FOOTBALL: D-DAY FOR ITALY AND FRANCE

Well, Spain and Holland, the famous underachievers of football, are making the most impact in the competition, to the surprise of even me. I guess it is time to release the first post for the EURO2008 now that it has reached a desperate point. This is of course referring to Italy and France.

I was wearing the Italy latest World Cup t-shirt the other day to a shop and the owner shaked his head and commented that I should keep the t-shirt at home. Italy have been extremely lousy so far. Well, we know they have more or less the same old squad from the previous World Cup and therefore, they are mostly old men. As for France, they don't have a very old side on average but I guess they are still struggling without Zidane. I have thought the new lads like Nasri, Malouda and Ribery should have given them enough creativity that Zizou had possessed.

To date, I have watched ZERO matches! It is an incredible achievement for me as a football fan. Well, the difficulty to find the schedule for free matches on NTV7 and TV3 is one reason. The other reason is the heavy load I have at work for the exhibition this week. I basically have little sleep, at times, just 2 hours a day.

If I can find the sources, I will definitely want to watch the Italy-France match. Will Holland lose on purpose so both will not go through the next round? If you are the Dutch coach, of course you will want the weakest opponents possible later in the knock-out stages. If you let them through, they could beat you in the finals or semifinals. You don't want that. Again, situations like these are always present in football. If you ask me before the tournament that the fates of Italy and France, who were the previous World Cup finalists, depend on Netherlands, I will not believe you at all! The underachievers are now the fate deciders!

Let's just sit back and watch the Italy-France and Netherlands-Romania matches. As for Spain, let's see how far they can go. They may not score in abundance like Holland but they have a very stable side (stronger average if you rate the defence, midfield and offence).