European Championship - football essay

Hi everyone. As you may notice i am not a native speaker. So please forgive me my lack of knowledge I'm trying to improve my English skills.

My text is a little report about how I experienced the tournament in my hometown Zurich, in Switzerland.

European Championship

It's about two weeks ago when a great football competition took place in Austria and Switzerland; the European Championship. It has been one of the best competitions I have ever seen in my life. Not only because it took place in my hometown Zurich, it is also because the spectators had been experienced some fascinating games. The atmosphere has been fantastic; there is no doubt about that. Even in the densest crowd I did not get witness to aggressivity and that is something that amazed me. I remember one game I really enjoyed. I and some friends were watching the Netherlands playing against world champion Italy. We had been supporting team Holland among hundreds of Italian fans. We won this game in a spectacular way which made the Netherlands at one blow count to the top favourites of the competition. Anyway after the match the Italian fans had been celebrating together with us.

Well after the qualification round the Netherlands were stopped by the Russians what made me really sad because the Russians had been playing better by far and I did not recognize my team, which had been playing incredibly until that day, anymore.

In the end the Russians had been beaten by Spain which continued its way to the top by defeating Germany in an exciting final. I am glad that Spain has made it after my favourite teams, Netherland and Switzerland, had been eliminated. I strongly hope that the Netherland will win one of the next football competitions no matter if it is World Cup or European Championship. But in the eyes of many it is much harder to achieve the victory in the European Championship than in the World Cup. That is also my opinion because each and every nation that has made its way to the tournament is one of the best teams in the world. Beside Brazil and Argentina all the top nations of football participate in that great event normally.

It will always remain a thing to me I won't understand why football is not that popular in the USA despite it is almost everywhere else the number one sport. When I was younger I was a great Basketball Fan and I even stayed up at night (3 A.M) to watch the Chicago Bulls win three in a row. But while growing older football gained on basketball until getting my one and only number one.

You've got a good rough draft here. Mainly, watch your tense; you slip from present tense to past tense frequently. Pick one tense and stick with it throughout the piece. Otherwise, you stick to your topic and have good paragraphs that flow together well. Nice job.

Good morning,

The tournament took place in Austria and in Switzerland. These countries had been (correct tense?) the two host cities.

- We won this game in a spectacular way which made the Netherlands at one blow count to the top favourites of the competition This is a confusing statement; what exactly do you mean?

I tried to express that the Netherland played that good this day that everyone thought they would win the whole tournament. At one blow everyone thought it but before the tournament had started there counted other countries to the top favourites (for example Italy).

- three in a row

I thought its some american slang wording. At least its used in Basketball I thought when a team wins 3 championships in 3 sequenced years.

- After the qualification round the Netherlands were stopped by the Russians, which made me really

This confuses me a little. I had thought when I used which here it would be relating to "the Russian".

Thanks for your effort once again. When I wrote it down I thought it was a horrible essay. But if a native speaker thinks it is not that bad... then i am happy :)

Time tenses are really hard to understand for swiss people by the way. For example we use to say "it IS the best thing i have ever seen" because it is still the best thing i have seen and tomorrow it will still be the best thing i have ever seen. But it is also possible here to say "it WAS the best thing I have ever seen".

Good morning.

It's like that too in America, but we have to be careful when we are writing academically because it is formal and everything has to be "just so"; when we are speaking it is a completely different "venue" if you will than when we write, so just because it works when we are talking doesn't necessarily work when we write. :) For instance, when we write we need to take into account our audience; if you are writing this for someone who will read it that does not necessarily know what "three in a row" means athletically, you need to put in a short phrase that explains it so that they are not confused. If you are writing this essay for a team of sports writers who already know the background on everything you're writing about, elusive and vague references will work just fine.

"The tournament took place in Austria and in Switzerland. These countries had been (correct tense?) the two host cities." Your tense is correct, but how can one tournament be held in two cities simultaneously? Or is that not how it happened? Clarification here is important.

"I tried to express that the Netherland played that good this day that everyone thought they would win the whole tournament. At one blow everyone thought it but before the tournament had started there counted other countries to the top favourites (for example Italy)."

How about "Netherland played so well that day, in spite of everyone at the beginning of the tournament thinking that other teams, such as Italy, would easily dominate" and then continue from there.

This is a little trickier: "After the qualification round the Netherlands were stopped by the Russians, which made me really sad because the Russians had been playing better by far and I did not recognize my team, which had been playing incredibly until that day, anymore." This has to do with sequential reasoning. One thing happened causing another thing, causing another thing, causing the last thing. Russia stopped the Netherlands, causing you to be sad because the Russians were playing better, so the Russian's blinding superiority caused you to forget about your old team because Russia was playing so much better. "Which" is normally a conjunction that is used in "cause and effect" reasoning.

I'm glad you took the sentences one at a time and looked at them closely independently; when we do that it helps us recognize what we really meant to say and if we said it or not, which, in the end, is the whole purpose of writing. Close analysis such as what you have done here makes great writers.

Regards,
Gloria
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