Euro 2012 Winner?

Who will win this year's European Championship?

I'm going for GERMANY. Arjen Robben winning the golden boot.

England will be knocked out by Ireland.

Place your bets...

I'll say Holland

Spain for me, and I think England will go out in the group stages, getting no more than 3 or 4 points

The mighty Poland are going to decimate all opposition and win the final 7-0 (I may have drawn them in the sweepstake at work...).

I think Holland to be honest, if they can keep things ticking over defensively their strike force is in ridiculously good form.

Poor show from the Dutch against Denmark and I think they'll struggle to get through now. They have to beat both Germany and Portugal to qualify, can't see it somehow.

You can't really look beyond the Germans. They are always there or thereabouts regardless of the quality of their squad and with more than a few penalty shoot outs you expect them to go far and maybe win it. That said, those who are already discounting Spain after one average performance do so at their peril.

I should probably write a letter to the Holland strikers to apologise for jinxing them...

The Germans were looking good and they wern't half at their best.  If not, then Portugal!

As long as it isn't Spain, they get on my nerves. I'm not even an England supporter but it annoyed me when England beat them 1-0 in a friendly recently, and in the interviews afterwards the Spain players just moaned about how England played defensively. Of course teams are going to play defensively against you, you're the best team in the world... Their stupid no striker formation against Italy just annoyed me even more. I would like to see Italy win it actually, I enjoyed watching them.

I'd like to see either of the two hosts go a long way in the tournament. The further the host nation goes in the tournament usually the better it is.  It's very possible the Dutch could go out tonight and it could be that the Danes become the surprise package of the tournament. As for Spain, they'll probably click into gear and the relatively poor striker-free performance will be forgotten.

I would also like the hosts to go for, as I've already mentioned I now have a special place in my heart for Poland! Their result last night means it's all to play for in that group, and if they win their last game they will be through and well on their way to winning me money

The Dutch were fairly useless last night, although my predictions always are. A lot of big name players really haven't stepped up so far in the tournament. Robben went off in a strop last night (slightly understandable as he was subbed for Dirk Kuyt when they were chasing a goal) and Ronaldo has been poor in both games. Ronaldo also annoys me how he hardly ever celebrates with anyone when they score, for the goal last night he just kind of fell over in the box for no reason.

Not a huge fan of Ronaldo. To be fair I watch very little top flight football but whenever I do see him he's never convincing, and always seems to be blaming someone else (or the pitch) for his own slip-ups.

Reckon he'd last about 5 minutes in the Conference 

Anyway, it's hard to see Holland doing much after that. Germany do look pretty good though, if that striker keeps up his form.

Germany, Spain and Russia have looked the best teams so far but quite often you get a team who just sneak through the group stages and then find their form when it really matters. As Greece and Denmark have proved in the Euros previously, the best team doesn't always win the tournament.

Well what a shock last night with the Greeks knocking Russia out. Now can Holland do the unthinkable and qualify after losing their first two games? A 2-0 win against Portugal and a German win will see them through and although they haven't looked good so far, it wouldn't surprise me if they pulled it off. I still think Spain look the strongest team and if England meet them in the quarters we are going to be in for one tough game!!

Scandalous that Russia with a superior goal difference to Greece should go out. What bright spark decided head to head results would take precedence over GD? Foolish.

Well safe to say that's one of the worst predictions I've ever made! Read yesterday that RVP, Sneijder, Robben, Huntleaar and VDV scored 118 goals between them for their clubs over the last season, but only managed 2 goals between them in the Euros.

Yes, me too, they really were pretty poor.

I don't have an issue with the qualifying system - seems fair enough to me. If you beat someone and the points are level, why shouldn't you go ahead of them? Goal difference is more 'traditional',  but the rules were known to all beforehand.

It's the same in La Liga, head to head goes before goal difference when deciding equal points, which is why you get all sorts of crazy scores. To be fair Russia looked good in their first 2 games, but if you can't even get a draw against a very average Greek side, maybe you don't deserve to go through!

It really all goes to emphasise the point that in the Euros every game is crucial. In the World Cup, with more teams and plenty of whipping boys, you get a lot more slack.