From the Bleachers

Why Italy can beat Spain and win the UEFA 2012 European Championships

First to the full disclosure. This column is a gigantic fan of Spanish soccer. Except for a hard to explain, forlorn love for Sunderland, the sometimes Premiership English club, the Spanish La Liga takes precedence in terms of weekend soccer on this column's TV. They just make it look so pretty, don't they? Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao and even Raya Vallecano. They play the beautiful game like the beautiful game should be played. Beautifully.

We could babble on about how much respect we have for the Spanish game, but as always, money talks. If someone handed this column one million euros, dollars or pounds sterling and said, 'You can have this, but you have to bet it on who is going to win the European Championships' basically, it would be going on the Italians.

Andrea Pirlo cheekily chips Italy past England

One of the main reasons we watch sports is that every now and then an athlete does something amazing. Every so often an athlete does something so spectacular that we remember where we were watching it, we remember the surrounding circumstances, for a very long time. Well, tonight, Italy's Andrea Pirlo pulled off one of those stunts.

To set the scene, Italy were facing England in the European Championship quarter finals, and the Italians had attacked all match long but couldn't get passed the massed ranks of English defenders, the latter having decided to adopt distasteful 'park the bus (in front of the goal)' tactics. As first normal time and then extra time fizzled out slowly, England were clearly playing for penalties.

What is it they say, be careful what you wish for?

ESPN announces that LeBron won the NBA title: Single handed, no less.

This column woke up to some very confusing sporting news headlines today. ESPN appears to be reporting that LeBron James won the NBA title last night. On the other hand, all of the other sporting websites that this columnist frequents are reporting that some entity known as ‘The Miami Heat’ actually won the title. Now, we all know from ESPN’s diligent coverage of LeBron James’s quest for the title, that the NBA is a one man game, so there are no initial pointers as to what this ‘Miami Heat’ thing is. Perhaps a holding company for LeBron’s business interests?

What is clear from ESPN’s clear, unbiased and even-handed reporting on the NBA finals, is that ‘The King finally has his ring’. You simply cannot beat headline writing like that. The UK’s Sun newspaper, famous for inane headlines, would eat a handful of rusty nails, shoot itself in the face and then go to work on itself if it produced a headline like that. ESPN had another cracker emblazoned on its front also, ‘Ring him up’.

Not ‘Ring them up’.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic may have scored the best goal of Euro 2012: VIDEO

The group stages of Euro 2012 finished tonight, as England 'beat' the Ukraine 1-0 (we all saw that ball cross the line, FIFA and UEFA better stick their heads in the sand again!) and Sweden stunned France 2-0. In the relatively meaningless latter game (Sweden were out no matter what), Zlatan Ibrahimovic may have scored the goal of the tournament.

Judge for yourself, but his beautiful, crisp volley, executed at speed with the clinical precision of an assassin, might be hard to top.

Irish fans sing The Fields of Athenry, Spain v Ireland Euro 2012: VIDEO

So tonight Ireland's Euro 2012 effectively came to an end. Sure we still have to play Italy, and who would bet against the Irish playing out of their skins and causing a huge upset, this team has a lot of pride and will want to go out on a high, not just for themselves but for their loyal fans too. Tonight however they ran up against possibly the greatest team in the world in the Spanish, and the result was a predictable 0-4 trashing.

Bizarrely, what most will remember from the match will be the absolutely incredible display of support the magnificent travelling Irish fans showed, as the clock ticked down first to 90 minutes and then through the last three minutes of added time. With the match dying out, the masses of Irish fans ripped out a six minute long, stirring rendition of 'The fields of Athenry'. Several TV shows (I hear German, Dutch and even Spanish) deliberately didn't speak over the singing to allow their viewers experience it properly.

Bryce Harper 'That's a clown question, bro!': VIDEO

Well, if there is anything that Bryce Harper hasn't done at this stage, we at Irish Central sure aren't aware of it. The 19 year old Washington Nationals phenomenon has gone to the minors and gone yard at a ridiculous rate. He has gone to the majors, he has gone deep in big league ballparks all over the States. Now, for his latest trick, he has gone viral.

It all started innocently enough, a Canadian journalist asking Harper what kind of beer he was into. Of course Harper is a devout Mormon, and thus does no partake in such a beverage. Harper's answer to the gentleman? 'That's a clown question, bro'.

Perhaps Harper was confused and thought the scribe asked, 'Bryce, which Joker was better, Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger?' in which case his answer would have made more sense.

Boxing's remaining dignity left in tatters in the wake of the Pacquiao Bradley fight

Sadly, the once proud and noble sport of boxing, is swiftly becoming one of the ‘I remember..’ sports. In other words, ‘I remember when Ali was a glorious leading light’ or ‘I remember the drama and suspense before and often after Mike Tyson fights’. I remember my family bringing home a new puppy when I was young, and the obvious choice for his name was ‘Bruno’, it being the night of the Frank Bruno\Tyson fight and the crowd baying ‘Bruno, Bruno, Bruno!’.

I remember Tyson, Bruno, Evander Holyfield, George Foreman and heck, even Lennox Lewis had a certain ‘draw’ to him. The great heavyweight fights, the drama and the prestige. Being allowed stay up late to watch a big bout. People talking about it the next day in school, college and then work. Well, people are still talking about fights, however the water-cooler conversation is now invariably based around whatever controversy is drowning Boxing at the time.

The once great sport is absolutely reeling right now in the wake of the incredible scenes after the Pacquiao versus Bradley fight from the weekend just passed.

Ireland and the Boston Celtics lose, but their fans come out winners

It is going to take a while to shower the clingy, sticky mucus that was the sporting weekend just past off. For fans of the Irish soccer team and fans of the Boston Celtics (and indeed fans of both like myself!) Monday morning is depressing to an extra factor of twenty after the brutal results Saturday and Sunday night. Don't even talk to me about the Red Sox.

The Celtics, injury ravaged to an unbelievable degree, teased us with an early ten point lead, only to tire and get worn down with the ridiculous LeBron precession to the free throw line, finally succumbing to the abhorrent Heat and their Nuremberg Rally like fans (Note to Miami: Big rallies where everyone dresses the exact same, and chants to pre-arranged material handed down from 'the authorities' has been done before, and is pretty creepy). Ireland? What can you say about Ireland? Well, I had this to say about them last week in my Irish Central column;

''There are some in Ireland suggesting this Irish team might unite the country much like the Jackie Charlton led teams and indeed the Mick McCarthy World Cup team did in years previous. Largely fueled by greedy companies trying to cash in on merchandising and such, Ireland is being led down a blind alley of false hope in the inevitably doomed belief it might win a match or two and qualify for the next round. A huge dose of realism is well overdue. Glenn Whelan in midfield? This might be the single worst quality team to qualify for a European Championship in the last decade. Having said all that, Ireland's undoubted grit and determination, and wonderful, colourful and positive fans (the single greatest traveling fans, bar none, in all sports) will bring something to the tournament, even if Ireland don’t score in any of the three matches.''

Now, in light of the unbelievably poor showing against Croatia, we don't want to get all Brian Griffin on you, however, it must be noted, we did tell you so!

Boston stuns Miami: Rajon Rondo wins the night: VIDEO

This is Rajon Rondo's world. The rest of us are just living in it.

Last night the Boston Celtics absolutely stunned the Miami Heat with a potentially devastating hay-maker of a game five road win. Several key plays accumulated to the Boston win, and several Boston players are walking around with a little extra swagger this morning. Michael Pietrus, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, amongst others.

However, none more so than the sensational Rajon Rondo.

The James LeBron agenda - why is ESPN so in love with The K$ng?

Forget Roswell. Forget the Grassy Knoll. Forget Bigfoot. When are we going to uncover the answer to a great contemporary mystery, why are ESPN such slathering, dribbling sycophantic fools for LeBron James? At this stage their man-crush on The K$ing is getting quasi embarrassing. There would appear to be almost no depth too low for ESPN to stoop in their deification of The K$ng.

Consider the weight of evidence to date.

Let’s start with the most recent and work backwards to the most dramatic.