SPORTS EDGE

Sports
Football
UEFA Euro 2008 Austria-Switzerland
Ballack's miseries on
Afp, Berlin

German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger (front) and captain Michael Ballack lie on the pitch after their defeat to Spain in Sunday's Euro 2008 final at Ernst-Happel Stadium in Vienna. Photo: AFPHaving lost May's Champions League final with Chelsea, Michael Ballack again suffered silverware heartbreak on Sunday as Germany lost the Euro 2008 final 1-0 to Spain.After the Blues missed out to Manchester United in Moscow, Germany captain Ballack tasted bitter defeat for the second time in as many months in Vienna as a first-half strike by Liverpool's Fernando Torres broke German hearts."It is very sad to lose when one has come such a long way," said the 31-year-old."All the team battled away. This tournament has come at the end of the season and physically it has been tough. However, we have made too many errors."Losing in a final is a feeling the Chelsea midfielder is intimately acquainted with, having lost May's Champions League final to Manchester United and February's League Cup decider to Tottenham Hotspur.And nor it is the first time that defeat for the him has been at the hands of the Spanish, having lost to Real Madrid in the 2002 Champions League final when he played for Bayer Leverkusen.For the 2002 World Cup final defeat to Brazil he was suspended.He had missed ten games for his country due to injury as his side became the first to qualify for Euro 2008 without him, but he made up for it in the tournament's finals playing a key role in getting Germany to the Vienna final.He showed how little his calf muscle was bothering him as early as the eighth minute when he out-stripped the Spanish defence, but no one was there to meet his cross and had a shot at goal blocked on 25 minutes.When his side's defence was broken by Torres' first-half goal, Ballack was left bloodied and needed stitches for an eye gash just after the half hour mark and picked up a yellow card for a heavy challenge on Cesc Fabregas.He had Germany's best chance of the game when his shot grazed Casillas' near post.This could be Ballack's last chance to win a major international tournament, but there has been no talk from the big man with his Chelsea contract set to expire in June 2009."Of course we are disappointed after coming so far, after so many weeks of hard work, and the qualification too," Ballack said. "And then to get to the final and to lose, that is always bitter to lose a final, for sure."He also said that Germany's strong performance in Euro 2008 -- notably their emphatic 3-2 quarterfinal victory over Portugal -- was in large part down to the huge numbers of fans that travelled to Austria and Switzerland to cheer them on."For practically every game the home supporters were always in the majority. And that is important for our team," he said."It is still a young team and it is very, very important that particularly in difficult phases of the game to have the support, and in many, many games that was fantastic."Coach Joachim Loew, meanwhile, predicted on Monday next time they will beat the Spanish as he and the team were given a heroes' welcome in Berlin."The Spanish were a very good team all through the championship. We have to recognise their quality ... Should the Spanish come up again in a championship we will beat them," Loew said to cheers from a crowd of 100,000 people gathered around the Brandenburg Gate."Yesterday we were crazy with disappointment and sadness, but I think that coming second was a great achievement for us. The team has performed amazingly in the last two years and we can all be proud that we were in the final," he said.Loew, 48, also confidently predicted that Germany would qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa."I said to the players they must not let their head hang," said Loew. "We made it to the final, that is something really special."The defeat is a stimulus to work hard in the coming two years, to take things forward and improve."We start qualification for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa this September, we want to play just as good a role there as we did at Euro 2008."We will analyse things in peace once the dust has settled and look at where we need to improve."We did not always play with the same high quality in the final tournament which we had shown in the previous two years."
One of several CNG filling stations between Kanchpur Bridge and Jatrabari of the capital which BNP big shots built on the Kutubkhali canal, drastically reducing Dhaka's