The European soccer championships are right around the corner, with the first games being played on Friday this week. This is a tournament that happens every four years and is probably the second most popular and second most watched soccer tournament in the world after the World Cup. Like the World Cup, it is always very difficult to predict the winner. There have been six different finalists in the past three tournaments - France and Italy in 2002, Greece and Portugal in 2004 and Spain and Germany were finalists in 2008 with Spain going on to win. We happened to be in Germany on vacation during the summer of 2008 when Spain and Germany played in the final. It was an interesting experience to be in a small town in southern Bavaria being around all of the hype and celebrations leading up to the final game (too bad Germany didn't win though - not only was I cheering for them but it would have been more interesting to see the post-game celebration and party atmosphere around the country).
So with the start of the tournament imminent, and going along with our tradition from the past world cup of making predictions, who are everyone's picks as finalists?
Check out this link for the list of teams and pools participating in the tournament.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/european-championship/2012/groups-schedule
The top two teams from each group advance to the quarter final or knockout stage of the tournament.
I think that we should have a wee prize for whoever picks two teams that make it the furthest in the tournament (speaking of which I'm hoping that Beej, the winner of the World Cup pool actually did get his prize in the end :) )
11 comments:
I'm in provided its only a "wee" prize. Don't want anything bigger than that.
This was a lot of fun when we did this before so I'm in... John left today for a three week trip to Spain/Morocco so I don't know if he got his wee prize...
So for people who are in the running. but are tournament neophytes like myself...
Do we choose one team from groups A/B and one from Groups C/D?
Obviously I'll have to do some research into this, but I'm excited to see the results!
Alright then let's get people's picks - you can choose any two teams at all from any one of the group's. You can either email or post on here but they need to come soon as the tournament officially started today.
So with a little help from my advisor (aka Uncle John)
my two picks are Germany and Italy
I'll pick Germany and France.
I'm picking Germany and Spain
Since my picks have already been taken (Germany and Spain), I'll be a bit contrary and take Spain and England.
Denmark and Croatia
i'll go with France and Croatia
Croatia and Germany
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