News just out that the Court of Arbitration for Sport has ruled in favour of Barcelona and decided they will not have to release Argentine forward Lionel Messi for the Olympics.

Assuming Barcelona do not have a change of heart, it means one of the biggest-name athletes at the Games will not be taking part. Brazilians Diego and Rafinha, of Werder Bremen and Schalke 04, will now also presumably be going home.

As Brian Homewood writes, the presence of Messi has helped raise the profile of soccer at the Olympics enormously. His departure will be a big blow to Argentina, and to all those hoping hoping to catch a glimpse of the man.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter said recently that Barcelona and other clubs should let their players stay and compete in the Games even if CAS were to rule in their favour. Let's see what Barcelona say. 

We'll have more on this later.

It’s been a little quiet around here lately. That’s because I’m in Beijing covering the Olympics, and I hope you won’t mind a shameless plug for the relaunched Reuters Olympic blog — View from the Bird’s Nest.

From August 8-24 the focus will be on the Beijing Games rather than the football world, although we will of course have plenty to say about the soccer tournament at the Olympics, which Argentina, Brazil and the rest will be taking very seriously indeed.

That coverage will be cross-posted back here but if you’re at all interested in other sports please pop over to blogs.reuters.com/china and give us your views on the great gold rush. There is life outside football!

Kevin Fylan, Beijing

Pic by Ceerwan Aziz, Reuters 

It’s come to something when even the good people at Marca are getting fed up of the whole Cristiano Ronaldo saga.

The Spanish sports paper devoted an editorial and a couple of articles yesterday urging Real Madrid to get on with the job and sign the Portuguese forward asap. Today, they have vox pops from fans saying much the same sort of thing and it looks like their campaign to get things moving is going to continue.

Presumably Marca are seeing a dip in sales as a result of Nothing Much Happening day after day. After all, if there really is no movement you soon run out of ways to spin the story.

Real don’t have to worry about selling newspapers (at least not directly) and they may well feel they can afford to wait. The player himself is currently injured, meaning it matters little if he only makes it on transfer deadline day.

But are they right to sit tight and hope that Manchester United eventually give in and accept whatever offer (reportedly 90 million euros) is on the table?

Only time will tell, but Real may find they have painted themselves into a corner.

This is a good Real Madrid team but not yet a great one. They won the league title last season comfortably but they look some way away from being good enough to win the Champions League. They need some kind of reinforcement, whether that’s in the form of Ronaldo or someone else.

Perhaps it would be wise, as Marca suggest, to make one final push for Ronaldo now and if that fails turn their attention to players like Van der Vaart, Fabregas, Kaka and Villa sooner rather than later.

It would liven up the front pages, anyway.

PHOTO: Cristiano Ronaldo during Portugal’s Euro 2008 defeat by Germany at St Jakob Park, Basel, June 19, 2008. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

As we all saw during Euro 2008, Xavi and Iniesta are two of the best ball-playing midfielders in Europe. Now it’s time they showed it for Barcelona.

Don’t get me wrong — the two little midfielders have been good enough for the Catalans over the past few seasons. But now that Ronaldinho has gone, along with Deco and possibly to be followed by Eto’o, this is the moment for the two gifted midfielders to show they can really carry the team.

They certainly have the skill but do they have the charisma?

Will we see them urging on their team mates, demanding the ball and getting forward into goalscoring positions? Will they take on more responsibility under new coach Pep Guardiola, who certainly led by example as a player.

I’m in Spain at the moment, taking a break between Euro 2008 and Beijing, and expectation is obviously growing about how Guardiola’s new-look Barcelona are going to cope without Ronaldinho and co.

The coach apparently still wants a new centre-forward — Adebayor, Drogba or Berbatov, by all accounts — but I wonder if the inspiration couldn’t come instead from those newly crowned champions of Europe in the midfield.

After all, they already have Henry, Messi, Bojan and conceivably Eto’o to play up front.

Kevin Fylan, taking advantage of the wifi at Bar Alcala, Cullera

PHOTO: Xavi and Iniesta celebrate a Barcelona goal against Levante during at Camp Nou, Feb 24, 2008. REUTERS/Albert Gea

Germany made it into the final of Euro 2008 despite playing some truly awful football against Turkey.

The question now is can anything stop them winning their fourth European Championship in Sunday’s final in Vienna?

Fans back home in Germany missed some of the second half after a storm in Vienna caused a problem with the TV signal. That was a shame, because it was only in the last few minutes in Basel that Germany actually started playing the way they should have done all along.

In the first half they were far too careless with the ball, seemed to underestimate how dangerous Turkey could be and deservedly fell behind to a goal from Ugur Boral.

Germany equalised with their one moment of quality in the first half, when Bastian Schweinsteiger clipped in from Lukas Podolski’s cross, before a talking-to from coach Joachim Loew at the break served to sort them out.

“I told them we have to play more seriously, and stop losing the ball,” Loew said.

The dressing down worked and when an otherwise anonymous Miroslav Klose headed in on 79 minutes, Germany looked to be on their way. Another twist saw Semih Senturk equalise before Philipp Lahm bagged a 90th minute winner.

Germany win even when they don’t play well. Can they really be stopped?

Cristiano Ronaldo told Real Madrid what they wanted to hear when he reacted to Portugal’s Euro 2008 exit with a clear indication of what he has in mind for his future.

Ronaldo was careful never to mention the words Real or Madrid when he spoke to reporters in Spanish at the end of the match in Basel but his words still did not leave much to the imagination.

“Everyone knows what I want,” Ronaldo said. “But in the next two or three days you’ll have something new. (I made this decision) some time ago, before this competition. I didn’t want to say anything because we were in competition and these are important decisions.”

Asked about the likelihood of a move, he added: “The possibilities are big but it doesn’t depend on me and because of that I don’t want to talk about it.”

His comments came on the same day a senior Real Madrid figure called on Ronaldo to come out in public and give them an opportunity to start negotiations with the Premier League champions.

If Ronaldo really does want to leave, United may have to accept that the canniest move now would be to get the best deal possible from Real.

The 23-year-old winger’s ineffective performance in Portugal’s 3-2 defeat by Germany might just persuade Alex Ferguson that he is by no means irreplaceable and that 100 million euros or so might give him the chance to build an even better team.

Do you think United should let him go and pocket the cash? And if so, who could they sign to fill Ronaldo’s boots? Barcelona are trying to offload Ronaldinho, Deco and Samuel Eto’o and they could comfortably afford all three with that sort of money.

What do you reckon?

PHOTO: Cristiano Ronaldo reacts to Portugal’s 3-2 defeat by Germany at Euro 2008, Basel, June 19, 2008. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

With Vlog on the Pitch regular Jon Bramley away in Vienna, Owen Wyatt has been scouring the land for the perfect replacement and we think he’s found his man in Tony Blair.

The former British prime minister, speaking at the launch of the Beyond Sport initiative, looks a bit nervous about his chances of winning the office sweepstake and reckons Euro 2008 is just about impossible to predict.

Drop us a comment below on Mr Blair’s Vlog performance or anything else Euro 2008 related in the comments below. Even better, record your own video, send us a link and we’ll post it up here.

Kevin Fylan, Ascona

P.S. Owen is the one on the left

For full Euro 2008 coverage from Reuters see here

Owen Wyatt is joined by Luke Smith to discuss the sparkling Dutch performance against Italy. Does the 3-0 win over world champions Italy mark them out as favourites? Germany coach Joachim Loew doesn’t agree, but who are we to argue with our Vlog on the Pitch boys…

Let us know if you think they’re right about the swift counter-attacking Dutch, or if you think they should have waited until Spain’s performance against Russia before going out on a limb…

And if you weren’t in Berne for the fiesta, check out the following video report from Joanna Partridge for a view of the Dutch painting the town Orange.

Click on the video above to see just a few of our correspondents here in Austria and Switzerland giving their views on what to expect at Euro 2008.

At the end of the video we give our predictions on who’s going to win and we’d like you to follow suit. Feel free to upload your own video views somewhere (if you send us the link and we like what we see, we’ll showcase it here) or just let us know who you think is going to win in the comments below.

And yes, you can come back and gloat when all our predictions turn out to be spectacularly wrong.

Kevin Fylan, Ascona

When I was a keen but accident-prone goalkeeper growing up, the one piece of advice all my teachers and coaches used to give was: “Stand up when a player’s coming through on goal, and make yourself as big a target as possible.”

Jens Lehmann took that literally when he came into Germany’s news conference on Wednesday. The 38-year-old keeper, who has taken some stick from the media lately, said: “I’m going to stay standing up and give you all more surface area to aim at.”

Lehmann did look a little jittery when Germany played against Belarus in a recent friendly but he now says he’ll be fully concentrated, after finally sorting out his future with a move to VfB Stuttgart.

The big problem for Lehmann and the rest of the keepers at Euro 2008 could be the ball, which most people expect to move around quite a bit in the flight and hang in the air too much for comfort on crosses. (See here for a field test at Soccerlens).

There are some good goalies at the tournament, Lehmann among them (although I actually wouldn’t mind seeing young Rene Adler get a chance at some stage). Petr Cech and Gianluigi Buffon are obviously outstanding but if I had to single out one I’d choose Iker Casillas. If Spain are finally going to do something at a big tournament like this they’ll need him at his best, which is very good indeed.

Who’s your pick for the best keeper of Euro 2008?

Kevin Fylan, with the German squad in Ascona, Switzerland