2012 Euro's, who's your money on?

So yet another exciting international tournament is upon us with the prospect of another English disappointment as the competition is at tremendously fierce height. Although we have a lot of fresh and encouraging young talent in contention for a place in the starting XI, I fear their inexperience at international level may serve as a hindrance when faced with the more adept European teams such as Germany or Spain, regardless of our most recent and hard earned one nil victory over the world cup champions, these I fear are not the least of our worries.

Regarding the two most obvious, previously stated, Spain having won the 2010 world cup have also  come through the qualifiers conceding merely 6 goals and without losing a match, they are in no doubt definite contenders for the European title. They have a fantastically strong and versatile team, the pass masters of Europe Xavi and his Barcelona partner Iniesta are an unstoppable duo in central midfield, creating chances that other players might have deemed impossible, unfortunately for the rest of the world they’re not the only two creative maestros at Spain’s disposal with David Silva and Cesc Fabregas the at the front of an extremely long cue of replacements. Their inform free kick and strike expert David Villa could quite possibly be out of the spot light after suffering a broken leg during Barcelona’s European club world cup domination, hopefully Fernando Torres can find his free scoring feet again in time! Altogether a very hard team to beat but Germany I feel are the strongest contenders to do so.

Also having come through the qualifiers without losing a match, Germany has been a team with significant improvement visible in all aspects over the past few years. With many of their players hailing from the same club side it’s no surprise that they seem to understand one and other very well with an extreme ambition to win. A very exciting young player to watch from their side is one Mesut Ozil, now plying his trade at Spain’s Real Madrid he’s obviously come a long way in his game since his very impressive explosion onto the international scene during the world cup, It’s my hope we shall get to see an even more exciting and even younger talent in the form of Mario Götze, put these two in midfield together and they will be causing problems non-stop, all over the shop.

Having reached the final at the last world cup the Netherlands unsurprisingly it seems have been in flying form during the qualifiers, having lost just one game by one goal, racked up some incredible results including a sixteen nil win on aggregate, over the significantly less skilled side of San Marino. They’re top scorer being Klaas-Jan Huntelaar with an impressive twelve goals out of their total 34, in just ten games! Thinking about the players in their starting XI that will stand with him on the pitch is quite daunting, with names such as red hot Robin Van Persie, Arjen Robben, Dirk Kuyt, Wesley Sneijder, Rafael Van Der Vart, Mark Van Bommel, the list is almost endless but inevitably does end with the shining star stopper of Swansea Michel Vorm. You’d be a fool if you didn’t view this team of world class players as a threat.

Seeing as I have a hint of Spanish blood in my veins my money would be on Spain to win (after a hopeful but patriotic bid for England) history predicts an upset, no country has ever won three major tournaments in a row and with history having a habit of repeating its self my money is to go on Germany, I’ll let you mull over the facts and make your own minds up of course.