not again!

the draws are out for the euro 2008 and the matches will be played from june 7-29. check out the groupings:

A--- Switzerland, Turkey, Portugal and the Czech Republic
B--- Austria, Germany, Poland and Croatia
C--- Italy, France, The Netherlands, Romania
D--- Greece, Sweden, Russia, Spain

for starters, you can say that group D is the most open group as any team can make it through to the knockout stages. greece says that they should be careful about sweden's ibramovic but i see spain and russia as teams that cannot be counted out either. my predictions for the top 2 at this early stage? spain and russia.

host switzerland has what appears to me as the easiest group on paper, but we know better than to count out portugal (repeat after me: ronaldo and deco), the czech republic, or turkey. with the home crowd backing switzerland in basel, you never know what the small country might whip up. predictions? portugal and the czech republic.

germany and poland have a history of overly emotional fans getting into fights at their matches so you can expect the organisers agonising over the logistics of this encounter. you also have croatia's acerbic fans chanting racist slurs; they have been warned by FIFA that a repeat offense would mean the disqualification of their team. you can never count out the vociferous home support for the austrians. predictions: croatia and germany.

i saved the best for last: can you have a better tag for group C than fireworks brigade? world cup 2006 finalists italy and france square off --- again! --- on the international field and with the zidane-materazzi fiasco still fresh in both teams' memories, so anything can happen on the pitch. coaches of both teams hope (or so they say) that cooler heads must prevail to avoid unnecessary encounters but this is football, mate. didn't i say it before? anything can happen. the netherlands and romania can't be too happy either with this grouping, especially since the dutch have been struggling with form of late, losing to belarus in their most recent encounter. predictions: surprise, surprise, italy and france.

bbc's commentators, when reporting after the draw was completed, were a picture of glumness and professionalism in conflict. they looked gutted still for their own team not qualifying for the prestigious tournament but braved on with their coverage in spite of it. i don't know what england will do now to get the right man to be steve mcclaren's successor as manager, but i cannot imagine the likes of mourinho or klinsmann rushing anytime soon to fill the void.