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Euro 2008 is Here (Almost)

Saturday June 7th sees the tournament kick off in earnest as one of the host nations Switzerland play the Czech Republic as Group A brings the tournament to life. The interesting thing about opening day games is that there can sometimes be a surprise in store.

Opening Day Shocks Are No Surprise
It may be more commonly associated with the World Cup but opening games have offered up a fair share of shocks. The 1990 World Cup in Italy opened with a bang as Cameroon stunned the holder Argentina with a 1-0 win. Argentina, long noted for a rather robust style of football were put off their stride by some tough tackling by the African nation. Argentina rebounded to make it all the way to the final but the African nation made their mark on the event.

The 2002 World Cup kicked off in similar fashion when holders France were humbled 1-0 by Senegal in their opening match. Unlike Argentina, France were unable to rebound and were humbled out of the group stages with a whimper.

Whether this has any bearing on Saturdays games remains to be seen but the Czech Republic are definitely tipped to triumph in the opening game. Playing in their host country, Switzerland will have the home crowd rooting for them and a point would be a welcome start to the tournament for the hosts. These two teams have not faced each other since 1999 when the Czech Republic team managed a three goal home victory over their Swiss opponents.

So Much At Stake in Opening Games
The problem with opening games and one of the reasons why they are so tight is that there is too much at stake to risk losing the game. All of the qualifiers have known since late last year that they were heading towards this tournament and all their preparations were leading towards this moment. In a group where you only play three games, losing the first game sees you three points behind one team and knowing that points have to be secured in the other two games. This places an immense level of pressure on a team and is why many teams play a cautious game to start out with.

The other Saturday match sees Portugal take on Turkey and the Portuguese can teach Switzerland and Austria about the dangers of playing their opening home match in the European Nations. The host nations kicked off their Euro 2004 campaign against Greece and were shocked by a Greek team playing to their strengths that ground out a victory.

Portugal managed to rally and made it all the way to the final where once again they met the Greek with revenge in mind. Sadly for the hosts, the Greek's ability to defend strongly and score by means of a set-piece ensured the trophy was heading for Greece.

Portugal Look to Go Further in 2008.
Portugal will be looking to go that step further this summer and will be hoping to start off more successfully this time around. Coming up against a Turkey side who has always made life difficult for their opponents at the major tournaments will not always be easy and again, this is a hard match to call. The two teams last played eight years ago when Portugal won by 2-0 at Euro 2000.

There is no doubt that Portugal have improved since then but with the recent news that Porto have been banned from next seasons Champions League, who can say if there will be a dark cloud over Portuguese football this summer. If the Turkish side manages to take anything from the match, there is every chance that the Portuguese mood will darken even further.

Host Nation But Austria Looks Poor
Sunday's matches turns the attention to Group B and the other hosts of the tournament start their campaign with a match against Croatia. Austria enter the tournament as rank outsiders and even their own fans have grave concerns about being embarrassed but they may be able to carry off a shock of their own. Austria have faced Croatia three times and have yet to taste victory.

The last match between both teams took place just over two years ago and saw Croatia record a 4-1 victory in Vienna. A similar score this time would have the Croatians dreaming of the knock-out rounds and would have the Austrians heading towards the local bars to drown their sorrows.

The second match of Sunday sees old rivals Poland and Germany square off with their battle at the 2006 World Cup fresh in many peoples memories. Germany dominated throughout but were thwarted by a master class goalkeeping performance by Poland's Artur Boruc who was finally defeated with a late goal as Germany won 1-0. As opening group matches are notoriously tight, Germany would no doubt settle for the same score but the opportunity is there for Poland to achieve a result that could blow the group wide open.

Poland Hope to Make History
Polish hopes will be resting on captain Maciej Zurawski although the player is likely to be deployed in a deeper role than British fans will be aware of. The former Celtic player was known as a striker in his time in Scotland but on the international scene he plays more of a link player. With the captaincy adding to his responsibilities, the Polish contingent will be hoping for a big performance from the man nicknamed Magic to pull off a big shock.

A Polish victory would be a major shock as the two teams have played each other fifteen times and the Poles have yet to record a victory. 11 defeats and 4 draws is the Polish record against German opposition so it is clear to see that they are up against it from the off with even history not on their side.

Winning an opening group game is no guarantee of success in any tournament but losing the first group game can make it extremely difficult for any team to turn things around in time. This may mean that all the teams will have a lot of concerns about avoiding defeat which may make for a few dour games to start the tournament.

That said, the excitement of Euro 2008 will be enough to keep all football fans at the edge of their seats for the start of the tournament.

By Andrew Reilly

for The Silver Circle at www.footballtip.co.uk

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