So! Commeth the European Championships where England couldn’t even muster qualification (useless gits), and strange how 2 English teams could reach the Champions League final?
So us English can actually have a summer off, providing the weather is nice get a few friends or family round get the Barbie on and enjoy the footy!
This competition by my reckoning should be a good one; a lot of teams have got a good youth development breaking through and will want to show that on the big stage. Nations such as Holland have slowly shipped out the old guard of Davids, Seedorf and Stam and brought through youngsters such as Babel and defender Afellay and also Robben and Van Persie, Spain are the same bringing Fabregas, Iniesta, Sergio Ramos and the of course Fernando Torres and David Villa.
Ze Germans will have a good shout as well World Cup finals here semi finals there the Coach LOW as certainly tried to capture the attacking attractive side that Jurgen Klinsmann has created.
Italians the World Cup Champions could prove to be an excellent shout can they do what France did and win the World Cup & Euro in 98 & 2000? Some of their players are two years older and may struggle, but I suppose we will have to find out.
I could go on about every team and the key aspects they have and how much they could contribute to the quality of the competition and the vast free flowing European football we could see.
Lets have a look at the Nations (Christ I sound like Terry Wogan)
Group A
1.Czech Republic
2.Portugual
3.Switzerland
4.Turkey
This group is one of those ‘who will turn up’ groups where if any team turns up and starts off well you think bloody hell they’re good! Portugal, as an Englishmen I hope they do shit but they will probably reach the quarters, the Czech’s could prove to be the spikiest opposition in the group but for reasons I can’t think of, Switzerland, well they did well in the World Cup but their lack of goals has always been a problem in major competitions. Turkey well of course, I suppose we could have a slight sentiment towards Turkey as Braveheart may conquer! What say he does awesomely and Man Utd slap a 15 million bid for him? You never know, but we hope he does well and returns to Boro.
Group B
1.Austria
2.Croatia
3.Germany
4.Poland
Nice little intriguing group we have here I must say, the word ‘derby’ doesn’t really mean much on a international stage, but it sure does here with Ze Germans, Poles and Austrians all taking each on with what could be feisty. Smashing.
Of course Croatia (booooooooooo), now to be fair you can’t really hate Croatia for what they did, just England are shit, but they could take a little control here, whilst the others are fighting away (not the first time) Croatia might just be able to nick points and secure qualification to the next round.
Group C
1.France
2.Italy
3.Romania
4.Netherlands
I’ll come out and admit it straight away; I have orange blood running through my veins and want the Dutch to conquer, I just hope the Italians can prevail also, which would be belisimmo! As I have had a sly holiday in the beauty of Italy and now have a soft spot. For France well they still slog it out with the old timers hoping to slip into the Final don’t they? No Zidane this time around so who knows how well they do?
Group D
1.Greece
2.Russia
3.Spain
4.Sweden
Of course the lips would automatically say ‘Spain and Sweden’ but I can see Spain certainly, but Greece are holders (Christ I nearly forgot) and Russia are just there as there just a bunch of cheating bastards who won against the Welsh a few years back with a player who was smacked up and this group they decide to play a farce of a plastic pitch in their home group matches. Having picked up all their nice cars bonus from Billionaire Abromovich (glad that twat won Sweet FA with his toy) I hope the Spanish, Swedish and Greek stuff them.
So you have two weeks to go through your family tree and see what roots you have and get your flags (usually about 3 squid from Sports World, we have to give Mr Ashley something this year as the poor bastards getting nout from the kits this year hee hee) and get the beer, sausages and burgers in as we could be in for a stress free summer to enjoy!
Come on Holland (sorry)
MarkA