Euro 08 is starting soon and what a plight for the fans from GB and Ireland, not even a single team from the island...goodness me...is this the death of football in GB and Ireland, well Irish and Wales can take solace from playing Rugby better and so does Scotland from the sheer effort for trying to qualify, never mind they lost to Mighty Azzurri...and lets not talk about England here, as I don't like to talk on same things again and again, metatarsals, Big Egos, Bad football, Clubs over country, THE FA ...guess that was it..and now in the hands of a Italian manager who was once lamented by one very English captain as "not too keen on playing him" ...wow :)
Euro08 - big and very very tight competition indeed, where the difference in winning n losing is nothing but, sometimes, the card , the kick and the goal ..(same for WC or CL for that matter but EURO is indeed a different tournament) ..the way teams know each other in EURO is, for me, the one starking difference from other big football festivals...the kind of rivalries here are un-parallel and lovely to watch ....indeed if favorite team wins else....don't ask...
Who will win it, lets not talk "stuff" here, straight to the facts.....France, Italy, Portugal and Germany....who else :-) should make to the semi-finals at least...this is not going by the recent form but the fact that these teams DO focus more than anyone on big tournaments and they win most of those...unlucky Portugal though, for missing out to Greece last time around when the fest was in homeland (their). as for rest, Spain, Netherlands, Czech, should make the other lot else something really stupid happens...hang on ..what about Sweden, they have good players, for and also a great history of bugging big teams (like England...oh no not again)...so where would they end up...lets see..
Now, teams which will really pose a bother to all those above, Russia, Ukraine, Croatia Switzerland, mind you they are not at all easy to play and score goal against...Austria, Poland, Greece, Romania, Turkey should be alright I feel.....what a competition is on the cards..
As for players, I guess it would be a battle of all-young-to-less-old-guns on the field, there are some really nice prospects and players with exp of 1-3 big competitions, as it appears to me, the experience should or will [lets not get into this :-) ] win over the flair and charm of youth, as for tactical battles I rather think this would be a typical Euro, less than 3 goals per game (average)..also on tactical side, it would be interesting to see how coaches try their age old tactics against each other, substitutions would make a difference and as always there would be only ONE winner, all I am hoping for is - a battle of age against exp, tactics against raw talent, a opportunity for two nations to show their warm welcome and a experience of lifetime for the spectators...bring on the EURO......
