Kevin's Watch

The best place for discussion of this summer tournament. News, fixters, results, squads and who you think will win or perform well all here. This summer will not feature any of the British Home nations or Ireland. England knocked out and both Scotland and N Ireland both very lucky not to qualify(Scotland deserved to qualify but typical cheating Italians always get their way... look out World cup).

Tournament will be co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland from 7 June to 29 June.
Will be played in many cities and stadiums including;
Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna
St Jakob Stadium in Basel
Hypo-Arena in Klagenfurt
Stade De Suisse Wankdorf(that can't be right?!?) in Berne
Stadion Wals-Siezenheim in Salzburg
Stade de Geneve in Geneve
Tivoli-Neu Stadion in Innsbruck

Letzigrund Stadion in Zurich.
Greece are the current holders of the trophy, winning it in 2004.

There are 16 teams which are; Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Holland, Croatia, Italy, Czech Republic, Sweden, Romania, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Poland, France, Turkey and Russia.
Group A
Switzerland
Czech Republic
Portugal
Turkey

Group B
Austria
Croatia
Germany
Poland

Group C
Holland
Italy
Romania
France

Group D
Greece
Sweden
Spain
Russia

So, who will win?

GOOOooo ... ooo .... ?

dang, who am I going to root for?....

Group C is the obligatory "Group of Death" which appears at every tournament in the world

Tough predicting the outcome of that group, far less the whole tournament.

I think Spain are going to win with Torres, Fabregas and Villa being the key men. Plus other players like Alonso, Xavi, Ramos, Iniesta and Puyol.

France will do well with Ribery, Benzema, Malouda and Anelka being main treats and good defenders such as Gallas and Evra. Old but effective Makelele will make a difference but Toulalan and Diarra are looking good. Nasri, I hope, will do well.

Don't think Italy will do as well but have strong players like Del Piero, Toni, Pirlo, Buffon, Gattuso and Cannavaro.

and Germany may have an alright competition provided players like Klose, Frings, Ballack are on show. It will good to see how their up and coming stars like Mertesacker, Lahm and especially high scoring Gomez play.

Holland have a good squad with players such as Huntalaar, van Persie, van der Vaart and Babel but I don't think they have enough in them. Van Nistelrooy, Kuyt and Robben are other attacking options.

Portugal and especially C Ronaldo will be ones to watch but Portugal are not a one man team with other good players like Carvalho, Pepe, Bosingwa, Deco, Nani and Quaresma. Young players like Moutinho, Veloso

My true outsider to win would be Croatia who have an interesting squad but play together. Corluka, Klasnic plus star men Kranjar and Modric.

Czech Republic have an alright squad with world's best keeper Cech and other interesting players such as Ujfalusi and Kollar but missing capitan Rosicky. Switzerland have no one really special but some players to watch are Fernandes, Barnetta and Behrami. Turkey have a pretty avergae sqaud but play well and have alright players like Attintop and Tuncay.

Sweden only ahve one real threat... Ibrahimovic though a mister Larsson is in the squad. Romania have Mutu and Chivu.

Portugal look to be in a fairly easy group to get them off to a good start.

Iwill be shouting for Spain as I have a few spanish friends but if I was to put money down I would go for Portugal. It should be agood tournament down to the pub for the spanish games seeing as there is no home nations to cheerr on

Well I'm in Oz so the games will be on at some godawful time in the middle of the night!

Starts this Saturday. All the teams have been training. Cannavaro is out of the Italian squad while Babel is out of Holland squad. Vieria might be out of the French sqaud. All similar injuries, ankle ligaments.

I dont think Italy will miss Cannavaro much as I dont think he is that great, Whats the first match to be played

Switzerland V Czech Republic is first game up followed by Portugal V Turkey

i think you have to give the edge to Protugal and Germany.

First two games have been played.
Czech Republic beat Switzerland 1-0 and Portugal beat Turkey 2-0.

The games tonight are:
Austria v Croatia(Team I want to win)
Germany v Poland

Portugal were impressive last night even against a poor turkish side. A big match tomorrow with Italy taking on Holland should be a cracker. And a big grudge match betweeen Germany and Poland today I just seen trouble among their fans in the streets it will be a tense one.

I'm supporting Croatia too.

Anyone else have a flutter? Because there's no home teams to support I'm putting £2 on selected matches to crank up the excitement.

Thanks to Austria, I'm £3.60 up so far . Short odds on Croatia and Germany tonight, but I can't see either losing. (famous last words?)

Results:

Group 2
Croatia 1 - 0 Austria
Germany 2 - 0 Poland

Group 3
France 0 - 0 Romania
Holland 3 - 0 Italy

Nice to see te cheating Italians lose

Queeaqueg wrote:Results:


Germany 2 - 0 Poland

Why... :/

Queeaqueg wrote:
Results:


Germany 2 - 0 Poland


Why... :/

There are lots of technical reason for why that happened but the most basic reason is that Germany got the ball in the back of the goal twice more than Poland. Podolski got ball twice into the goal.

Spain 4 - 1 Russia - Villa hattrick and Fabregas.

There are lots of technical reason for why that happened but the most basic reason is that Germany got the ball in the back of the goal twice more than Poland. Podolski got ball twice into the goal.

You could argue however, that seeing as it was Podolski, both goals should have counted for Poland!

Podolski is polish but had a German father. Perrota grew up in England but is Italian(stayed another 5 years).
Technically it wouldn't be 2 goals for Poland, it would be own goals

Sweden 2 - 0 Greece - Ibrahimovic had a sweet strike. What the hell was George Clooney doing in goal for Greece?

What the hell was George Clooney doing in goal for Greece?

I had the same thought. Poor guy looked like he was about to burst into tears after that second goal.

Further to the Podolski comments - how could he not play for Poland I wonder? ASAIK if I was international class in football, I'd be eligible to play for Republic of Ireland, England, or Germany. (Does where you live for a long time make you eligible too? If so, also Northern ireland) England and Germany are much better teams, but I can't imagine how i would ever play for them - I'm Irish! Bizarre situation, but I suppose I don't know all the details.