MATT LAWTON'S EURO BLOG: Turkey may regret not copying Carragher and why the England team should stay tuned to Euros

13 April 2012

Some professional footballers watch as much football as they possibly can. Serie A, La Liga. Even Germany's Bundesliga.

A reason why Jamie Carragher has proved so successful in Europe for Liverpool is because he can probably tell Rafa Benitez more about an opponent than his manager can tell him.

But other players fail to recognise the benefit of watching a lot of football. Fail to see it, and I think they're very much in the wrong, as part of their job.

Not interested: The Turkish national team spent more time talking to their wives and girlfriends than watching the Euro 2008 quarter-finals.

Carragher recognises how much he earns and regards it as a dereliction of duty if he isn't learning what he can about Europe's finest forwards.

'By watching them you get to understand their movement, the way they play,' I recall Carragher once telling me during an interview.

'Or it might be the way they work with the other striker. How and when they make their runs.'

Which brings me to Saturday night and a bar in Vienna that was suddenly invaded by half the Turkish squad and, dare I say it, their very classy looking WAGS.

I was with a few colleagues and we had positioned our bar stools in front of a large widescreen television for what proved to be a terrific match between Holland and Russia.

But were the Turkish lads, Emre among them, interested in watching two teams when they could end up meeting one of them in Sunday's final here in Vienna? Not in the slightest.

Eventually, at some point during the second half, a request was made and a waiter wheeled out the Big Daddy of flatscreen TVs and planted it in front of them.

But even then the triumphant Turks appeared more interested in talking to their glamorous other halves and singing traditional Turkish songs than studying the brilliance of Andrei Arshavin.

Something they might regret should they now overcome Germany and then meet Guus Hiddink's terrific young Russian team.

It then led me to wondering how many of England's players have been following this tournament closely. In my opinion they should be watching every game, if only to see how much progress they need to make before the next World Cup.

Fabio Capello has been here to see Croatia in action but, again, I wonder if he told his players to make sure they had access to a TV while away on their holidays.

He certainly told them to have a quiet summer. Code for not getting into any trouble.

But it will be interesting to hear the England players' thoughts on Euro 2008 when we see them again in August for the friendly against the Czech Republic.

Just had an email, as it happens, declaring that UEFA'S Euro 2008 website has had a billion hits during the tournament. Perhaps some of those hits have been England players studying the statistics. Then again, perhaps not.

But if anyone out there can explain how you navigate your way around it properly it would be greatly appreciated.

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