Groupe A World Ranking 25 Odds to win competition 50/1*

That Turkey made hard work of a less than daunting qualifying group casts some doubt on their chances this summer. The chief concern within a generally unsettled squad probably lies in defense - Fatih Terim has yet to settle on a first choice back four; many remain unconvinced by injury-prone Besiktas center back Gorkhan Zan in particular whilst 21 year old right-back Gokhan Gonul is young and promising but remains relatively untested at international level.

Going forward Turkey look a bit more convincing –established favourites Emre and Nihat have been the key danger men for a few years now and remain central to Turkey’s hopes whilst Middlesborough’s Tuncay has shown glimpses of his undoubted talent this season but took time to adapt to the English game and can be a bit inconsistent.

Overall, I’d say that Turkey’s hopes are accurately reflected in the odds - at 50/1 only Austria are less fancied by the bookies – but don’t discount their chances completely, they’ve got enough aces up their sleeve to spring a few surprises.

* All odds taken from Blue Square Football Betting unless otherwise stated. Odds subject to change.

However much credit you give to the idea of home advantage it’s still difficult to see Switzerland getting very far this summer. Even Swiss manager Jakob Kuhn has admitted that he would consider getting to the quarter finals a success; realistically even that could be a tad ambitious.  Whilst there are some notable talents in the Switzerland squad it’s hard to see much that could conceivably elevate them beyond their perennial role of also-rans.

In a squad that’s largely bereft of genuinely world class players the impressively named Tranquillo Barnetta is perhaps the closest thing to a potential match winner, the 22 year old is quick and skillful and has established himself as a key player for Leverkusen this season. His talents will be crucial if Switzerland are to overcome their recent struggle to score goals; whilst the Swiss can rightly claim that they are a difficult team to beat they might have a difficult time converting solid, defensively well drilled performances into victories.     

* All odds taken from Blue Square Football Betting unless otherwise stated. Odds subject to change.

A glance down their squad list leaves one with little doubt that yet again Portugal will arrive at a major tournament with more talent at their disposal than almost anyone else. A formidable array of established stars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Deco, Simao, Tiago, Carvalho and Quaresma form the backbone of one of the most technically gifted teams at Euro 2008, throw an abundance of youthful talent into the mix and it would be very tempting to tip Portugal for glory in Austria.

Talented though Portugal undeniably are however they also have a tendency to look a bit fragile, an impression reinforced by their somewhat faltering progress through qualifying - draws home and away against Serbia and away at Armenia hardly sounds like the form of potential champions.

It will be interesting to see how successfully Scolari manages to balance a team so replete with attacking options; is it possible to accommodate the likes of Ronaldo, Nani, Quaresma and Deco without sacrificing some degree of defensive security? Whoever ends up filling the holding role (there’s no shortage of options: Costinha, Maniche and relative youngster Miguel Veloso are all likely to be in with a shout) will be a significant presence in an otherwise very attack minded midfield. 

* All odds taken from Blue Square Football Betting unless otherwise stated. Odds subject to change.

Group A World Ranking 6 Odds to win competition 12/1*

As always it’s hard to completely overlook the Czechs as a potential dark horse but they are perhaps less of a force this year given the retirement of Pavel Nedved and Karel Pobosky.  There’s still plenty of strength throughout the slightly aging squad however: the towering Jan Koller remains an intimidating opponent for any defense and whilst Petr Cech’s previously immaculate form may have become slightly more erratic since his return from injury he must still rank as one of the best keepers in the world.

They also go into the Euros on the back of an impressively emphatic qualifying campaign; finishing first in their group ahead of a resurgent Germany (who are being made favourites for the competition) was no mean feat. A triumphant 3-0 victory over their neighbours, albeit after Germany had already qualified, with a number of regulars missing also serves as an indication that the Czech squad has good strength in depth. Emerging talents like Martin Fenin and Daniel Pudil might not be big name players yet but are likely to challenge more established talents for first team places.   

* All odds taken from Blue Square Football Betting unless otherwise stated. Odds subject to change.

It was easy enough at the time, after the initial devastation of course, to get over England’s pitiful failure to qualify for the European Championships. Football fans could always immerse themselves in the day to day dramas of the domestic football season and look for consolation in the fact that at least McClaren was gone – the optimistic silver lining of another national sporting embarrassment came in the sturdy form of a new, reassuringly foreign, manager and the promise of yet another new dawn.

With a final weekend of Premiership football looming and a few cup finals to get through the reality of England’s absence in Austria must be starting to hit home to the nation’s football fans. The prospect of wholeheartedly enjoying any of a this summer’s Euro’s will surely be marred by a lingering bitterness, the thought that we’ve been cruelly denied our biannual installment of guilt free patriotism, long pub-bound summer afternoons staring at big screens in the pub and that otherwise rare sense of being part of something unifying – a collective hope.  

Don’t let England’s absence from the European Championships put you off completely though; there’s still plenty to look forward to. So, in an effort to get you in the mood Cynsim proudly presents our definitive guide to the 2008 European Championships. Over the next week we’ll be posting a brief profile of each of the 16 competing nations complete with betting info courtesy of Blue Square so why not pick a team to cheer on and try to forget all about our brave boys until the next all important friendly.   

Manchester United's 1-0 victory against Roma last night has won a place in the semi-final playing against Barcelona.

With their record-breaking 11th straight home win in the Champion’s League, United cruised through the match largely unchallenged. Leading 2-0 from the first leg, the Red’s survived a scare when Wes Brown brought down Mancini in the penalty box.

Sufficed to say, Ferguson was absolutely livid with the referee’s decision, quoted in the Sun as saying; ‘I thought that was a big decision and a bad decision’. For once in the recent list of managerial quibbles with referee’s decisions there seemed to be an element of truth in his claims; Brown did get the ball and the tackle was not overly aggressive.
However, Ferguson has little to be worried about. Daniele de Rossi fired the 30th-minute penalty sky-high, pretty much ending any hope the Italians had of getting back in the game.

The Italian left-back, Cassetti argues that the match would have been completely different if the penalty had been scored and that the shape of the finals would be drastically altered as well. ‘Of course the game would have changed if the penalty had gone in,’ he remarked after the match had ended. ‘We would have qualified. It's a pity - a real pity.’

It fell to Carlos Tevez to seal the game with a superb diving header in the box that caught the end of perfectly timed cross from the wing making the aggregate of the two legs 3-0 to Ferguson’s team.

All this leaves them with a favourable clash with a weakened Barcelona side, indeed United are now being made heavy favourites for the competition - Blue Square Football betting cuirrently have them at 7/4.  Barcelona captain Puyol was booked during the club's 1-0 home win over Schalke last night and will miss the first leg of the semis against United, and a high-ranking club official has insinuated that Ronaldinho and Deco may be dropped from the team due to their off-field conduct.

Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat to Chelsea on Sunday more or less put the final nail in the coffin in regards to their attempts to be the third different winner of the Premier League in as many years. Though there may be some public defiance from Arsenal, Wenger’s reaction to Drogba’s second goal more or less confirmed that the Champions League is their only remaining hope of silverware this season.

So where has it all gone wrong? Four points out of the last fifteen is simply not good enough for a team in hunt of the Premier League title. Despite defeating AC Milan in the San Siro and becoming the first English team to do so in the process Arsenal’s form has been ropey since their demolition at the hands of United in the F.A Cup in February.

Quite simply, Arsenal’s young talented squad seem to have lost their belief, they will come back stronger for it, but for this season it’s too late. That, in addition to Eduardo’s horrific injury against Birmingham seems to have taken the wind out of the Gunner’s sales.

So how has such a talented squad not been able to turn it around? Arsenal have recently been criticised repeatedly for not being able to put opposition away, they try to walk the ball into the net time and time again, and don’t actually get there. At the start of this season things were different, Adebayor’s aerial ability meant goals that Arsenal didn’t usually score, but they have dried up of late as Adebayor has received ever closer attention from opposition defences.

The most interesting case of Arsenal failing to produce came against Middlesbrough recently. At the final whistle Arsenal had barely snatched a draw through a last minute header, yet they came off the pitch with 85% of the possession for the entire match. For no less than 77 minutes of that match the ball was in Arsenal’s possession and yet they still only managed a draw.

So what went wrong? Repeatedly Middlesbrough found themselves so compressed that their midfield line was set just outside the area, with their defensive line just inside the area. No team in the world is going to play through nine players in just twenty yards of pitch. It took some heroic tackling and some great blocks, but there simply was no way of playing through that mass of bodies.

The problem with Arsenal is almost that the football they play is too good. Their midfielders and full backs are so adept at keeping the ball, at passing at moving in the middle of the pitch that they end up compressing the opposition before them. Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, all go back to their centre backs, resort to playing long balls forward from time to time, and increasingly hit on the counter with pace. Arsenal do not, by keeping the ball in midfield for such long periods the opposition are forced to drop deeper and deeper and, as in the case of the Middlesbrough match, there is no way through.

So is this good football? Well, not really, good football is winning football. When Arsenal are at their best they are sublime, cutting teams apart with intricacy and pace, but they need to strike from deeper or the space they need to play disappears. Technically they are brilliant, probably the best, but a lot of technique is in the mind, and you have to be willing to nip past players and take some fouls to play Arsenal’s type of football and subconsciously at least, I would imagine Arsenal’s players are a lot less willing to do that now than at the start of the season.

Next season Arsenal will be back and stronger, I don’t think that they will win the Champions League, Chelsea loom in the event of Wenger’s men defeating Liverpool, and a final against Barcelona or Manchester United would have Arsenal as second favourites. They do play brilliant football, but they desperately need a ‘plan B’ and the ability to go to it.

England has one of the best traditions for quality goalkeeping of any nation in the world. Banks, Shilton, Clemence, Seamen et al all legitimately claimed to be up there with the very best in the world when they were at their pomp.

Part of England’s dominance, it seems, was a sound technical basis and pure natural ability. Shilton, for example, was criticised for trying to be too perfect technically. As the game has progressed, footballs have changed, and balls are being hit with increasing ferocity and with devastating amounts of curl and dip on them, how come English goalkeepers are no longer placed up there with the very best?

Well we still produce some of the best shot-stoppers around. You would have to go a long way to find a better stopper of shots than David James, yet James will forever carry the ‘calamity’ title, no matter how many outstanding stops he makes. Similarly Carson – horrible error against Croatia aside – and Kirkland – injuries aside – are both excellent stoppers, but none have pushed themselves up into that top rank of quality goalkeeping.

So if our keepers are excellent shot-stoppers, what’s the problem? Well most of the mental aberrations and errors that seem to crop up come from crosses and that is because English keepers are trained from the very beginning to catch crosses. It’s always been a cause for a certain amount of derision that continental keepers punch too much, but rather it seems to be now that English keepers try to catch too much.

A look at probably the best goalkeeper in the world in recent years, Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon, seems to back this up. From his first break through to Parma’s first team he punched successfully, and as his career has gone on he has caught more and more. So it should be, as a keeper gets more talented at marshalling his defence, and moving through a packed box, then so he should be able to judge better what would be the best way of dealing with a cross. Instead, our keepers have a tendency for trying to catch everything, and accordingly, a few drops later, all too often lose the confidence of their managers and their defenders.

For England to start producing World Class goalkeepers they need to go back to basics, and they need to be risked at top-level clubs. For that reason, Foster looks like being the future of England goalkeeping, as he will get the best experience playing for Manchester United, whether he will turn out to nail down the goalkeeping position for the next few years remains to be seen.

Wednesday 19^th March

Man Utd v Bolton

Odds: Man Utd 1/6 Bolton 16/1 Draw 11/2

This may well look like a guaranteed home win; United are looking a solid bet to pip Arsenal and win the Premier League and Bolton’s recent form has been far from inspiring. I’ve got a sneaking hunch that this one won’t be quite as straightforward as Man Utd would like however. Bolton are desperate for points to help wrestle themselves out of the relegation places and will look to play the rugged brand of football that always made them such a tough proposition for the big boys. As we’ve seen a few times this season United’s unquestionable technical superiority can be frustrated by a combination of dogged, physical defending and good luck. I’d be tempted to take a punt on a draw.

Prediction: 1-1

Tottenham v Chelsea

Odds: Tottenham 5/2 Chelsea 21/20 Draw 11/5

A game that doesn’t really inspire a huge amount of excitement despite the side’s mutual loathing. Chelsea look secure in third (although interestingly a win tonight would put them level on points with Arsenal) and Spurs seemingly have nothing left to play for this season.

In fact this has the potential to be a bit of a thriller; Spurs may have nothing anything as tangible as a trophy or European place to target for the rest of the season but with talk of a big shake up over the summer players will be keen to impress Ramos and arrest their post cup win slump. This is also the sort of derby that will always fire passions and I reckon both teams will be going all out for a win.   

Prediction: 2-2 

All odds taken from Blue Square Sports Betting unless otherwise stated. Odds subject to change.

Saturday  14^th March

Arsenal v Middlesbrough

Odds: Arsenal 1/4 Middlesbrough 10/1 Draw 4/1

Despite Arsenal’s stumbling recent form this should really be a home banker; Middlesbrough have shown sporadic signs of progress under Gareth Southgate but, as their defeat to Cardiff in the cup demonstrated, they’ve still got some way to go. I reckon we’ll see a tight first half but the Gunners should ultimately run away with a comfortable win.

Prediction: 3-0   

Derby County v Man Utd

Odds: Derby 14/1 Man Utd 1/6 Draw 5/1

Much as it would be nice to imagine that Derby could pull off a shock in front of their long-suffering home fans I’m afraid it’s almost completely inconceivable. Fergie’s nostrils are by now filled with familiar whiff of Premier League victory and I really can’t see United faltering in such a winnable fixture. The red faced Scotsman will demand a ruthless performance from his team and Derby will do well to keep the score from becoming embarrassing.

Prediction: 0-5

Liverpool v Reading

Odds: Liverpool 1/4 Reading 10/1 Draw 4/1

Another one that looks like a no-brainer – Liverpool have struck a rich vein of Torres inspired form recently and, inspired by what looks likely to be a fierce battle with Everton for that coveted 4th place, should see off plucky Reading.

Prediction: 3-1

Portsmouth v Aston Villa

Odds: Portsmouth 5/4 Aston Villa 15/8 Draw 11/5

A tricky one. Both of these teams have made impressive progress this season and this could potentially be a significant match in the fight for a place in next year’s UEFA cup. Villa and Pompey are both strong, pacey young teams and for me this game has draw written all over it.

Prediction: 1-1

Sunderland v Chelsea

Odds: Sunderland 5/1 Chelsea 1/2 Draw 11/4

Hmm, I reckon Chelsea could find this a tough one. As emphatic as their demolition of Derby was in the week Sunderland should provide a much sterner test. I reckon Sunderland at home are capable of frustrating Chelsea and, who knows, could even nick a goal. I’ll stick my neck out and say 1-0 to the Black Cats.

Prediction: 1-0

West Ham v Blackburn

Odds: West Ham 7/5 Blackburn 11/5 Draw 7/4

Could this possibly be another 4-0 defeat for Curbishley’s free falling Hammers? Much as that would undoubtedly be amusing (sorry, Schadenfreude is a terribly undignified emotion) I can’t see it happening again this weekend. I anticipate this being a competitively fought game but can see West Ham snatching it.

Prediction: 2-1

Unless otherwise stated all Football betting odds are available from Blue Square.  All odds are subject to change.