Euro 2008 (pre tournament thoughts)

Well, the English season came to an end a couple of weeks ago, but we're just a week away from seeing the start of Euro 2008.

I am really looking forward to it, even more so because England won't be taking part. I'm sure the media in each participating country are as one sighted as the English, but it does get a bit much with all the unnecessary talk and highlights.

I'm sure we'll have the 'If England were playing...' mentioned again and again, but I don't care. The commentary and support will be far less biased and the pre and post match talk will be focused rather than interrupted with what high-heels David Beckham bought himself on a rare excursion from the team hotel.

I'm personally supporting Italy and Spain. I've always been a huge Italy fan and was pleased as punch to see Zidane sent off and then the mighty Azzuri go on to win, but that fact that Liverpool have so many players in the Spain squad has made it a little harder for me to ignore them.

Before looking at the groups, I boldly predicted that we'd see Italy, Spain, Holland and France in the semi finals, but three of them are in the same group!

I can see the Czech Republic, and possibly Germany, having a strong tournament, but I full expect three of my original predictions to make it to the semi-finals!

I've had a look through the kick off times and I don't expect to miss too much football with just a small handful of games starting at 17:00, the rest will thankfully kick-off after I am home from work, something that cannot be said about the 2002 world cup. Not only did exams get in the way, the starting times for matches were somewhere well beyond belief!

Oh, and I am most definitely not looking forward to the stuff that passes for commentary these days.