Hard to pick a loser

Before I start this post in earnest I need to welcome along my 2 co-writers. Stevey C, the grown-up version, is like a fine wine now, better if you wait a little while. Essentially he was uncorked at the start of the tourney, but we needed to let him breathe during the group games. Now we can sip in his wit and lovely writing during the knockout stages. He's right about Denmark you know - I'm cheering them on as I write this. Less flying beer in this game, but a spirited and solid performance from them nonetheless. Shades of 92 perhaps!

And to my buddy Kev as well. He was independently writing his own blog, I think for the first time. I read it, enjoyed it, and in the spirit of the modern footballing superclubs - took it for myself. Kev has joined this blog, I hope for the long term, so now you, the readers can enjoy 3 perspectives of European Championship and World Cups going forward. Basically this is like a really low key and unmonetised version of The Athletic.

I'm watching Wales's dreams die whilst reflecting back on the group stages. Like Kev, I'm something of a convert to the strange and confusing 'best four 3rd place qualification' thing. It kept the group games alive, gave the supposed minnows essentially 3 swings to get a result and, most importantly, gave us all at least 3 days of pouring over group tables and working out potential outcomes from that final round. I always dislike the final group games in major tournaments because I find watching two games at once quite hard to do - but what a treat they all were. And once they'd concluded - how did I do with my predictions at the start of the tournament? Well, I picked 4 of 6 group winners, thinking Portugal not France would win the group of death and that Spain not Sweden would win their group. I clearly didn't consider the Morata factor. I think the best tweet I saw this week was a widescreen picture of the Dubravka flap showing Morata poised to finish it and with a caption "the worst thing about this goal is that we didn't get to see how Morata would miss this". Brilliant. Spain, notwithstanding Morata missing just about any chance ever coming his way, look like they're really revving up now. As for the group losers, I didn't fare so well - only picking 2 of 6. 

And this I think is why the tournament has been so good. It is anything but a procession through obvious results - but a pretty competitive and thrilling affair. Right - I am off to throw some beer around. Enjoy the last 16.