We have had a couple of surprises during this current MLB season, starting with the bad run of the Mariners, who were suppouses to be at the top of the game with their current roster of young, talented players, and now are the Tampa Bay Rays whom have being playing outstandingly during the past 3 months and are currently heading the American League East.

What is more interesting is the new rivalry that has come up as a result of the rebirth of a franchise that hasn’t done as good in their 10 year-run at the major leagues, now Red Sox and Rays games are more interesting than Red Sox and Yankees encounters and the Tropicana field has become a true nightmare for the Sox when they have to come to Florida and face their new nemesis.

The Red Sox are opening a 3 game series against the Rays at the Trop tonight, and they are hoping that their best pitcher, Josh Beckett can deliver some of his best baseball in order to de-throne Tampa Bay from the first place.

Remember Hideki Okajima? Well he was the Sox hero last season, but the relief pitcher hasn’t played at his best this year and Boston is not really counting on him, on the other hand, the Rays will be lining their 3 best picthers for tonight, as James Shields, Matt Garza, and Scott Kazmir, in that order, will be the ones who will make an attempt to win this first game of the series.

Good for the Rays, I hope they will continue to progress and make it to the world series.

Let’s sum up what happened yesterday night at New York when the 2008 NBA draft took place:

Kevin Durant applauded the Sonics decision of taking Rusell Westbrook, well, I think Seattle rushed into that decision.

Knicks fans couldn’t believe that their team chose Italian Danilo Gallinari instead of taking Eric Gordon or DJ Augustin.

Mario Chalmers was still available when the Celtics made their pick, and they went for JR Giddons instead of taking Chalmers.

That is on the bad side, now let’s talk about the good decisions:

One of the most favored teams was the Nets, who made it with the services of Brook Lopez who was tought was going to be chosen within the first 5 picks, well, he was still around when the turn came for New Jersey with the 10^th pick and of course they went for the former Stanford center.

The Grizzlies and the Twolves went on a deal that lasted a couple of hours after the draft was over and Memphis ended with OJ Mayo on their roster, so, if Mayo becomes a superstar, Minnesota would surely regreat having dealt the third overall pick of the first round at the NBA Draft.

Finally the best picks: everybody thought that the Bulls were going to choose Michael Beasley over Derrick Rose, but Chicago took the city native Rose at number one, while the Heat with the number 2 went for Beasley instead of OJ Mayo, who had more chances to play with Miami than Beasley.

Let’s see what is the outcome of this choices, I think that NBA development is what can rise-up the game of this NBA rookies, there might be a few surprises to come from unexpected prospects.

Why Jordan is the best

It’s true, Kobe Bryant is an outstanding player, but he will never be at the level of Michael Jordan, and everybody knows that; those who don’t are just living in denial.

Let’s just put it this way, on his career, Jordan won 5 MVP awards, Kobe just got his first, Kobe hasn’t had the economic impact Jordan had, Kobe hasn’t won more titles than Jordan, and so on.

But on the other hand, Michael Jordan never scored 50 points on 3 games straight, and Jordan was just good as a shooting guard, Kobe can play different positions and come with good results, including in deffensive areas.

Kobe has played 12 years in the NBA, the same number of years Jordan played when he finally retired, so Kobe doesn’t have too much time to paired what Michael Jordan did, and that is why one might consider the former Chicago Bulls all-star as better-a-player than Bryant.

Plus Michael Jordan never had a Shaquille O’neal on his team, and Kobe Bryant got overshadowed by Shaq’s talent, so Jordan deserves more credit on that area.

The only thing Jordan missed was Kobe’s 81 points...

I don’t think Paul Pierce was thinking about charity events when he threw a Gatorade bucket to Doc Rivers in celebration of their 17^th NBA championship.

The white shirt got stained with red Gatorade and the people at the Shamrock foundation knew there was something more to do with the shirt than taking it to the laundry store.

And so yesterday many fans got into sports radio WEEI-AM's web site in order to see if they could get a hold of the collector’s item. Many bids were on, but nobody expected that Celtics fans would be so frenzied about the auction, “We were obviously very hopeful, and we praise the generosity of Celtics fans.” said Jason Wolfe, WEEI’s vice president of AM programming.

The lucky winner didn’t wanted to revealed his name, but he won the shirt as he paid $35,000, he won with the biggest bid just after the one made by Bill Parcells, former Patriots coach and whom is endorsed by Gatorade. Parcells placed a bid for $20,000 in Gatorade’s behalf, at the end, the sports drink company added another $10,000 to the charity and another anonymous fan put $10,000 for a total of $55,000. Doc Rivers must be proud.

Steve Pagliuca, Managing Partner of the Boston Celtics said that the current NBA champions will add another $35,000 to the charity if the winner allow the shirt to be displayed during this coming season at the TD Banknorth Garden.

Is Don Imus telling the truth this time? Well, he’s known as an old radio host with a tendency to use racism on his comments.

And it’s exactly his comments what gets him in trouble all the time, just like last year when he called "nappy-headed ho's," to the Rutgers women's basketball team and lost his job due such incident, now he’s being accused on coming with a similar attitude towards Adam “Pacman” Jones.

Everything started when sportscaster Warner Wolf was chatting with Imus and Jones came to the talk, and the conversation went something like this:

"He's been arrested six times since being drafted by Tennessee in 2005," Wolf said.

"What color is he?" Imus asked. "He's African-American," Wolf said. "Well, there you go, now we know." Imus said.

It truly sounded like if Don Imus was making some racist remarks on Jones but this time the unfamous radio host said that he was reffering to the way african americans are treated in the US, but I mean, it’s John Donald Imus, Jr. and credibility is something this man is surely lacking.

Guilty or not, I think Don Imus should avoid speaking on any subject concerning racism as he will always gonna have some haters waiting to refute his polemic arguments.

The USA national basketball team has dissapointed at their last appearances at the Olympic Games, but this time, their squad is energized and featuring two natural born leaders: Lebron James and Kobe Bryant.

The team that will represent the United States at the 2008 Beijing Olympic games was announced without any previous tryouts, and here’s the roster:

Kobe Bryant Dwight Howard

Lebron James Chris Paul

Carmelo Anthony Michael Redd

Jason Kidd Deron Williams

Tayshaun Prince Carlos Boozer

Chris Bosh

With such team, it will be difficult to see the US having a hard time against their rivals, though, distances have shortened in the last decade in worldwide basketball, and now many foreigners are all-stars at the NBA, which brings more tough competition to competitions like the Olympics.

The last time the americans won the gold was 8 years ago at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and after getting the bronze metal at Athens in 2004, they are ready to defeat china at the opening game, proving why US baskeball has always being regarded as the best of the best, and with Bryant (on his first Olympics appearance), who just won his first MVP title at the NBA and Lebron James, who averaged 30 points per game all along the 2008 NBA season, chances are that they will come big and win the most noble metal.

Who should have the rights for the ownership of a team’s website, the team itself or the league where that team plays? Most team owners are agree about the league handling the rights of the site, but there are a few that look at this with indecision.

That is the case of the Rangers, who are struggling with the NHL for the rights of its website, and NHL officials are fighting back in order to get the Rangers management group to accept the terms of the league and deliver the rights to the league. The Rangers are looking to create new revenue streams outside any limitation from the NHL’s market sharing restrictive policy.

The whole issue is being handled at the courts and if the Rangers are considered guilty, they might get punished in many ways, including management destitutions, suspension, fines, a forced sale of the club or even termination of the franchise.

This is not the first time that a team fights on the same kind of issues, as Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones did the same thing back in 1996 since he considered that the NFL was getting the most of the team’s local marketing rights, but planted a suit against the league, but 3 years after he ceeded the power to the NFL.

All four leagues, the NFL, the MLB, the NHL and the NBA have the same policy of owning the digital rights of all teams, so it is a bit hard for single teams to fight against these terms. I think that sooner or later the Rangers will hold back and do what the Cowboys did, probably sooner than one might believe.

It’s just incredible, first it was the Red Sox that won the world series, then came the Celtics who just won their first NBA championship in 22 years, oh and let’s not forget the Patriots, who were just one game away from coming with a perfect season and the NFL championship, but fell at the Superbowl to the Giants.

“Since Day 1, man, Paul Pierce told me that this city is unlike any other city when it comes to sports, and if you give them a reason, they will jump on board and they will be behind you, even when you’re losing or even when you’re going through tough times. I got to see that.” Said Celtics Guard Kevin Garnett.

And it’s not a casualty that Boston is known for being a sports town, as the Red Sox are a founding member of the American league of the MLB, the Celtics are founding members of the NBA and the Bruins were the first american team to join the NHL and one of the first six teams in the league.

Now is time to revisit the titles for each of Boston’s teams:

Red Sox: 7 MLB World Series

Patriots: 3 Superbowl Titles

Celtics: 17 NBA Titles (a record in titles at the NBA)

Bruins: 5 Stanley Cups

In fact it’s a city that you must visit at least once in your life time if you consider yourself a sports fan even though you are not fan of any of Boston’s teams.

Kevin Garnett, what can we say about him, well, he’s one of the best all-around players in the NBA, and all he was missing on his list of awards, was an NBA championship, and so he fought with all he had to make it happen on game 6 for the 2008 NBA Finals, and now he finally completed a resume any NBA player would kill for.

Let’s check some of Garnett’s awards:

1 time NBA champion (2008)

11-time All-Star

NBA MVP (2004)

NBA deffensive player of the year (2008)

NBA All-star game MVP (2003)

Olympic Gold Medal (2000)

Just to name the most important ones.

Garnett had a lousy performance at game 5, but he knew he the championship was so close that he had to do as much as he could to help the franchise to acquire their 17^th title, and so he did, and finished with 28 points on game 6 to help the Celtics winning by a margin of 39 points as the game ended 131-92.

After the game ended, every Celtics player celebrated big, but it was Garnett who was the most aroused for the victory, he could not even concentrate when got interviewed, he didn’t had anything else on his mind but a feel of relief after many years of frustration going after a championship ring, now he finally got it.

Yesterday at the press conference after game 6 was over, Kevin Garnett spoke to the cameras and compared his NBA career as to a kid being abused by a bully, "I knocked that Bully's behind out. That was what it felt like," said Garnett.

Even though he went to the tourney on a regular condition after having knee surgery, Tiger Woods managed to win his 3^rd US Open Title.

With this championship, Tiger Woods now sums it up for a total of 14 majors on his career, which includes some tourneys where he was exceptional just like the 2005 The Masters (he went through 10 losses on majors before winning this one), the 2006 British Open (his 11^th major and the first since his father died), 2000 US Open (this was the first of four straight majors for Woods), 1997 The Masters and finally the 2008 US Open, where he fought to death with Rocco Mediate, a 45 year-old journeyman who was classified more as an underdog than anything else, but he proved that there was still some golf on him.

The week Woods won the US Open marked the 500^th time that the american golfer ranked as No. 1 of the golf, and Mediate ranked at 158 was attempting to become the first golfer outside the top 100 to win the US Open; he almost did it.

Something curious about Tiger Wood’s victories in majors is that is not the first time he faced guys that you probably have never heard of, let’s name a few: Chris DiMarco at The Masters 2005, Michael Campbell at the 2005 US Open and Mediate.

Woods is a living statement of what sports person should be, hopefully there will be many kids who will follow his steps in order to raise the quality and the quantity of good golfers in the US and the world in general.

The NBA draft will be held next week at Washington Mutual, and there aren’t really many changes, since Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley and OJ Mayo are expected to be the first 3 picks of the first round, but there a few NCAA players that prefered to skip their senior year in college in order to play at the NBA earlier.

This is the case of Mario Chalmers, one of the most outstanding players at the 2008 Final Four. Chalmers had to make a decision before June 15^th, which was the last day for prospects to withdraw their names of the NBA draft list.

Chalmers is expected to be chosen at the first round, with the Magic most likely acquiring him as he is a perfect complement for teaming with Carlos Arroyo and Keyon Dooling.

The 22-year old Chalmers was chosen the #1 overall point guard in the 2005 recruiting class, also got named co-defensive player of the year in 2007, besides he also got elected for the all big 12 third team and the all big 12 defensive team the same year, but his most impressive achievement in a such a short career was being named Most Outstanding Player of the 2008 NCAA Championship.

As of now, Chalmers doesn’t have an agent, but he and his father agrees that with Mario’s talent, he’s sure to get a good contract at the first round.

The Patriots lost their only game of the past season at the Super Bowl, and so the Giants crowned themselves as champions; that was thanks to the 13-yard touchdown by Plaxico Burress with just 35 seconds remaining on the clock.

That touchdown has Burress discussing his contract terms with New York as he and his agent believes that the wide receiver is being underpaid by current NFL contract standards.

As of now, Burress is left 3 years on his 6-year contract for $24 mill, and all in all, Plaxico is at the level of players like Terrell Owens and Randy Moss who just got contracts of 27 million for 3 years both. "I'm not saying I'm being mistreated, everybody wants to be treated fairly." Burress said.

Another Giants players that is essential in New York’s offensive is Jeremy Shockey who is also not too happy about his current situation with the team, but if he wants to negotiate with the Super Bowl Champions, he will need to stand in line, in fact, it seems like Shockey doesn’t feel a Giant anymore and probably he will be happier if he gets free agency in order to sign with another team.

The Giants are just going through the not-wanted side of being the current NFL champions, as if they had finished the season as runner-ups behind the Patriots, these guys would not be asking for any deals, and so if they actually get a better monthly check, they will have to prove that they deserve it at this coming NFL season.

Lakers and Celtics are playing the finals this year, and those two teams are really on the same level, sadly, we cannot say that their coaches are paired too, in fact there is a huge gap between each one’s achievements.

Let’s put it this way, Phil Jackson has won 9 titles and Doc Rivers has none, but here’s the interesting fact: When Jackson started to win championships with the Bulls, he had Michael Jordan, the best player basketball has seeing, and now he’s coaching the Lakers, with Kobe Bryant, the current MVP and the player that is the closest thing to Jordan.

On the other hand we have Doc Rivers; Well, he never coached a team full of all-stars like the current Celtics, and just this season alone, he’s won 66 games and took Boston to the 2008 NBA finals.

So is it that Phil Jackson has taken advantage and have chosen teams with players that are a step above in terms of talent when compared with the rest of the players in the league? I would say yes, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad coach, he just knows the game quite well, and all in all, he holds an impressive record, on the other hand, this is the chance for Doc Rivers to add some good points to his resume. For him, is now or probably never.

Let's talk about personality: these two are quite different also, as Doc Rivers is more passionate for the game, he’s close to his players and it’s seeing more like a friend among his pupils.

And Jackson it's more like a mentor, a teacher, one that brings good results with his knowledge, and that doesn't relate to his players that much.

So I see Doc Rivers as part of an entity, and Phil Jackson as the guy nobody likes but who is needed, anyways, I don’t think Jackson cares at all about that, and I think Boston has a true leader in Rivers and even though nobody is giving him much credit, I would say that he will come up with his first championship ring in 6 games for the Celtics.

Maybe that good understanding between Rivers and his players is what is making the difference this season, let's see how far they can go.

The NBA definitely needed the classic rivalry between the Celtics and the Lakers to revive since many long time fans stopped believing in the outcome of the games due to the corrupt referees scandal that came to the light with an investigation by the FBI involving NBA professional arbiter Tim Donaghy back in July, 2007.

Donaghy is being accused of manipulating games with gambling purposes, he along with his friend James Batista who is the owner of a sports bar in philly and who had some ties with the mob, both arranged mostly games where there was big money involved, and Donaghy received a total of $30,000 in bribes, much less than the $250,000 fine he had to pay for being released from jail.

Now the former referee who worked at the NBA for 13 seasons is facing a charge of 25 years that can be considerably reduced as Donaghy is willing to cooperate with the police in order to unmasked other rotten referees.

Donaghy has even told the FBI that high authorities at the NBA asked referees to fix games so certain series could be played to full 7 matches for ticket sales and TV ratings purposes.

The most controversial of the series involved in the scandal is the one between the Kings and the Lakers back in 2002 which Sacramento was leading 3-2, and then the Lakers came with two straight victories and made it to the NBA finals, Tim Donaghy affirms that the series was manipulated.

This series between Boston and LA has being the most televised since the NBA 2004 finals between the Lakers and the Pistons, so there are certain rumors about some fixes, but nothing is confirmed, and probably we will never know for sure.

The NBA finals are much different than the rest of the post season games, that is because teams arrive with a sense of superiority and will surely give their best in order to come up with the championship ring, and it’s also different in the sense that even the bench will produce as the All-Stars, becoming true baskeball entities.

But the finals are also the time for key players of the team to shine, and in this case it would be Kobe Bryant the one who can reach a similar glory as Michael Jordan, since he’s the one who resembles the most to the most notorious player in the NBA ever.

And so what is going on with Kobe? Well he hasn’t played bad, but he hasn’t being outstanding either, and this is the moment when his team needs him the most, along with Pau Gasol, who also hasn’t shined and has being just one more laker.

This time, there is something even more remarkable concerning the 2008 NBA Finals, and that is the clash between the teams with the most well-known rivalry in all of NBA history: Celtics and Lakers.

The series is 2-0 with both victories for Boston and attained at the TD Banknorth Garden, and tonight is the time for the Lakers to prove themselves and win at the Staples Center on game 3, otherwise, we might as well proclaim the Celtics champions, since no team ever has overcome a 3-0 deficit at the NBA finals, and that is why I say that the last 7 games of the season are truly different and unique.

As an all-time NBA fan, I truly expect to watch a tremendous match tonight, which might end up being the most important one of the whole season...

More on the finals in a couple of days.

Everyone is aware of the old classic rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees, but it seems like Boston has a new direct rival: The Tampa Bay Rays.

Well, Boston and New York have being far superior than Tampa Bay since the inclusion of the team back in 1998, and in recent years, the production of the Rays – former Devil Rays – has being awful, let’s put a few examples in order to compare these 3 teams of the AL league:

2005: Red Sox and Yanks both finished 95-67, while the Rays ended 67-95.

2006: Yankees 97-65, Red Sox 86-76, and the Rays with one of their worst seasons finished with 101 losses.

2007: Red Sox 96-66, while the Rays ended with the same numbers just backwards and the Yankees 94-68.

But the story this present season is a different one, as of now, the young Rays are 37-26, just one game behind the current world series champions, and the Yankees are going through one of their worst seasons in recent years, and so Boston and Tampa Bay are struggling to become the best, and in the middle of that race for the number one position at the American League, it came the June 5^th brawl between the two teams.

Everything started with Rays pitcher James Shields hitting Red Sox outfielder Coco Crisp in the leg and so Crisp came and try to hit Shields in the face, but Shields hit Cris first and suddenly a few other Rays players came along and started hitting Crisp, then everything got out of control and and Red Sox players intervene too, and everything ended with several suspensions on both sides of the fence.

I guess is too early in the season to make the Rays a clear contender, but they are playing at their best and good baseball is all we can expect from them.

There are some great new prospects for this coming NFL season, including Darren McFadden, the fourth overall pick who got chosen by the Raiders in the first round draft pick with a six-year contract worth $60 million with $26 guaranteed.

McFadden played for the Razorbacks for 3 seasons and finished with 41 touchdowns, and he got in second place for the Heisman Trophy his last two years with Arkansas.

It’s a bit unusual that the Raiders get to pick a rookie so soon, they usually wait a few rounds to make their choice, even though they had enough running backs, they knew that signing McFadden who is just 20 years old, was a great addition to their roster.

On the other hand, the Dolphins picked Michigan’s offensive tackle Jake Long on a similar contract: $57.75 million for 5 years, while Virginia’s defensive end Chris Long signed with the Rams for $59 million with $29 million guaranteed and 5 years, while Matt Ryan got the best deal of them all, the third overall pick got a $72 million contract with $27.3 million in guaranteed money for six year with Atlanta, and made Ryan the third highest paid player at the NFL just after All-Stars Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger.

Surprisingly, Jake Long, who was the top overall pick shares the same agent as Matt Ryan, Tom Gordon, who even got Ryan a six year deal which is common among 10 overall draft picks, and Long got his for 5 years.

Many critics agreed that the draft is an unexact science and players that got huge deals would need to prove themselves when they enter the football field for the first time as professionals, so when you see Ryan’s case who did much better than Long and McFadden, you might as well conclude that the team that signed Ryan, the Falcons, saw something outstanding on him, and we all will need to wait until the NFL begins to see which team got the best prospect.

The first game of the NBA finals is tonight at the TD Banknorth Garden, so the Celts have a clear home court advantage as if the series goes to 7 full games, then the last game will be played at Boston.

Now, the Celtics and the Lakers played twice during the regular season with Los Angeles beating Boston the same number of times, and during the playoffs the Lakers has had it easier than the Celts, who had to take their series to the Hawks to 7 games.

The format utilized in the finals is a bit different, as the Celtics will play the first two games of the series at home, then the Lakers will host games 3,4 and 5 at the Staples Center, and if necessary, games 6 and 7 will be at Boston. So there is a slight advantage on the Celts side.

These coming games are going to be really closed, and all in all, there is always a guy who makes the difference at fourth quarters, and that guy might as well be Kobe Bryant this time, after all, this has being his year, as he’s the reigning NBA MVP.

What about the duels? Well Kobe’s gonna have Ray Allen on his back all the time, and Kevin Garnett is ready to be face to face with Pau Gasol, now, Gasol is being more consistent than Garnett, but Garnett is the big man from Boston, and if he doesn’t go into one of his panic attacks, Gasol will find it difficult to stop him.

This is a very old rivalry, probably the most famous of them all, and both teams are truly enjoying of a golden era with many all-stars in their respective rosters, so the odds are pretty even, and maybe just because I am a Celtics fan I am favored the irish team, but the Lakers are probably the toughest rival the Celts have had this playoffs, so I truly don’t care too much who’ll win the series, I am just sure the level of basketball that is to be witnessed is what will have me in front of the TV for every single game.

Remember Big Brown? Well most horse racing aficionados do, as he is the horse that is just one race to come up with victories on each one of the Triple Crown events.

He’s the one who won the Kentucky Derby, then it came the Preakness, and now his trainer, Rick Dutrow Jr. is hoping Big Brown will win the 140^th Belmont Stakes this coming Saturday. “We have the best horse, I'm as confident as I've ever been.” He said.

Team Big Brown will become the first to win all-three in 30 years, and the only colt that might be on his way to the glory is Casino Drive, a horse with Japanese blood.

Behind a great colt, there is a great jockey, and this is no exception, as Kent Desormeaux, who was real close to come up with the Triple Crown back in 1998, is ready to finish first this time, since at that time he got nervous running the 1 ½-mile Belmont track that critics affirm is one to be dealt with patience, and Desormeaux knows it now.

Now, Big Brown ran the Preakness with his left front leg injured, and his trainers are working to have him ready for the competition this weekend, so if he wins, it would be even more incredible, as he’s surely not at his best condition.

Here’s Team Brown:

The Horse: Big Brown

The breeder: Robert Clay

Trainer: Richard Dutrow Jr.

The jockey: Kent Desormeaux

Exercise rider: Michelle Nevin

Hoof specialist: Ian McKinlay

Veterinarian: Greg Bennett

In that 30 year lapse, 10 horses have come up with victories at the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness to then fell at the Belmont, so nothing is for sure in here, but if there’s a colt that can break with that myth, that is Big Brown.

If you want some more information on the Belmont Stakes, check their official website at: http://www.belmont-stakes.info/

Yesterday the Penguins took a break and pull things at 3-2 in their series for the Stanley Cup Finals against the Red Wings as they won the game 4-3 playing at Detroit, which means alot since it’s sort of difficult to beat the Wings at their own backyard.

Now the series will move to Pittsburgh for game 6, and the Pens are obligated to win that one at home if they want to remain alive. Petr Sykora saved the day with a goal at the third over time, and avoided an upset by the Wings that would have sent the Penguins to Pittsburgh for good. Now the Pens are flying home, but with the Red Wings on an airplane behind them.

It’s rare to see the Red Wings allowing so much space when they’re playing at Joe Louis Arena, but this was a different game overall, as Detroit looked a little more nervous than usual, and so they couldn’t avoid the Penguins to win as they could not prevent them from taking a 2-0 lead early on the game, which at the end is what game the Pens their so awaited victory.

The Red Wings are a team with more history than the Penguins when it comes to Stanley Cup moments, and Pittsburgh is a young team accumulating experience, so Detroit has definitely more chances to win this series and win the championship, but as of yesterday’s game, nobody really expected the Pens to come up with the win, so you never know, they might as well beat the Wings at Mellon Arena and come back to Detroit for game 7, so if they are able to beat the Red Wings at home one more time, they will truly are going to become a big part of NHL history, but that is to be seeing.

The Euro Cup is the major event in the world of professional soccer just after the World Cup and the UEFA Champions league.

So who are favorites to come up with the trophy this year? Well many experts and critics are pointing to Germany and Italy, but I would say that the lattest have the more chances to win the Euro 2008.

Germany has Miroslav Klose, and Italy has Luca Toni, whom are team mates at the Bayern Munich, and the italian is surely in better shape than Klose.

Miroslav has received the Golden Boot the last two World Cups but is currently going through a streak of injuries that is leaving him under the shadow of Toni.

So the only player to be trusted in Germany as of now is Michael Ballack, who led Chelsea to win the UEFA Champions League.

The event will take place in Austria and Switzerland, and according to information from the associated press, all tickets have being sold for the whole event, of course a big part is currently in the hands of black market dealers who will try to sell those tickets for even the double of the original price.

What about the groups?

The most difficult is pot 3, with Germany, Portugal, Spain, and the only team that can be qualified as an underdog: Romania.

Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo is the face of his country, and so he coming motivated after winning the Premier League with Manchester United, and Spain’s All Stars Cesc Fabregas and Fernando Torres both are coming from having a great season with Arsenal and Liverpool respectively.

While on Pot 2, we find Italy as the toughest team with Croatia, Czech Republic and Sweden as the ones with the mission of beating the current World Cup champions.

The Netherlands also have it easy with hosts Austria and Switzerland along with 2004 Euro cup winners Greece as the teams to beat in pot 1.

Last but not least, we got Poland, Turkey and Russia who will battle against the World Cup runner up France in pot 4.

So as I said before, I have Italy as the possible winner of the cup, and if they can actually do it, this might as well become one of the best eras in Italy’s soccer history.