Your Dark Horse?

Italy for me, shouldn't be too difficult to navigate their group, and wouldn't have to play Spain again until the final. Runner up of England's group could be there for the taking too.

HM to Portugal but I doubt theyd get out of their group.

Italy are not incredibly great, they could struggle against Croatia and they never seem to have it easy against Ireland.

England could do alright.

France. Ribery, Benzema et al.

England will win it. Beat France and Sweden and draw with Ukraine which would mean they finish top of their group. Play Italy in the quarters and win, play the overrated Germans in the Semi and win and then Spain in the final which - since the Spanish lack a World-Class Striker because of Villa's injury - England will win 1-0 on the back of some solid defence.

Big issue with Italy is can they score enough.

You know an Italian team can defend, and there's class in that midfield. Firepower is the big worry, kinda hoping this tournament is the making of Balotelli for a few reasons

Duty281 wrote:England will win it. Beat France and Sweden and draw with Ukraine which would mean they finish top of their group. Play Italy in the quarters and win, play the overrated Germans in the Semi and win and then Spain in the final which - since the Spanish lack a World-Class Striker because of Villa's injury - England will win 1-0 on the back of some solid defence.

With JT, Cahill and Ashley getting praised and labelled defensive geni (Think that's the plural of genius) as oppose to being part of a negative machine that grinds out results.

Duty281 wrote:England will win it. Beat France and Sweden and draw with Ukraine which would mean they finish top of their group. Play Italy in the quarters and win, play the overrated Germans in the Semi and win and then Spain in the final which - since the Spanish lack a World-Class Striker because of Villa's injury - England will win 1-0 on the back of some solid defence.

If the tournament follows that blueprint I will eat my own face.

Di Natale to start for Italy

also backing the italians. some of them are going to be in my dream team

i think Portugal will cause an upset and get out of that group, and then who knows.

As for winning it, France, not bad at the back, great midfield good attack. Plus easyish root to QF, and then anything could happen.

I am backing Mother Russia.

France for me, quite a number of quality players in the team. As a proper longshot Czech Republic.

cant believe italy are being mentioned as a dark horse coming into a major tournement, but i kind of understand where you coming from. still cant see how there a dark horse, there ranked 12th in the world with only 5 european countries above them.

i cant see anyone but the big guns winning it but i fancy one of the hosts to go quite far.

Well outside of the main 3 (Spain, Germany and Holland) then.

Grant Holt

Graeme Swann's Cat wrote:Well outside of the main 3 (Spain, Germany and Holland) then.

i would say italy or france then, just dont see them as dark horses.

Agree with a couple of others who have said Russia. Not too tough a group with Greece, Poland & Czech Republic.

Pavlyuchenko and Pogrebnyak up front as well, decent e/w bets for top scorers at 50/1 & 66/1 respectively (Paddy Power).

Skybet have Andy Carroll at 12/1 - 4th favourite to be top scorer. He's 33/1 with Paddy Power, and even that seems generous to me.

Any odds on Carroll not to score? 1/100?

Duty281 wrote:England will win it. Beat France and Sweden and draw with Ukraine which would mean they finish top of their group. Play Italy in the quarters and win, play the overrated Germans in the Semi and win and then Spain in the final which - since the Spanish lack a World-Class Striker because of Villa's injury - England will win 1-0 on the back of some solid defence.

If Spain get to the final without a so called world class striker (I bet England wish they had Torres and Llorente), I think they will be good enough to beat whoever is in front of them. If it is England, I will be amazed.

italy arnt a dark horse.

russia is tho and mine

Loosely defined Dark Horse as anybody not Germany, Spain or Holland.

Which in a 16 team tournament is fair enough.

Ok i will go with england if thats the critiriea.

England meet all the criteria to be considered a dark horse to be fair.

Mainly just for kicks but also a bit of patriotism, I'm going with Ireland. I don't think they'll do well against Spain but they might be able to do enough against the others to qualify and from then on they can outplay better teams than them in a once off game. Wishful thinking I know but it has been 10 years since being in a competition so I think a little optimism is due.

you gotto be optomistic, dont run into some trap or feel silly or guilty because people get shredded for being positive about england. There is nothing wrong with it pal

Ireland always put on a good showing at tournaments and I would not be surprised to pull off a shock or two.

I still remember that Ray Houghton boomer like it was yesterday! Good luck to em.

mystiroakey wrote:you gotto be oppotimistic, dont run into some trap or feel silly or guilty because people get shredded for being positive about england. There is nothing wrong with it pal

I never said there was mystri. I think I'm going to win the lottery every week but so far it hasn't happened. Give me six numbers...

what you on about dude?

I was talking to barney.

However why do you respond to the irish fans post in a serious way and the english fans posts in a wum way?

I mean i do know, but it would be nice for you to admit it!

Whilst I'd love for Ireland to win it, it wouldn't be very pleasing on the eye. In fact it would probably be dreadful to watch but I wouldn't care at all. That's why if Ireland don't win I'd like someone like Netherlands or Germany to win it.

Barney your a fan of your team- you must be loving the fact you are in this event- make the most of it- dont concern yourself with pretty football either. As we all know it isnt the be all and end all anyway.

If ireland go out early , you will find a team you like from watching the other games. No point saying you want a team to win from befores reasoning , its all about the tourny and the winner will have deserved the win.

How do I respond to the England fans, for which I am one, in a WUM way? Please explain how succumbing to realism is wumming? Mystri, is your sole objective on this site only to bicker and talk down to "dudes" and "pals" because it appears that way? Maybe you can "simplify it" for me and explain to me "what I don't understand"...

Ah yeah, jeez I couldn't care less about how they play. Sure they've been pretty brutal to watch for a while now but they actually qualified for something now. If they drew every game 0-0 I'd be a very happy man but I was just saying that they would be my other favoured teams in it. It helps that neither will have to play Ireland until after the quarters though. Ireland could manage to pull a Greece from 2004 and with Given in goals and Keane up front it's possible.

Freekshow the two comments are above- why do i need to explain. You only just posted them. I am not even having a go at you. Just asking the question. Why do people respond in a negative way to england positivity, but on the whole we respond positively to others positviity. And in this example the other team is worse than ours

Many of us are guilty of it. I was just bringing it up

There is nothing wrong with positivity, God no, and I am not knocking it. I have stated on other threads that I absolutely love Duty's enthusiasm and positive outlook on the England football team. But when you are let down, as a fan, tournament after tournament after a while that positivity turns into pessimism and negativity, it's only natural.

Regarding Ireland, it's all relative. Historically they have never let their fans down which gives them belief going into tournaments.

Ireland may have an inferior side to ours but worse team? That's open to debate..

Freekshow i have a feeling that i have been through more england lows that you.

You may be older , I am not sure. Anyway i am still positive for a good tourny. And i would argue that yes england are the better side. I only brought that up because you menetioned that you wanted to be realistic about england- i was questioning why you are not being realistic about irelands.

mystiroakey wrote:Freekshow i have a feeling that i have been through more england lows that you.

You may be older , I am not sure. Anyway i am still positive for a good tourny. And i would argue that yes england are the better side. I only brought that up because you menetioned that you wanted to be realistic about england- i was questioning why you are not being realistic about irelands.

mysti, I was born yesterday.