Yea Croatia is a good sleeper pick. I'm sure Modric will have a killer tournament and raise his value so that Spurs go from having a tiny chance to no chance lol.

I'll prolly pull for either Germany or Spain since Ireland didn't get in.

IMO Germany are always very solid but don't have as much skill and flair as Italy, France, Spain or Portugal.

I think this might be the year Spain finally get that "underachiever" monkey off their back.

They have a sick sick squad:
--------------------- Casillas --------------------
Sergio Ramos --- Puyol --- Marchena --- Capdevilla
Iniesta ----- Xavi ------ Fabregas ----- David Silva
--------- David Villa ---- Fernando Torres ---------

Pretty sure Spain will choke it yet again, but just looking at names they've got one sick team.

Tier 1: Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal
Tier 2: Romania, Czech Republic, Croatia, Switzerland, Sweden, Greece, Russia, Turkey, Poland
Tier 3: Austria

I find it difficult to distinguish amongst teams in the second tier. I feel that the top six are clearly better than everyone else and Austria are clearly worse than everyone else.

I think that Spain have the most talented squad, but Germany have the best chance of winning due to the fact that four of the other top five teams are on the other half of the draw.

If Spain are to advance to the championship they would likely have to defeat two out of Italy, France and Netherlands. Speaking of those three teams, they would have to advance out of the Group of Death and then possibly play Spain and/or face a rematch with a group stage opponent in order to reach the final.

Portugal face a similar situation to Germany, but are a bit weak in depth and up front. For example, Henry, Trezeguet, Benzema, Dijbril Cisse and Anelka could all start for Portugal, but one or more likely won't make France's squad.

In a knockout tournament with 15 quality sides, anything could happen. Is anyone interested in doing a EURO tournament pool? I think the best format would be to award points for correctly picking a team to advance to a certain round + bonus points based on the percentage of other people who didn't pick that team to advance to that stage. This way there would be some incentive for picking darkhorses.

Division 2 table:

3 Hereford 79 (3 left)
4 Rochdale 78 (2 left)
5 Stockport 78 (3 left)

3rd gets promoted. It's a real good job that I'm going to be in the pub for the Chelsea game Tuesday, otherwise I might be tempted to watch the internet and/or sky sports news and hope Wrexham manage to take a point of Hereford (they should be motivated, if they lose they're finally out of the league) to put things in our hands. I really don't want the playoffs, the opportunity to continue our 100% Wembley record (played 4 lost 4) is not nice.

In for euro pool if anyone's doing one for laughs.

Definitely in for a pool

Hopefully Spain can get rid of the underacheiver title because of that happens that = $$$.

The only thing that scares me is the draw coming out of their group, either italy, france, or the netherlands, yuck. The team is pretty stacked though, Torres and Villa up top is a nightmare for other defenses.

And England will win the 2010 WC.

LDO

Fair point I suppose. Totti doesn't count though? I can think of numerous players from both sides that I would consider world class, more so than America has produced. Baggio, Klinsman, Totti in just recent memory.

Still, I don't mean that you can't win a WC without an "artist," just that I fear our infrastructure will never give us a Pele, Maradona etc. A transcendent type player of the type we have in very many other sports (just watch the Olympics...)

Stak

what about romania? after all, they did beat netherlands home and drew away in the qualifiers. don't be dissin' on romania, brah.

Croatia > Holland > Czech > rest of tier 2 imo

The US definitely does not need artist to win a WC, but they do need some World Class players. I don't think italy in 06 had anyone I would call an artist, but they had some class players. Pirlo, Totti, Maldini, etc.

Totti = artist imo

Also what do you mean by "some class players" Pirlo, Totti, and Maldini are three of the best footballers I've ever seen...

It's great that english people believe in it. Good value in laying them Really sucks they're not in this time.

Not that I would have anything against England winning though.

edit: LOL I actually missed at first that your comment had to be kind of level. I still think Spain has real chance this time.

Totti is an artist IMO too.

Pirlo is top notch as well as an ancient Maldini is still one of the best.

How is Pirlo not an "artist"? And don't get me started on the genius of Del Piero lol.

Also, Maldini quit the national team in 2002. You're probably thinking of Cannavaro.

I'm not trying to get into any kind of levelling contest, but laying england on betfair is usually good valyoo

sorry, some WORLD class players. I thought saying class=world class? Whatever, because that was my point anyway. They are world class players.

As for Artist, well then I guess we are getting into an ambigious definition. I thought you were saying someone like Zidane, Pele, Dinho, Cruyff, etc. Now I know what you mean, and I would agree, the US needs players like that. I simply just call them world class and not artist, but I guess its the same thing.

To add on that, I think if things progress the way they have, the US could be maybe 15 years from producing talent like that.

Giuseppe Rossi had a choice to play for the US but chose Italy obv.

He would have been the best forward the US has ever had.

Yea that was a pretty big blow. Its tough to see a kid from the US want to play for another country. I don't think it is something that will happen often though. His parents were Italian immigrants right? His dad moved him over there at 17 so who knows how much choice he had.

Let me put it this way, if you are a serious soccer player, and your choice is between playing for the US or Italy, France, England, Spain, etc... its a no brainer. Sucks for us, but whatever.

I don't think so Europe will always be #1 when it comes to football