Euro 2012 is only a week away. Considering the economic & political upheaval in Europe, this tournament & the London 2012 Olympics are necessary distractions for those millions of people affected by the financial crisis in Europe.
Most teams are fine tuning their tactics in friendlies at the moment in anticipation of the opening match On Saturday 9th June.
It is generally acknowledged that the European Championships are the most competitive & difficult football tournament in the World. In fact outside Brazil & Argentina, the tournament usually features the best footballing nations in the world. For example, six of the seven teams reaching the final four of the last two World Cups feature in Euro 2012 (the 7th being Uruguay with Germany featuring in both semi finals). sadly however, the next European Championships in France in 2016 will be extended to 24 teams. This is a purely commercial decision & will undoubtedly reduce the quality of the event as a whole.
In my view, and most other commentators & fans, Spain, the defending European & World Cup winners are again the clear favourites this year. With the exception of the absence of the injured David Villa & the influential Barcelona Captain Puyol, Spain have a near full strength team based on the stars of Barcelona & Real Madrid & supplemented by the talents from Atletico Madrid, Valencia & Athletic Bilbao. If Fernando Torres continues to improve his form as he has during May, Spain may very well will the title again. However, if Torres misfires as he has for most of the past two years, then, in the absence of the free scoring David Villa, Spain will struggle.
After Spain, the young, attacking & skillful Germany & the ever scoring Holland are the other favourites with the 19 game undefeated France as an outside chance. Two major issues for favourites Germany are:
a) Poor recent form of their only two out & out strikers Gomez & Klose
b) Whether the shattering psychological impact of Bayern's loss to Chelsea has a lasting effect in the minds of the 8 Bayern players in the squad, considering that as many as all 8 are potential starters in any of the three group stage matches.
I believe England, without the injured Lampard & the suspended Rooney (for the first two group matches) & their newly assigned coach will once again disappoint whilst Italy are still in transition & the latest corruption allegations will not help them. Both Italy & England will have problems scoring goals
And the likes of Portugal, Croatia, Russia will be the usual difficult opponents for the so called favourites whilst out of the two co-hosts Poland have more potential to reach the quarter or semi finals.
My predictions for the quarter finals, not in any particular order:
Group A: Russia & Poland
Group B: Germany & Holland
Group C: Spain & Croatia
Group D: France & Sweden (or Ukraine with home support)
2 comments:
Europe needs the distraction of the football right now and no country more than Spain......believe Spain will break all the records 'no country has defended their Euro title' and ' no country has won three major titles in a row'.
Expect contributions from their English contingent...Silva, Mata and Torres.
dark horse has to be France good form and some incredible talent in Benzema, Malouda, Ribery, Cabaye and Nasri...more English flavor....what England would give for a few of these to be wearing the english lion.
thanks for teh correction too Haydo! I am just warming up after a period of relative inactivity.......
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