Euro 2008: Day 15

"If we can beat opponents like (the Netherlands), it really makes no difference who we play." -- Russian leftback Yuri Zhirkov, on the no-fear nature of his team at the European Championships.

Day: Saturday, June 21

Location: Cock N Bull Pub

City: Santa Monica

Game: Netherlands 1-3 (aet) Russia

What I drank: Guinness

What we ate: Bangers and mash

Oranje crushed: To the shocking surprise of nearly everybody on hand at the Cock N Bull (unofficial slogan: All cock, no bull), Russia essentially dominated the Netherlands -- a team that steamrolled both of the 2006 World Cup finalists by a combined score of 7-1 in the group stage -- from start to finish.

That being said, the Cock N Bull presented the best atmosphere thus far for soccer (one can only imagine the hysteria at the place had the Netherlands actually showed up to play and took care of the business everyone expected). The place was packed, mostly with fans sporting orange, thus making the Cock N Bull an ideal place to enjoy a good game of football.

With that in mind, here's an unscientific breakdown of the top five of the places we've visited to watch Euro 2008 games so far ...

1. Cock N Bull: Fold-out tables and chairs were set up in front of a giant projection screen. Folks who showed up early got a glimpse of ABC's Euro 2008 "pregame show," Power Rangers (Oh, the memories!).

2. Ye Olde Kings Head: Hoping for a strong German contingent on Sunday (Oh, the memories!).

3. The Field: Would be ranked higher if another visit didn't require a long trip down the 405/5 to San Diego (Oh, the memories!).

4. O'Brien's Irish Pub: Wonder if the atmosphere would be different had we not gone on a Monday afternoon that also featured Tiger Woods' remarkable playoff hole win at the U.S. Open(Oh, the memories!).

5. South: Has a plethora of high-definition televisions placed strategically about the place, but still had to ask the bartender to put the Euro game on. It was clearly baseball season at South, making it a great place to go if you want to watch the Red Sox play on NESN (Oh, the memories!).

Player of the day: Even the most dedicated soccer enthusiast would be hard-pressed to find a familiar name on the Euro 2008 roster of Russia, but remember the name of Andrei Arshavin, at least for one more game -- Thursday's semifinal showdown with Spain. Arshavin scored the nail-in-the-'ol-coffin goal against the Netherlands, a strike that put Russia up 3-1 in extra time and had the orange-clad patrons at the Cock N Bull scrambling to close out their tabs. Arshavin, it should be noted, earned Man of the Match honors when he led his club team, Zenit St. Petersburg, to victory in the UEFA Cup finale.

It's fun to look forward to something: Would it be a nightmare at ABC to have Russia and Turkey both advance to the European Championship finale (live from Vienna's Ernst Happel Stadion at 11:30 a.m. PT, Sunday)?

Germany v Spain sits there as the gold pot at the end of the rainbow, so to speak, for soccer fans. What a way to continue to promote the game by having as marquee a matchup as possible on major network television? You get the team with the most European championships of any nation versus a potent Spain squad looking to erase the demons of recent failures in major international tournaments.

But, then there's Turkey -- the never-say-die, play-until-the-last-final-moment miracle workers -- and Russia -- advancing to stages not seen since the days of the old CCCP -- who could play the role of spoilers. It wouldn't be a shock at all to see either team playing in Vienna on Sunday.

The top five Champions League finals I've seen

"We were sitting in the dressing room and we could clearly hear thousands of fans singing You'll Never Walk Alone. Can you imagine how that felt? We were 3-0 down in the Champions League final and all we could hear were 45,000 people letting us know they still believed in us. We knew they had endured a long journey and made so many sacrifices to be there. It was at that point we started to believe too." -- Liverpool's Luis Garcia, on what inspired his team's amazing comeback in the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul.

While England won't be participating in this year's Euro 2008 festivities in Austria and Switzerland, at least it gets an all-English Champions League final to cheer for when Chelsea FC and Manchester United FC take to the pitch at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium on May 21.

For the stat fan in all of us, this will only be the third time in the Champions League's 50 or so year history (it was previously known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, which was often abbreviated to European Cup) that clubs from the same country have met in the finale. The other two times? Well, those happened ever so recently ... twice in the last eight years, in fact. In 2003, AC Milan beat Juventus FC in an all-Italian finale, and three years before that Real Madrid CF bested Valencia CF in an all-Spanish finale.

In honor (honour?), of this momentous occasion, here are the top five Champions League finals I've seen (going all the way back to 2002ish) ...

5. AC Milan 2-1 over Liverpool, 2007 -- AC Milan got a measure of revenge for that epic collapse in the 2005 Champions League final.

4. Real Madrid 2-1 over Bayer Leverkusen Fußball-bund, 2002 -- I remember this game only because it was played about a month before the first World Cup I can remember actually being excited to watch. It also marked the last time a German Bundesliga team played in the UEFA Champions League finale.

3. Barcelona 2-1 over Arsenal, 2006 -- Barca won, despite getting no goals from Ronaldinho, a precursor of things to come for the Brazilian in that year's World Cup.

2. AC Milan 0-0 (3-2 pen.) over Juventus, 2003 -- Watched this game from the Cock N Bull Pub in beautiful Santa Monica, Calif. Just happened to have off of work that day. It was cool drinking Guinness at 11 a.m.

1. Liverpool 3-3 (3-2 pen.) over AC Milan, 2005 -- Greatest Champions League final ever ... and to argue with a guy who's only seen a few of the 50 or so Champions League finals would be foolhardy.