26 March, 2008

Make Euro 2008 Interesting…

By doing what we at STT have done today! To clarify, that’s putting all 16 teams into a hat and then drawing a name out to not only support, but also to have a sly 20 squid flutter on. Despite being quite a major international tournament, it’s just hard to really care that much without even one home nation involved, although not having the inevitable choke in the final-8 to look forward to is a blessing in disguise. Like many people, I can’t even trace my nationality back through the generations to any of the involved teams, so the choice the simple; accept that it would probably all just pass me by, or simply make it matter more by staking some wonga on it.

With a fair few bait teams having reached the finals though either by default as hosts or having squeezed through their comparatively easy (of course) qualifying groups, the fear of wasting your hard-earned pounds on the likes of Austria is a very real one, but isn’t that what betting is all about anyway? That’s the rush that leaves thousands of people around the country penniless and kicked onto the streets by their wives every year! Here then for your review is a handy table stolen off the internet to show comparative odds currently being offered by a range of high street and online bookmakers (click to enlarge):

Who then did we draw you might ask…well, to be honest we got lucky and plucked Portugal out of the hat. As the tournament’s fourth favourites, odds of 8/1 look pretty tasty to be honest, and with a score riding on it, we stand to make a life-changing 160 nicker should Portugal finally succeed in not flopping miserably yet again. As ever, the safe money will be on Germany, with Italy and France more than likely to be there or thereabouts too. My outside tip though would be the Dutch, who’s new generation under Marco van Basten will be looking to peak in this tournament with an impressively attack-minded 4-2-3-1 formation. Who’s to say though? With more than two months to go until kick off, anything can happen… injuries, bans, bizarre squad decisions…so that’s why it’s best to act sooner rather than later if you want to get any odds worth actually betting on. Anyway, just want to say what a huge Portugal fan I’ve always been, but if someone cripples Ronaldo before the tournament begins I reserve the right to blame some kind of book-making conspiracy and move my bet over to ze Germans.

Vindo em Portugal!