Euro 2012: How 'the beautiful game' explains the eurozone

(CNN) -- Euro 2012 is beginning to resemble the eurozone -- a case of sport imitating economics.

It may be early days at the quadrennial football tournament that fixates tens of millions of Europeans from the Urals to the Atlantic, but there are worrying signs that some teams are mimicking national roles in the evolving Euro crisis.

The evidence so far: Germany have been austere and unforgiving compared to their expansive play in the last World Cup. One can almost hear Chancellor Angel Merkel in the locker room wagging her finger and demanding: "Don't give anything away." Against Portugal they didn't, eking out victory with a utilitarian efficiency that echoes German leadership on the European stage.

Speaking of Portugal, they may yet wake up in time to reach the next stage of the tournament, but like the other European bail-out countries they looked uncertain and have a lot of work to do to stay in the eurozone Euro 2012.