Football and Lotteries: Two European Strengths

Amongst all leisure and entertainment related subjects, football is by far the most important and the one raising the hottest debates. Almost every day, millions of fans follow football teams across Europe in their competition for the best possible accomplishments. Every week, millions of viewers cheer for their idols Ronaldo, Messi, Owen, Lampard, Balotelli and many others.

When it comes to the lotteries, things don’t heat up so much in the verbal and non-verbal manifestations, but when the jackpots get to dizzying heights, many of us make up fervent dreams about winning them.

Europe: the place where the game is played?

But, let’s get back to football, and not to the clubs. They create their share of enthusiasm, it’s true, but you will have to agree with me that cheering for the national team is quite something else. Bringing together the best players from around the country, the national team is cheered from the heart. Fans don’t separate by cities, areas or regions. When the national team plays – the whole state is cheering as one.

In a world where literally billions are spent to buy players, build infrastructure and invest in media campaigns, it is very important to show who the main competition is, who dominates and is able to build the best team. Europe and South America, of course, for decades dominate the world scene with the players’ quality, but when it comes to football clubs, investing in European football is by far atop. ”The game” is actually played in Europe.

What about the lotteries? Is Europe the place where the game is played? Except for EuroMillions, which sometimes manages to attract the world’s attention, we really cannot say that. The lotto game is played in the US, for sure! With jackpots often going above the half a billion dollars threshold, even the Europeans have their eyes set on the American lotteries, grabbing their US Powerball tickets for a chance to see their lives taking a sudden turn in a split of a second.

The European super powers

As mentioned before, EuroMillions counts for the super power of the lottery world in Europe. Although still young, EuroJackpot is also showing great potential. But, which are the strongest national lotteries? Spain rules with a wide range of lotto games and raffles. Then, we have the UK, where the National Lottery gives away millions every week through an interesting raffle accompanying the bi-weekly EuroMillions draws. Let’s not forget the Mega Friday – a monthly event, which brings even more excitement, distributing luxury cars and exotic holidays as prizes. The Italian lottery SuperEnalotto with its long rollover streaks has its share of fans as well.

When it comes to football, the world’s best players are gathered in the leagues from Spain across Italy to United Kingdom as well. And still there’s a question: which European country is the best in football, whose team is the strongest, and of course, if international competitions truly represent the real situation.

Let’s take Italy as an example, the country valid for toughest football. National team of Italy has been celebrated by some of the biggest stars of modern football. Starting from Baresi, Maldini, Costacurta, to the newer generation dominated by Totti, Buffon, Pirlo to quite young footballers facing the future like El Shaarawy, Mastour, Darmian and others. Italians had a solid record at international competitions during nineties, winning a 3rd place in 1990, but played in the finals only four years later in USA. In the meantime, they played the finals of the European Championship in 2000, to finally win the World Cup in 2006 and again played in the finals of the European Championships in 2012. Italian Milan was reigning European club football In the mid-nineties. Things in Italian football have changed after Calciopoli scandal, when a thick network of relations rigging football matches was discovered across the country. Since then, it seemed like Italian club football have disappeared from European map. National team continues to hold its position. After the final FIFA classification, Italy is in 12th place in the world, but the team still relies primarily on experienced footballers rather than new, young generation.

In this classification, we must mention the national team of Spain which, in the opinion of authoritative experts and journalists, currently plays the most attractive football. Rise of national team and Spanish football miracle most certainly started in 2008. National team led by David Villa won the championship, moved easily up the groups and defeated always tricky opponent Germany in the finals. Top scorer was actually Villa, but the whole Barcelona’s first team shone beside him: Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol and Fabregas. Spain then won the next World Cup 2010 and the European Championship again in 2012. They did not celebrate in Brazil, beaten by Netherlands and Chile. FIFA currently ranks Spain as number 8th. Since the time of David Villa and Fernando Torres, the situation has not changed much. In addition to Jordi Alba and Juan Mata, almost all the members have remained in the team.

This analysis certainly cannot pass without mentioning a titan among giants, team of England. Everybody agreed that the English leagues are the best (most valuable for sure) by almost any parameter, in the world. But for a long time followed by “curse of the big teams”, as superstitious would say. It is generally known that England has some of the best players in the world but when it comes to exclusive competitions, the best success in the last 20 years is the semifinals in 1996. Unfortunately, the last big contest in Brazil, national team of England has not passed group stage and remained nailed to the last place. Great English football star Michael Owen says that a huge industry and policy of bringing players in cancels the opportunity for young talents to come to the focus. Whatever happens, we hope that their luck is about to change.

And to sum up, if I compare defense and game style, Italian football would surely triumph. As for the speed of the game and technique, Spanish game is unmatched. And as far as the quality of the individual players and football spirit, English football will be surpassed by none anytime soon