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Filippo Inzaghi

Filippo "Pippo" Inzaghi was born 9 August 1973 in Piacenza is an Italian World Cup and UEFA Champions League-winning footballer who plays for Serie A club Milan.

Inzaghi became the first striker to score in all international club competitions open to European teams after his double against Boca Juniors during the FIFA Club World Cup final in 2007.

Filippo Inzaghi is currently the second all time most prolific goal scorer in European club competitions with 70 goals (only beaten by Raúl's 71 goals). He is also Milan's top international goal scorer in the club's history with 43 goals. He also holds the record for most hat tricks in Serie A (10), and the UEFA Champions League (3 - tied with Michael Owen). He is the oldest player to score in UEFA Champions League (aged 37 years and 85 days) after scoring against Real Madrid on 3 November 2010.

Inzaghi earned his first cap for Italy against Brazil on June 8, 1997, and has since scored 25 goals in 57 appearances. He was called up for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, Euro 2000, the 2002 FIFA World Cup and the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Inzaghi was Italy's top goalscorer during the qualifying rounds of the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004, but missed the latter due to injury.

His persistent knee and ankle injuries put a halt to his international play for almost two years before his resurgence at the club level, which resulted in his being called up by Italy coach Marcello Lippi for the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals. Due to the abundance of other top strikers such as Alessandro Del Piero, Francesco Totti and Luca Toni, Inzaghi made his only appearance (subbing on for Alberto Gilardino) in a group stage match against the Czech Republic on 22 June 2006, scoring his only goal in the tournament, rounding Petr Čech in a one-on-one encounter to net in Italy's second goal, which made him the oldest player to have scored for Italy.

He is currently the sixth-highest goalscorer in team history with 25 goals, which ties him with Adolfo Baloncieri and Alessandro Altobelli.

Inzaghi is noted for his ability to play off the shoulders of the last defender, leading Sir Alex Ferguson to quip, "That lad must have been born offside.

The logo and slogan of next European football championships, EURO 2012, were unveiled yesterday at a ceremony in Ukraine’s capital.

UEFA President Michel Platini (centre), Poland Soccer Federation President Grzegorz Lato (left) and Ukrainian FA president Grigoriy Surkis (right) took part in the official presentation in downtown Kiev.

The logo is shows the stalk of a flower with three branches. A ball is depicted around the central flower, with the left flower being red and white (the colors of Poland’s flag) and the right flower being yellow and blue (the colors of Ukraine’s flag).

“The vivid colors of the logo are a perfect fit with the image that Poland and Ukraine want to give to the world,” said Platini at the ceremony.

“The symbolism of a plant that grows is fully in line with the aspirations of the two host countries, and I am sure that we will be creating history together, with the staging of the UEFA European Football Championship in central and eastern Europe for the first time,” he said.

Quoted from People’s Daily Online.

The following is excerpted from the UEFA website.

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Visual identity
The purpose of the logo is to give UEFA EURO 2012™ a personality of its own, with the visual identity to be applied across a range of promotional applications from tickets to web banners. The objective is to help promote the tournament – one of the world’s biggest sporting events – by providing an easily recognisable identity with a flavour of the host nations. The logo takes its visual lead from ‘wycinanka’, the traditional art of paper cutting practised in rural areas of Poland and Ukraine, as a tribute to the fauna and flora of the region.

EURO bloom
The ‘bloom’ logo has a flower representing each of the co-host nations and a central ball symbolising the emotion and passion of the competition, while the stem denotes the structural aspect of the competition, UEFA and European football. Nature has inspired other features of the visual identity, with woodland green, sun yellow, aqua blue, sky blue and blackberry purple being the crucial tones of the palette of colours to figure in official tournament branding.

Uniting ethos
The event slogan, meanwhile, is ‘Creating History Together’. The staging of the UEFA European Championship finals in Poland and Ukraine, a first for Central and Eastern Europe, will have a place in the history books, with everyone involved in UEFA EURO 2012™ – organisers, host countries, host cities, players and fans – contributing to another exciting chapter of European football.

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I’d love it if the organisers moved back to a style of design similar to the ’84, ’88, and ’92 championships.

They weren’t perfect, but I think they’re stronger than the cartoon designs that have followed.

source: http://www.logodesignlove.com/uefa-euro-2012-logo