ease some of the goalscoring burden on the 26-year-old FC Internazionale Milano striker who scored 17 times for FC Internazionale Milano last season.

post JAN KOLLER PROFILE - CZECH REPUBLIC ‘S PLAYERS AT EURO 2008

May 30th, 2008

Filed under: EURO CUP PLAYERS, EURO CUP TEAMS @ 9:30 pm



Jan Koller Jan Koller (born March 30, 1973 in Smetanova Lhota, Czech Republic, then Czechoslovakia) is a Czech football player, who currently stars as a striker for the Czech Republic national team and the Bundesliga club 1. FC Nuremberg in Germany. He is the all-time leading goal scorer for either the Czech Republic or the former Czechoslovakia, with 50 goals in 80 caps as of September 13, 2007.

Koller has an impressive physical presence (height: 2.02 m, nearly 6′8″ and weight 100 kg, about 220 pounds). Borussia Dortmund’s physio refused to comment on this phenomenon. Koller started his football training as a goalkeeper, but was converted to striker by the time he started his professional career. His training as a keeper saw some use in the 2002-03 season. In one Bundesliga match at Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund’s keeper Jens Lehmann was sent off about midway through the second half, and Koller moved from striker to keeper after he had already scored once in the first half. He kept a clean sheet for the rest of the match against good opportunities by Michael Ballack and others, and was named the Bundesliga’s top keeper of the week for his performance. Nevertheless Dortmund lost this important match.

He was bought from Anderlecht in 2001. He also played for Lokeren and finished the 1998-99 season as Jupiler League topscorer for that club. Playing at Anderlecht, he also won the Belgian Golden Shoe.

Koller suffered a minor thigh injury during a World Cup game against the United States on June 12, 2006, not long after the opening goal he scored. His injury was a major blow for the Czech Republic, who lost their next 2 matches without him. Koller moved to French side AS Monaco on a free transfer in June 2006.

He found it difficult to settle in France however, despite a respectable scoring record, and on January 6, 2008 he returned to Germany with 1. FC Nuremberg.

Just about into his third month with Nuremberg, Koller announced that he will retire after EURO 2008. He currently has 164 goals in his professional carrer and 52 goals in his international carrer.


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