Currently Frace and Holland in the same group...

Wow...add Italia to that group mmmmmm
Group of DEATH.

In full:

Group A: Switzerland, Turkey, Portugal, Czech Republic

Group B: Austria, Poland, Germany, Croatia

Group C: Holland, France, Romania, Italy - CAN'T CALL THIS GROUP

Group D: Greece, Russia, Spain, Sweden

Euro 2008 Full Fixtures

Think I'll stick a few bob on Portugal to win it all, although after 2004 anything could happen.

I hearded hagi is good player for roomani

That's a nasty group. I switched over just to see the moments before Italy were drawn and seeing the rest of the group I just knew they were coming out of that pot!

I so hope we embarrass France and knock them out in the final game, having already qualified!.........might be unlikely but we can all dream

Jimmilson wrote:

That's a nasty group. I switched over just to see the moments before Italy were drawn and seeing the rest of the group I just knew they were coming out of that pot!

I was praying, "Please be Sweden!", but no, group of death.  Just our luck!

Jimmilson wrote:

I so hope we embarrass France and knock them out in the final game, having already qualified!.........might be unlikely but we can all dream

Exactly we can all dream.  Let's hope it comes true though!

Domenech's reaction to France being drawn against Holland was hilarious.He was quite clearly bricking it. I wish they cut to him when Italy came out the hat.

ForzaFiori wrote:

Domenech's reaction to France being drawn against Holland was hilarious.He was quite clearly bricking it. I wish they cut to him when Italy came out the hat.

And yet Holland have been fairly rubbish in qualifying.

oooh, bitching!

zeds wrote:

ForzaFiori wrote: Domenech's reaction to France being drawn against Holland was hilarious.He was quite clearly bricking it. I wish they cut to him when Italy came out the hat. And yet Holland have been fairly rubbish in qualifying.

True, I think they lost to Romania, Bulgaria and Belarus. Romania qualified quite a bit before them too.

Should be interesting to see how the Germans do against their neighbours Poland and Austria. Hopefully there won't be a deliberate 0-0 draw between Germany and Austria. They've done that before.

Oooh no they haven't....

You're presumably thinking of West Germany's 1-0 win over Austria in 1982, which denied Algeria a place in the last 12.  Both teams' tactics (i.e. a non-game after the first goal) were eminently reasonable because neither side had anything to gain and everything to lose by risking losing a goal once Germany had scored.  The problem lay not with the teams but with the format of the competition and the fact that Algeria had already played their final game.  Given the corruption of the 1978 World Cup, when Peru knew exactly how many goals to let in to let Argentina reach the final, it was appalling of FIFA not to have altered the timings of the last group games in time for the 1982 World Cup.

You're right George ,I stand corrected it was 1-0.Doh!
Although I don't know about how reasonable it was for Austria to accept losing to that score seeing as they could have knocked the  West Germans out.

They could have knocked out West Germany yes, but equally, if they'd lost by 3 or 4 goals they'd have been knocked out themselves.  So their strategy, quite reasonably, was to keep the ball and to prevent Germany from scoring.  Likewise, West Germany wanted the score to stay 1-0, so they keep the ball too.  It didn't require collusion, just an obvious acceptance all round that 1-0 suited both teams to a tee.  

This sort of situation has happened lots of times, just not quite over 80 minutes play!

Why did germany want it to stay at 1-0?
Why would 2-0 not have suited them just as well?
As professional footballers this sort of behaviour is not acceptable

Well maybe we can track them down and make them pay.

They were happy to stay at 1-0 because that result achieved their goal of qualifying.  Winning 2-0 or even 41-0 would not have achieved anything more than this.  And as the Germans will have remembered from 1941, unprovoked aggression is often met with counter-aggression.  The German national team simply proved, as Bismarck had in an earlier World Cup, the importance of attacking Austria at exactly the right time and then maintaining peaceful co-existence.

Anybody else feel that Croatia could go all the way in this competition or are they heading home early?

I have a sneaky feeling that they could cause a few upsets, starting with Germany!
_________________
I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.

I actually think Spain could make the Final.  I know, I know, they usually underachieve gig time, but they have to come due at least once.

Hopefully, Italy will win it, but they have a spotty Euro record

Yes, Spain could make the final.  Or the semis, the quarters or none of the above.   Just like the other 15 teams in the tournament in fact.  

Maybe you could let the world know what you think the probability of them reaching the final is.  If it's greater than the bookies think (and are offering) we'll all rush out and put our life savings on it.