As a Juventus fan , im always going for Italy , but i think the tournament is really open, so many faves, really no idea who gonna win it this time.

As always i hope the Czechs will do well cause of Daniel Zitka,Jan Polak and Stanislav Vlcek.
And that Jan Koller will show his class one more time

As always i hope the Czechs will do well cause of Daniel Zitka,Jan Polak and Stanislav Vlcek.
And that Jan Koller will show his class one more time
Goalkeeper is great, defense good (if Jankulovski plays, his participation is in doubt), midfield without Rosicky will suck, forward without a good midfield will suck too. New generation of czech players is coming but it's not there yet. We'll be lucky to advance from round robin.

yeah they have no more creative players on the midfield, first the retirement of Nedved now the injury of Rosicky, i think they will try lang balls everytime to Koller, even though he's better in combination and create space for upcoming midfielders.

You wouldn't believe how much they are criticized at home for that style of play. It's transparent like glass and everyone is prepared for it.
Indeed, without Rosicky I am not sure whether there will be any thought or inspiration in their game.

As for other teams, I am curious how the Netherlands will handle their group.

^^I was only 12 but I attended the Italy-Nigeria match at World Cup 1994. Fun time, even for someone who had never seen a soccer match on TV prior to that year.

As an American, I won't have much of a chance to see any of this because there's little to no coverage and the time difference means the matches occur during the afternoon. I'm still enough of a fan to be semi-interested, though. For what it's worth, here is how system values the teams.

A: CZE (1881) - SUI (1860) - POR (1833) - TUR (1777)
B: GER (1938) - CRO (1847) - POL (1763) - AUT (1662)
C: ITA (2003) - FRA (1981) - NED (1940) - ROU (1872)
D: ESP (1953) - GRE (1836) - SWE (1768) - RUS (1751)

For those unfamiliar, Elo is an objective tool developed for rating chess players that can be adaptable to any sport. It should be a very competitive tournament. Based on the ratings and the draw, Spain followed by Germany appear to be the favorites; the favorable draw is huge.

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