UEFA Euro 2012 host cities in Poland and Ukraine (video)
It has been known for a long time, that in June 2012 Poland and Ukraine will host thousands of European soccer fans. This is because PL and UA are organizers of the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship - Euro 2012. This is the first post in Tasting Poland blog ever. Certainly not last about Euro 2012, since with time it will be more and more of interesting information.
On Polish side of the border preparations run at full speed already for two years. At first everything happened amongst political uproar and in view of the great interest of the society. This is typical of developing countries that work their way up, and pleases me very much - Poles build a real civil society in their country in the last years. I admit without being surprised, that the majority of all civil activities take place within Polish Internet. Well, a sign of the times.
Today, over two years after granting Poland and Ukraine the right to the organization of championships, the noise around Euro 2012 a bit died away. It is so mainly because all tasks are carried out. Preparations are efficient and, as I think, there will be no flop. This is in defiance of eternal stragglers which (at the beginning) claimed that Poland wouldn't cope with such a great objective. As they say: griping is Polish national sport.
And probably in Poland, griping comes off better than playing football. Poland as the hosting team, has an already guaranteed way out of the group. It's nice not to finish a fun at a group stage. Phew! And coming back to the subject. Matches will be played in four Polish and four Ukrainian cities (in Poland: Warsaw, Gdansk, Poznan, Wroclaw, whereas in the Ukraine: Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk). I'd like to present the commercial (pleasing to the eye), which one could watch on Polish television few weeks ego :) Presentation introduces charm of Polish and Ukrainian cities, where stadiums are already being built.
[video no longer available]
And here comes the map of Poland with Euro 2012 host cities:
