Crunch time looming

  I'm sat writing this just before the start of the Matchday 3 fixtures, which kick off (excuse the dodgy pun!) with Italy v Wales and Switzerland v Turkey. realising that a potentially massive issue is looming on the horizon.

Looking at the fixtures list, I can see there are two (yes two!) days this week without any football to watch. What am I supposed to do for those two days? Why have you forsaken me God?

All joking aside, this will give me the opportunity to build up some brownie points by letting the wife have access to the tv for a while, and should hopefully put me in good stead for any extra time/shoot out negotiations that may be needed.

I'm conscious that I haven't really covered Matchday 2 in any of my blogs, I always find the second round of group matches a very strange kind of limbo and almost the lull of the tournament. No one is definitely out, with all the options for 3rd place teams getting through, so it always feels like the ultra cautious round for most teams (hence the bore draw between England and Scotland, which promised so much and failed to deliver).

The one exception to this, and deserving of a massive callout, has to be the Portugal v Germany clash. What a game!! I can hand on heart say that is probably one of the most entertaining games I have seen in years. It had as much action as you need, plenty of goals, dodgy defending and a result that hung in the balance even in the closing few minutes. Add to that the fact that if England manage to top their group they will face the team that finishes as runners up in this group, and the stage was set. That game showed two things more than anything to me:

1. Portugal aren't the best in defence. Get around the sides and get crosses in and its like watching someone trying to save the Titanic with an eggcup. Sheer panic and all cohesion as a defensive unit out the window.

2. Never, ever write off the Germans.

I'm going to gloss over the rest of Matchday 2 mainly because if you are reading this chances are you saw the games anyway, and also because due to work and other commitments there were some games where I only caught the briefest glimpse of the action. What we do know however is that Italy, Netherlands and Belgium have all qualified for the next round with a game to spare, so congratulations to them.

So in terms of England, what does looking forward to the next round look like (assuming we don't massively mess things up - but don't bet against it). Topping the group would see us play, as mentioned before, the runner up of the France/Germany/Portugal love triangle (realistically I cant see Hungary crashing the party although they could have a big say in the order of those 3). Of those 3, I'd have to say I'd rather face Portugal rather than the other two. France look good, although they dropped points against Hungary I see that as a blip rather than a cause for concern for them. Germany always seem to get the better of us in tournaments (although there was this one game a while back..........).

Second place in Group D would get us a game against the runners up of Group E (Sweden, Spain, Poland, Slovakia). For me this would be the path of least resistance, I've not seen anything from these teams that would overly worry me, and this feels like possibly the weakest group in the tournament to me. I'd be happy to face any of these teams.

Finally, if we did manage to make a bit of a mess of things and finish 3rd, assuming we had the points to go through we would end up with the winner of the above group, the winners of group A or the runners up of Group A (my money would be on Italy and Wales filling these spots respectively). Italy have been very impressive so far (2 wins, 0 conceded, 6 scored and 29 games unbeaten) so lets avoid them if we can eh? Wales would be a great game, but also a big challenge so again I'd rather avoid them.

Realistically I think we will finish top, beating the Czechs on Tuesday, and will face most likely France (I expect Germany to win and can see France and Portugal coming out as a draw). I'd like to see us going all out for the win on Tuesday, if we realistically want to stake a claim for the trophy we need to prove we can play, and aren't afraid of anyone we may meet. Maybe in a few days those words will come back to haunt me but I'd like to see us really attacking, and Grealish getting a start for the first time. Lets do this!!