RIP Preciado, say Spain

Spain were Thursday mourning the death of former Sporting Gijon coach Manolo Preciado, who had only been appointed coach of Villarreal on Wednesday, from a heart attack.

Preciado, who also coached racing Santander, had the reputation of being a workaholic and was well respected across Spain.

It was the latest tragedy to hit the family as Preciado lost his first wife to cancer in 2002 and two years later the youngest of the couple's two sons was killed in a car accident at the age of 15. Last year his father died after being run over by a car.

La Furia Roja confined to camp – so far

Spain have been confined to camp at Gniewino in Poland since they arrived on Tuesday – but Chelsea midfielder Juan Mata says he hopes a little free time will materialise on occasion as the Furia Roja attempt to land their third straight major title.

“Poland certainly has many beautiful things to offer," said Mata as he plotted some cultural downtime.

Italian flavour for opening

The Euro 2012 opening ceremony in Warsaw will have a decidedly Italian flavour as it is being produced largely by creative director Marco Balich and DJ Karmatronic – aka Achilles Filippo Sparta, a remixer for stars including Shakira.

Balich was behind similar extravaganzas at the Winter Games at Salt Lake City (2002) and Turin (2006), while he is also helping produce the London Games opening ceremony. He will furthermore be MC for the closing ceremony at the Euros.

Karmatronic has, together with Adam Gyorgy, written a specially commissioned piece ‘The Game of the World’.