Saturday, June 07, 2008

Gambolling in the fields

An extra early-afternoon pre-kickoff blog today. In a probably vain attempt to make the England-free European Championship in some way interesting to me, and since I haven't had a bet on a football game since leaving Adams six years ago, and since gambling is the last refuge of the unemployed layabout, I've decided to have a flutter on the first three days of games. My picks are as follows:

Switzerland - Czech Republic draw (all sane logic suggests that the Czechs should win this one without any trouble, but it's the first game, the home fans will be excitable and it'll probably be an anticlimactic 0-0)

Portugal to beat Turkey (they could win this one with their eyes closed, barring any kind of injury to Ronaldo)

Croatia to beat Austria (Austria are hopeless and should lose every game without too much difficulty)

Germany to beat Poland (Poland aren't that bad, actually, but Germany should overwhelm them in the end. I'm thinking a late goal just when the Germans are starting to panic)

Romania to beat France (France have an amazing ability to mess up games like this, and I'm confident they can do it again)

Holland - Italy draw (another game that'll have lots of hype and very little action)

So now you can all follow along and see how wildly inaccurate my predictions are, as a substitute for getting excited about England's failure to win the championship. Yay!

Also, my tip to win - Greece. Nobody thought they had a chance four years ago, and strangely enough, nobody thinks they've got a chance this time either, although they're playing really well, they've still got the same great manager and a lot of the same great team, and they're looking like they could go far.

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