These guys know the score for Euro 2008
SOCCER DAILY / EURO 2008
Here are 10 players likely to get the winning goal in European Championship.
Someone will score the goal.
It could be any one of the 368 players taking part in the 13th European Championship, but it is obviously more likely to be a striker than a defender.
But which one?
In Switzerland on Saturday and in Austria on Sunday, the Euro 2008 tournament will set off on its gallop to the finish line at Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna on June 29.
There, an as-yet-unknown player will fire, slide, deflect, nudge, head, or in some other fashion propel the ball across the line that will earn his country the championship.
There are dozens of top-rate forwards in the 31-game event, but odds are that the tournament-winning goal will be scored by one of the 10 listed below.
These are the premier strikers of Euro 2008, the goal scorers who will be most closely watched in the coming weeks. Some will succeed, some will fail, some might not even play, but one will emerge supreme.
But which one?
1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) -- Europe's No. 1 goal scorer, winner of the Golden Shoe in 2008, and soon to become the world's most expensive player if a move from Manchester United to Real Madrid transpires, Ronaldo could have a superb Euro 2008 or might be so distracted by transfer talk that he fails to deliver. Real Madrid reportedly is dangling an astonishing salary of $586,000 a week, after tax, in front of the 23-year-old. Meanwhile, Portugal Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari on Friday forbade his team from even mentioning the subject.
2. Luca Toni (Italy) -- After being snapped up for what now seems a bargain $17 million from Fiorentina one year ago, the lanky Toni enjoyed a phenomenal first season with Bayern Munich. He was the top scorer in the Bundesliga and helped propel Bayern to a trio of titles: the German league, the German Cup and the German League Cup. His season haul of 39 goals was only two fewer than Ronaldo's 41. On average, he has scored once in every two games for Italy.
3. Miroslav Klose (Germany) -- The leading goal scorer from the 2006 World Cup is a tournament player. He netted five in the 2002 World Cup and five more in 2006 and, even though he turns 30 on Monday, he remains one of the sport's most deadly finishers. Toni has stolen the luster from him at Bayern Munich, but he is still Germany's top choice up front. Coach Joachim Low said this week that the Polish-born Klose is "back to his old dynamic self" and that he had "never seen him looking so fit, so agile and so strong."
