blueday3 Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 Just curious who everyone thinks will be the top teams of the euros this summer. Personally I think France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal will be the top 4 Germany and France the top 2 and Germany the winners of it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkw Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 iver got a funny feeling the big teams are gonna struggle. spain are looking good, but they always do then fail miserably (sound like any other country?). italy and germany will always drag themselves through the group stage. portugal could go either way. as with manyoo, it depends on how rolando plays, and more pertinently how the opposition defences let rolando play. croatia are my dark horses, and its between them and czechs who i will have an affinity with. maybe the shedend faithful should adopt a team for it, giving us at least a bit of interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maksimov Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 I'm a fan of football, so I will be very interested in watching the Euros as always. Ofcourse I'd have a totally different kind of interest in the matter had Finland qualified for the tournament, though. But as that has never happened before I've always watched the World Cups and Eurosas as a neutral, but along the way I've grown sympathetic towards certain countries. I wouldn't call myself a fan, because there is only one national team for me, but there are teams which style of play I like and who I like to see do well. For example, the Danes and the Czechs have usually played good football, although they haven't always been succsesful. Someof the teams from the Balkans have played some good football. It will be interesting to see how the Czechs will do this year as some of their biggest stars from the previous tournaments have either retired from internationalfootball or are getting on a bit. I'm sure they will do well enough to qualify from their group, but probably won't do anywhere as well as they did the last time around. Depends on how well the team manages to gel, the Portuguese might well be winners this year. Their qualifying campaign probably wasn't as smooth as they'd like it to have been, so it remains to be seen if they can live up to the expectations. I mean, on paper they've got to be counted as one of the strongest favourites. Croatia could well go far if they can find someone to properly replace Eduardo. They're well organised, but if the goals don't come, they're obviously gonna struggle. Germany has to be one of the favourites...as always, but I don't think they've got what it takes to go all the way. I expect them to be knocked out before the final, maybe even in the quarter finals. They should have a good travelling support, though, so that might inspire them. For some reason I think the Dutch are finally gonna do really well this year. I base this on absolutely nothing but a gut feeling. On paper they look really strong and if they can work together as a team, who knows...they might well find themselves progressing all the way to the final. Italy's a bit like the Czechs...their biggest stars from previous tournaments either aren't there anymore or have already peaked some years ago. I know people don't rate Totti much around here, but I think they'd be a stronger team with him. Should do well enough to qualify from their group, but they probably don't have what it takes to go all the way. France didn't impress me very much during their qualifying campaign and I think they're gonna struggle. They might well become the first BIG team to be knocked out...even before the knock out stages. Group D is gonna be interesting. Spain is always a mystery and probably will under perform again. They will probably qualify from their group, but I have a feeling won't be anywhere near the final. I think the Swedes will be the other team to qualify from that group. It remains to be seen how Larsson will do now that he's been away from the brightest lights of European football for a while. Although, he did bang quite a few goals in UEFA Cup. Just my gut feeling, but I think we're gonna see Portugal and the Dutch in the final and France will be the big bottlers of the tournament. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youlots Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 Krauts & Czechs as well based on their football over the last year or so. Hope they both continue to play like that. Would love to see the tank or PC lift that trophy as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valim Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 My favorite is international is francee second Portugal hope one of win Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueday3 Posted May 14, 2008 Author Share Posted May 14, 2008 maybe the shedend faithful should adopt a team for it, giving us at least a bit of interest. Sounds like a great idea, but who? Netherlands perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 Yeah I've always supported the Dutch after England, mainly because they are perennial underachievers, even more so than England, so some common ground there, and also because I love the orange kit. They also typically have a lot of flair players in their side, which makes for entertaining, if not always successful, matches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valerie Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 Sniff, I'm so proud! I don't hold out a lot of hope for the Dutch team. Van Basten has used about 3 million players in the qualifying matches, and apparently still hasn't found the ideal starting 11 and system. The players always manage to fall out amongst themselves, and tend to play very selfishly (Robben, Van Persie). They will probably survive the group stage, but win the title? I'd be very surprised. Still, no reason for the Shed End not to adopt the Netherlands as their team Besides, Cech already did! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maksimov Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 The players always manage to fall out amongst themselves, and tend to play very selfishly... The very reason why I often find it hard to have sympathy for the Oranje. So much skill and so much egotripping. I still think if they could somehow find a way to work as a team, they could go all the way to the final. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMickC.F.C. Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 Going for the Czech Republic. No guesses why. Good outside bet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rahul Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 France! Being a non-European, I've always been behind Les Bleus. Blue is the Colour!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gem Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 The Czechs for Cech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT26CFC Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 Germany. they have an easy group stage and hopefully lamehands isn't the goalkeeper, but he probally will be. The dutch or the Spanish would be my second coice. (and i won't pick prtougal just because of ronaldo) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g3.7 Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 you can get good odds on columbia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coco Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 Still, no reason for the Shed End not to adopt the Netherlands as their team < I've been tangoed especially for the occasion Val. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loz Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 Just to let folk know we plan on running some sort of Euro 2008 prediction / fantasy football game. We haven't actually managed to work out what we are going to do yet so this message is basically committing me to getting off my rear end and sorting it out!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coco Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 McDonald's Fantasy Football is back! With UEFA EURO 2008™ looming, Europe's top coaches are picking their players and tailoring their tactics and you can warm up for EURO too with McDonald's Fantasy Football. Pick your players for the forthcoming friendly matches and you could win tickets for a fixture at the finals in Austria and Switzerland. http://en.fantasy.euro2008.uefa.com/ Or did you want to keep it on the forum ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loz Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 Thinking of doing something in house rather than linking to an off site game. The forums tend to take a bit of a downward trend in the close season and international tournaments have a bit of a tendency to cause some friction so we were thinking of trying to run something to drum up a little interest (especially as none of the UK nations are in Euro 2008) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loz Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 p.s. cheers for the link though - it may actually come in handy once I work out what to run Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PraetorianGuard Posted May 22, 2008 Share Posted May 22, 2008 I think Russia could be dark horses too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coco Posted May 23, 2008 Share Posted May 23, 2008 Thinking of doing something in house rather than linking to an off site game.The forums tend to take a bit of a downward trend in the close season and international tournaments have a bit of a tendency to cause some friction so we were thinking of trying to run something to drum up a little interest (especially as none of the UK nations are in Euro 2008) Got anything sorted for this yet, need a footy fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loz Posted May 23, 2008 Share Posted May 23, 2008 hmm actually no - could be a problem - leaving for holiday Sunday and not back till after it starts anyone want to volunteer something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mod Posted May 23, 2008 Share Posted May 23, 2008 Yes volunteer coco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkw Posted May 23, 2008 Share Posted May 23, 2008 i can do it. ill be doing one at work anyway, so i can run a similar one for the forum. i use the suns prices and points system, and build it on excel. i can send you a copy of the one weve just finished from this season for you to ok if you like loz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coco Posted May 23, 2008 Share Posted May 23, 2008 Yes volunteer coco Can we set something up off site at that link, but have a sticky thread here with all the rules and such, let the other site do the donkey work, but all braggin, chatting to be done in the said thread ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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