Loving the Euros

After the group stages of the competition I’m loving the Euros. Why? Well with only 2 teams knocked out after their first 2 matches it went down to the wire with even hot favourites Spain and Germany in danger of being knocked until the final minutes of their 3rd match.

There were no easy matches, no dead rubbers, no 0-0 bore draws and no whipping boys. All the teams scored (though in Ireland’s case only once early on in their first game they then went 251 minutes without finding the net).

After 24 matches we’ve had 60 goals, so that’s 2.5 goals a game, not bad when lots of the early matches had total goals quoted at under the 2 mark.

I’m not talking through my pocket as the teams I’ve backed have had mixed success:

I backed Holland at 7/1 and they went Eurovision with null points.
I backed France at 11/1 who, having got through the group, are a bigger price.
Lastly I backed Portugal at 20/1 who having got through the group of death are a lot shorter.

It feels like England have a real chance (yes even without Crouch) though no Englishman has scored more than one goal yet. Luck also seems to be on our side with the Ukrainian no goal although short-sighted me is not sure the “whole of the ball was over the whole of the line”.

Let’s hope that now we are down to the business end of the show with only 7 matches left (no ridiculous 3rd place play-off here) the excitement continues. Penalty shootouts, late winners, Gerrard lifting aloft the trophy ending 46 years of hurt in the Jubilee year – it’s gonna be wagontastic.