Tongue twisters galore at Euro 2012

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Covering the Euro 2012 opener between Poland and Greece must have been a nightmarish experience for commentators.

We are not talking about the quality of the match here, as a finely taken opening goal and a couple of red cards spiced up the proceedings.

The problem popped up with the name of the players from either side. Sample this from Poland: Wojciech Szczesny, Lukasz Piszczek, Jakub Blaszczykowski. The third is a real tongue twister.

The Greeks weren’t easy to pronounce either. Avraam Papadopoulos wasn’t an easy one. There was no respite for the commentators when the veteran came off injured in the 36th minute because the substitute’s name — hold your breath — was Kyriakos Papadopoulos!

The bench had some really difficult names such as Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Giannis Fetfatzidis.

Curiously, the names of all the players in the Greek first XI ended with the letter ‘s’. In the whole squad of 23, there was only one player whose moniker doesn’t end in ‘s’: Kostas Mitroglou.

The spelling of the above mentioned Poles and Greeks are best left to the champions in the Spelling Bee competition.

Staying on in the name business, a Bulgarian footballer whose name doesn’t end in ‘v’ is a rarity.
Only a couple of players without a ‘v’ at the rear have pulled on a Bulgarian jersey.