Hiatus

What a refreshing few weeks it has been to have gone on an EPL hiatus and writing break.

I briefly toyed with the idea of churning out posts to cover Euro 2012, which has incidentally come and gone, but decided otherwise due to hectic personal (read: wedding preparations) reasons. Which was a good thing on hindsight, as I would've struggled to match the excitement and drama of my posts with the actual action on the pitch in Poland and Ukraine. 

It was a fantastic Euro. One of the best (as far as my memory of Euros) I've witnessed. Perhaps it was because I had gotten accustomed to the notion that Euro competitions tend to be boring, safe and monotonous affairs, due to the lack of wildcard African teams, entertaining South American outfits or the raw naive dynamism of Asian teams. This Euro threw my preconceptions out of the window as we were entertained to close to a month of thrilling action, splendid goals and overall great quality of football.

Well done, Spain, for being arguably the best team of this era, and playing almost unplayable football at times. Kudos too to Germany, who apart from their customary semifinal collapse, gave us a glimpse of the new brand of German attacking football which could, possibly, be the only system in the world capable of beating the Spaniards (although we never got to find that out as they lost to the plucky underdog Italians).   Special mention goes out to the efforts of Portugal and Italy, who played their respective roles in ensuring the competition was never short of quality or silky skills.

Congrats too, to favourite son Nando Torres, who scored and created a goal in the finals AND won the Golden Boot of the tournament. How quickly things can change in half a year. Torres himself would've scoffed if someone had suggested back in January that come July, he would have scored a winning goal against Barca in a Champs League semifinal, become an European Cup champion, lift the English FA Cup, followed by a summer spree of winning the Euro 2012 and bagging the individual Golden Boot award. 50 million flop, I hear? Tsk tsk...

Well, with Euro done and over with, it's just a matter of fine-tuning for the pre-season before the new season begins. With Hazard already brought into the fold and, I am made to understand, close to capturing the precocious talent of Brazilian playmaker Oscar, things look quite promising for the new season. 

And so, with a stretch and warm up, I'm ready to go. EPL season 2012-2013, please come quick.