Quote:
Originally Posted by Savorgnan
That will be a tough for the Azzurri, they have to overcome a "deadly" group with France, Romania, and the Netherlands. And after that, more big teams... Germany and Portugal, on the other hand, have a much less difficult draw, and if things don't go wrong for them, they will meet in the first semi-final. The winner will be in the final, with not too much energy spent in the former stages.
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If you want to win it, you must be able to beat any team. But you're right, in such short tournament it's also important how much energy you can save.
However, I don't think Italy has much harder group than Germany or Portugal. There are two good teams in group C and that's Italy and France. Netherlands are overrated due to their football tradition, but curently they don't have a team that can match Italy or France, if they would be playing the same as on the last 2 tournaments, they're surely out. Romania is outsider, but they can get some points from the "big ones".
In group B, Germany has a difficult situation, as Poland and Austria would be highly motivated against them, they would beat Austria probably (which is IMHO the worst team on Euro) but can have a lot of problems with Poland, not to mention Crots, who have a great team this year, which is, in terms of quality, close to their
generetion of '98. Anyway even if they were in an easiest possible group, I wouldn't count on Germany, they have an overrated team.
Portugal in A has Turkey, Switzerland and Czech Republic, which are all good teams, they will probably be first, but would have to put a lot of effort.
I think Spain can be champion also, considering their first team, but they are usualy in bad form on big tournaments.
We can probably expect repeat of final from WC: Italy vs. France (
Europe vs. Africa 
).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marulus
Now seriously: Croatia of course!
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I like how Croatian team is playing now, they have a young and talented team, I expect them to reacher quarter finals, maybe they can even go as far as semi-final, who knows.