The strength of European football has been underlined by the
Group of Death at this European Championships and hotly tipped Germany have as difficult
a start as anyone could have expected in the shape of Portugal, who have made
the quarters of each of the last four tournaments, going out to Germany by just
a goal in the 2008 European Championship (the last time these two met).
What’s often unnoticed is the solid options that Bento can
call upon going back. Bruno Alves was an impressive winner of the Russian Premier
League with Zenit and Pepe once again excelled in defence for Real Madrid, subduing
Barcelona in the Nou Camp in expert style while also playing a major part in
their run towards the Champions League semi- finals. His Real Madrid team mate
Fabio Coentrao won 5 of their 9 games to nil in the Champions League and can
get forward, while Joao Peiera’s Spring Lisbon made it to the semi-finals of
the Europa League.
Since then Germany have gone on in leaps and bounds, finding
only Spain too strong in the World Cup before laying down a serious marker for
this tournament when winning their qualifying group with ease, taking 30 points
from 30 and scoring 34 goals in the strongest section, beating Belgium, Austria
and Turkey twice. Their high scoring exploits (Holland, as good as they are, were
given a huge amount of goals by a double header against hapless San Marino)
were simply more of the same thing that they’d offered at the World Cup, with
England and Argentina both on the receiving end of 4 goal thrashings, along
with Australia in their opening game of the group stage.
Portugal were beaten to the top by Group opponents Denmark but
the farcical departure of Carlos Quieros (which led to them taking just a point
from their opening 2 matches, including a 4-4 draw with Cyrprus ) set them back
and Paulo Bento has done a creditable job of getting his team back into form
and finding an attacking system that allows Portugal themselves to post a major
threat (they scored 3 goals or more in 6 games throughought their qualifying,
with 21 goals in total being 7 goals ahead of winners Denmark), while allowing
their star man (and arguably the star man of the tournament) Cristiano Ronadlo
to flourish fully – he’s scored 9 goals in 13 matches for the Portugese under
Bento – while Manchester United winner Nani is an awesome player if in the mood
to deliver.
They’ll need to be at their very best to keep out the reams
of attacking talent that Germany have. There have been worries about the eight
Bayern Munich members of the squad and how they’ll cope with losing the final
of the Champions League on penalties, but a similarly talented squad were
beaten in 2010 by Inter when going for a treble and it had no effect on their
performances throughought the tournament in the World Cup, so that fails to
take away any appeal from the hosts.
Germany will be well punted by many at odds against and that’s
an interesting proposition, especially if you fancy them for the tournament,
but the 3/1 on them winning by one goal makes more appeal. Portugal didn’t
conceded a goal in the group stages of the World Cup (another group of death)
and only went down 1-0 to Spain, while Germany themselves have the quality to
edge a single goal game, whether it be 1-0 or 2-1.
Advice
1 pt Germany to win by 1 goal (3/1 Bet365)
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