***Official*** Road to Euro 2012

[Magrat Garlick]

England < Costa Rica. The Costaricans are currently 2-0 up on Spain...

 

[cpr]

Christ. I think England's keeping jerseys are designed to make the opposition forwards feel nauseous or some such by the looks of it.

Well we've got to do something to put them off if we keep letting Carson go in net.

 

[Scaly piscine]

So the most exciting bit (from an England perspective) happens at 5pm GMT - the draw.

We need one mediocre Scandinavian team to draw against first up, or lose to in the final group game.
A big name who are currently crap, to heroically defeat 1-0.
And one other team to struggle against.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Half an hour to go... I love a good cup draw.

 

[The Sean]

Anything that involves Marco Van Basten is an automatic win in my books.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Irish in with Spain. Group A has Poland and Czech Republic - everyone hoping for that one.

And now Greece in Group A. It just got easier.

 

[The Sean]

Group B looking a nightmare.

 

[Scaly piscine]

****ing knew it, Group A the 4 weakest teams arguably in all 4 pots.

 

[The Sean]

Ha ha what a contrast in quality between Groups A and B.

 

[The Sean]

So England get Group D with Ukraine, Sweden and France.

Ireland with a **** of a draw.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Group A: Poland, Greece, Russia, Czech Republic.
Group B: Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Portugal.
Group C: Spain, Italy, Republic of Ireland, Croatia.
Group D: Ukraine, Sweden, France, England.

Then A plays B and C plays D in the quarters. With top of group A/2nd B v top of Group C/2nd D for the semi.

 

[Uppercut]

Nasty draw for the Republic, hopefully we'll raise our game against big-name opposition as we've tended to in the past. Spain is obviously a nightmare but the positive is that the well-known counter-strategy to tika-taka is pretty much the system we play all the time anyway. We have a pretty good record against Italy and it'll be great craic for Trapattoni, Croatia have been really inconsistent for the past few years so hopefully the team that shows up for the tournament will be crap enough to lose to us.

I know it's all clutching at straws really. I should be disappointed with that draw but really I'm just pants-wettingly excited about getting to see Ireland take on Spain, Italy and Croatia at the Euros.

 

[Furball]

Group A: Poland, Greece, Russia, Czech Republic.
Group B: Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Portugal.
Group C: Spain, Italy, Republic of Ireland, Croatia.
Group D: Ukraine, Sweden, France, England.

Then A plays B and C plays D in the quarters. With top of group A/2nd B v top of Group C/2nd D for the semi.

So, assuming all pot 1 teams win their group and pot 2 teams finish 2nd, the draw is:

Poland v Germany
Netherlands v Russia
Spain v England
Italy v Ukraine

with the semis being

Poland/Germany v Spain/England
Netherlands/Russia v Italy/Ukraine?

 

[Furball]

Group A really is ****. Group B is ****ing awesome though, my 3 teams for the tournament are all lined up in it.

Euros is such a gun tournament, it's so much better than the ****e FIFA put on every 4 years.

 

[sledger]

Will be hilarious if Greece somehow win the thing by stinking the joint out in the same fashion they did eight years ago. I hope they don't, but it would be amusing if they generate some casualties along the way to going out, the amount of lolz generated last time round was hilarious.

 

[cpr]

So if we can do a number of the French, then thats a group we should be winning. With a tasty Quarter to follow (Spain/Italy for a battle of the big guns, or Ireland for a right royal battle).

Can we just avoid Germany in the semi's please? Or the final infact, someone needs to beat them for us - They are my tip for the title

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

That's a unique tip that one.

 

[cpr]

It is in England. Think what I'd done counts as treason in the eyes of the press.


Could tip Croatia instead, but come summer I'd probably end up looking like a dumb **** (was trying to pick the weakest side to say then... Poland/Ukraine home advantage, Greece 04 winners, Czech 96 final, Denmark 92 winners --- Possibly not a bad tip giving that sort of previous...)

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

I'm fairly sure all the pundits on both the Guardian Football Weekly and the The Game (The Times) picked either Germany or Spain (most picked Germany), but fair enough.

 

[Eds]

So the most exciting bit (from an England perspective) happens at 5pm GMT - the draw.

We need one mediocre Scandinavian team to draw against first up, or lose to in the final group game.
A big name who are currently crap, to heroically defeat 1-0.
And one other team to struggle against.

This is exactly what happened.