Day 1

Poland 1-1 Greece

Well so much for a snore-fest opener.  Euro 2012 kicked off with a bang in Warsaw, as co-hosts Poland played out a drama-filled match against the Greeks.  The Polish started wonderfully, much to the delight of the sea of red and white in the National Stadium.  A great curling Rafal Murawski strike from the edge of the 18 in the 5^th minute would be a sign of things to come.  Poland dominated the first half and were able to send the country into oblivion in the 17^th minute as their Borussia Dortmund duo of Robert Lewandowski and captain Jakub Blaszczykowski linked up with a perfect cross and finishing header to open the scoring for the European Championship.  Greece were on the back foot for almost the entire half, and it would get worse before it got better as Sokratis Papastathopoulos picked up a very harsh second yellow card in the 44^th minute, pushing Greece down to just 10 men.

But this match was absolutely a tale of two halves, as Greece did not back down despite the co-host's man advantage.  Greece found an equalizer in the 51^st minute from impact substitute Dimitris Salpingidis.  Polish goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny came out and was unable to deal with a dangerous cross.  The ball fell flat on the ground, allowing Salpingidis to pounce and put away the leveler.  Disaster struck for Poland fifteen minutes later, as goalkeeper Szczesny was shown a straight red card after tripping up Salpingidis in the box after a quick Greek move.  But just when Poland and the National Stadium were at its lowest,  backup goalkeeper Przemyslaw Tyton became the hero of the night when he denied Greece captain Giorgos Karagounis from the penalty spot.

The two sides battled to a 1-1 draw in the tournament's opener, leaving both sides with an unsettling "what if" feeling.  Although neither side should be too disappointed with the result as this figures to be a very wide open Group A.

Russia 4-1 Czech Republic

The second match of the day could not measure up to the drama of the opener, however, that's not to say it lacked excitement.  The Czechs got off to a comfortable start, controlling the play through the first ten or fifteen minutes.  However, the Russians got going soon after and their decisive counter attacks exposed their opposition's defensive frailties. Russia went into half time 2-0 with strikes from Alan Dzagoev (15th min) and Roman Shirokov (24th).

The Czechs got one back soon after the break via Vaclav Pilar, as he took a neat through ball around goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev and slotted it home in the 52nd minute.  But the Russians were clearly the more dangerous side as they capitalized on the space the Czech Republic team continued to afford them.  They finished the game off with two powerful strikes past Petr Cech by Alan Dzagoev (79th) and Roman Pavlyuchenko (82nd).

Overall, day one of Euro 2012 turned out to be a thrilling one, despite many claims that this is the "Group of Boredom".  But with that said, I can't wait for the Group of Death to get underway tomorrow.