Predictions and Articles

There’s no end to the prognostications and analysis ahead of next week’s Euro 2008.

Today, the Guardian comes out with their predictions … lose in the final to Germany? Oh, come on now!

ODDS TO WIN: 5-1
EURO 2004: Finished third in their group

HOW THEY RATE: Spain have a huge amount of talent in players such as Cesc Fábregas, Iker Casillas and Fernando Torres, but can they cope with the weight of history? They’re used to painful defeats (Italy in 1994, South Korea in 2002, France in 1984, 2000 and 2006) and there appears to be a mental block preventing the players from going all the way. But a midfield with Fábregas, Xavi, Iniesta and Xabi Alonso will make any neutral fan drool - and then there’s Torres, David Villa and Daniel Güiza up front.

STAR MAN: Iker Casillas. Surely the best goalkeeper in the world.

ONE FOR THE SCOUTS: Güiza scored 27 for Real Mallorca this season, but the real gems may be Rubén de la Red, a 22-year-old midfield maestro who took Getafe to the Uefa Cup semis, and Villarreal’s Santiago Cazorla

WILD CARD: Coach Luis Aragonés. Once called Thierry Henry ‘a black shit’, and this year called a radio presenter a ‘coward’ and a ‘liar’ when asked why he did not pick Raúl.

WAG TO WATCH: Nuria Bermúdez. A football agent, she used to brag about having sex six times a night with a married bullfighter and ‘wanting to bed Beckham’. Is now content with taking off her top every now and then, and being the partner of Güiza.

THE FANS: Will be there to grunt to the national anthem (which has no words) and will carry four-kilo pigs on their shoulders. If they lose, they’ll drink vats of Tinto de Verano or a Spanish classic: whisky and coke.

PREDICTION: Group winners, but they’ll lose in the final to Germany.

Keepers: 1 Casillas (Real Madrid), 13 Palop (Sevilla), 23 Reina (Liverpool). Defenders: 2 Albiol (Valencia), 3 Navarro (Real Mallorca), 4 Marchena (Valencia), 5 Puyol (Barcelona), 11 Capdevila (Villarreal), 15 Ramos (Real Madrid), 18 Arbeloa (Liverpool), 20 Juanito (Real Betis). Midfielders: 6 Iniesta (Barcelona), 8 Xavi (Barcelona), 10 Fábregas (Arsenal), 12 Cazorla (Villarreal), 14 Alonso (Liverpool), 19 Senna (Villarreal), 22 De la Red (Getafe). Forwards: 7 Villa (Valencia), 9 Torres (Liverpool), 16 García (Real Zaragoza), 17 Güiza (Real Mallorca), 21 Silva (Valencia).

And this, from the BBC … another article about Spain’s impending doom …

It is June, and we are approaching a major football tournament which means that some time in the next month, the fabulously-gifted players of Spain will crash out and fly home prematurely.

It has happened with such alarming regularity it appears as though Spain’s biennial humiliation is written in the stars. Always among the favourites, they have a nasty habit of producing one decent performance before bowing out to a team half as talented - not a million miles away from the same fate suffered by England every other year.

Only Spain will be in Austria and Switzerland this summer and, once again, they are being heavily tipped, with most bookmakers running them as second favourites behind Germany.

So have Spain really underachieved as much as we are led to believe? Spanish football expert Guillem Balague thinks it is nothing more than a myth that they are world football’s biggest flops.

Click the link above to read more …