High Times In The Low Countries

GROUP A
Frank Skinner used to have an amusing sight-gag on Fantasy Football League about never writing off the Germans. He would then theatrically produce a pen and notepad, and scrawl the words "Off The Germans" across the paper.
Skinner can probably reach for his biro again this summer. Though they can't be ruled out of contention (for mainly historical reasons), Germany are more likely to be heading for the Euro 2000 exit door sooner rather than later. They look far less than the sum of their parts, for which veteran coach Erich Ribbeck must shoulder much of the blame.
For a start, any team still depending on Lothar Matthdus as a sweeper in this day and age has to have drastic problems. Matthdus is so old that he made his international debut at the 1980 Euro finals in Italy, and he has looked knackered these past couple of years. The pace and skill of attackers like Michael Owen and Luis Figo could kill him this summer.
Although most of the Germans' well-publicised recent defeats have been in friendlies, it's undeniable that their attack suffers from an obvious lack of imagination, with the two first-choice forwards Bierhoff and Jancker over-reliant on high crosses and set-pieces.
It's not all bad. Germany have plenty going for them: the best keeper in the world (Oliver Kahn), a trio of superb defenders (Babbel, Linke and wing-back Ziege), a hyperactive tackler in midfield (Jens Jeremies), a skilled playmaker (Mehmet Scholl) and a header of the ball without equal (Oliver Bierhoff). It's just that Ribbeck can't seem to make these players give their best for him.
ROMANIA look a far better team than Germany on a purely technical level, and have been playing together for long enough not to be overawed by the opposition at major tournaments. They have a good record against England, beat and drew with Portugal in the qualifiers, and haven't lost to the Germans in years. They should qualify with ease.
Gica Hagi (35) and Gica Popescu (32), fresh from lifting the UEFA Cup with Galatasaray, are still the key men, but, unlike Matthdus, are still performing to an incredibly high standard. The striker Adrian Ilie, a fringe player in Valencia's Champions League heroics, is the main hope of goals.
If Romania have a weakness, it's that their squad is thinner than others once you get beyond the first eleven. But they have as good a chance as anybody else in this competition, and only a dip below their normal form will stop them getting into round two.
England were fairly awful for most of the qualifiers. At their best, they looked nothing special even when beating Scotland 2-0 in Glasgow. At their worst, each of them looked as if they literally didn't know where they were supposed to be playing.
They're well covered for centre-backs and, the massive decline of Alan Shearer notwithstanding, the forward line isn't that bad. But Keegan obstinately refuses to pick the strongest team available to him, forcing Beckham to play in a wing-back role he isn't suited to, consistently picking the ageing Seaman over the brilliant Martyn in goal, and shoehorning his favourites into the team come hell or high water (c.f. the half-fit Fowler, the clumsy Heskey, the seemingly undroppable Shearer).
All sentiment aside, England genuinely look the weakest team in this group. Scotland aside, they haven't beaten a strong team in a competitive match since Holland at Euro 96, and it says a lot that a midfielder, Scholes, seems to be their biggest hope of goals.
After years of wasted potential and near misses, this could really be PORTUGAL s year. It's now or never for these guys, most of whom won a slew of youth tournaments together in the early 1990s. They're all around the same age late 20s and all have vast experience of Serie A and/or the Primera Liga.
Certainly, the Portuguese midfield looks the best in the finals. With Luis Figo attracting all the attention on the right side of the pitch, there will be increased space for the likes of Lazio's Sirgio Conceigco and Parma's Paulo Sousa to turn it on, often surging up front in support of the lone striker (probably Sa Pinto). You just can't see either Germany or England being able to cope with such a busy, teeming midfield.
If they have an achilles heel, it's that they lack a world-class finisher. Sa Pinto is reasonable, but not quite up to this level. How Portugal could do with a Kevin Phillips or a Thierry Henry.
But the rest of the side's pedigree is second to none, and a semi-final place looks well within reach. Expect them to go for the throat in the first game, against England in Eindhoven.
Prediction: 1 Portugal, 2 Romania, 3 England, 4 Germany.

GROUP B
BELGIUM themselves should fare better in this tournament than most people think. Though their squad doesn't exactly ooze attacking verve from every pore, coach Robert Waseige has overseen an improvement in form since taking over a year ago. Moreover, the advantage of playing all their matches in Brussels cannot be overstated. Remember, in Euro 96, how the fillip of playing five Wembley games in a row transformed a seemingly ordinary England team into world-beaters for about a week.
Sensibly, Waseige has packed his defence with hard bastards like Jacky Peeters and Eric Deflandre, while using the equally uncompromising Yves Vanderhaeghe as a screen in front of the back four. In midfield, Johan Walem is good enough to command a place at Parma.
It's the Belgian forward line, though, that could really surprise people. The clever Marc Wilmots plays just behind Emile Mpenza and Derby County's Branko Strupar in a strike force that, though lacking in aerial threat, can score goals against the best in recent friendlies, they put five past Holland and three past Italy.
By contrast, it s hard to envisage SWEDEN doing anything in the tournament. For all their undoubted cohesiveness and appetite for hard work, the brutal fact is that they possess only two world-class players.
The first, highly-rated Henrik Larsson, has played only 25 minutes of football since October, and the second, Anderlecht's Pdr Zetterberg, has talked himself out of the finals after a disagreement with coaches Tommy Soderberg and Lars Lagerbdck.
Elsewhere, the team looks well-organised but hardly easy on the eye, with Arsenal's Fredrik Ljungberg and Bayern Munich's Patrik Andersson the best of a dependable bunch. The central midfield pairing of Stefan Schwarz and the man-mountain Johan Mjdllby wouldn't win any prizes for artistic merit, but can be relied upon to tackle till the cows come home.
Those two will give ITALY, whose own midfield needs a bit of work, something to think about on June 19th. The Azzurri have few problems in goal or defence, but they depend too heavily on one individual, they've lost their best forward, and they look as grey as ever in the middle of the park.
With Christian Vieri's hamstring ruling him out, nearly everything rests on the form of Alessandro Del Piero, who has just experienced another in-and-out season with Juventus. Roma's Vincenzo Montella should take Vieri's place as the target man, due to the fact that his main rival, Filippo Inzaghi, offers virtually nothing outside the six-yard box.
As it was in France two years ago, Italy's midfield is still teeming with heads-down workhorses like Luigi Di Biagio and Demetrio Albertini, players who will run and tackle all day but haven't a creative bone in their bodies. It will prove Italy's undoing against the classier sides later on assuming they make it that far.
The lurking presence of TURKEY throws a further spanner into the works of Group B. This is by far the best national side they have ever fielded, full of skilled players with tournament experience. Galatasaray's recent UEFA Cup win was yet another warning, as if it were needed, that the Turks are nobody's fools these days.
There could be as many as five Galatasaray players in the Turkish line-up facing Italy this Sunday in Arnhem. The one to watch, though, is somebody who didn't play a single minute in Gala's UEFA Cup run.
Sergen Yalgin was cup-tied for the entirety of that competition, but the bearded midfielder was the star of Turkey's qualifying campaign, playing his socks off in November's 1-1 draw at Lansdowne Road.
Turkey's other big players are also Galatasaray men, the lanky striker Hakan S|k|r and the quick wide attacker Arif. In midfield, Muzzy Izzet of Leicester could find a place at the expense of Tugay, who has been in lamentable form since joining Rangers in January.
The Turks were the better side in both their qualifying games with Germany, and if we're being honest, they dealt with Ireland more easily than the 1-1 aggregate scoreline in the play-off suggested. There won't be much separating the sides in this group, and these fellows will go close at the finish.
Prediction: 1 Italy, 2 Belgium, 3 Turkey, 4 Sweden.

GROUP C
Due to their well-documented propensity for choking on the big occasion, I will not be tipping SPAIN to win Euro 2000, despite the fact that they possess the strongest squad in the tournament.
Their top men include the best left-sided forward in the world (Razl); the Real Madrid defensive trio of Salgado, Helguera and Hierro; the matchless Guardiola as the midfield anchorman; and, of course, Gamzka Mendieta, my personal tip to be the star man of the finals despite his pallid performance in the recent Champions League final. Frankly, if knee ligament damage hadn't deprived them of Luis Enrique, Spain would be unbackable favourites.
Their achilles heel could lie further forward, thanks to manager Camacho's strange decision to leave Madrid's Fernando Morientes at home. It may sound a strange thing to say about a team who scored 42 times in eight qualifiers, but Spain's attack wouldn't look nearly as formidable if an injury or suspension removed Razl from the equation.
Yet, largely due to their formidable midfield, Spain look too good for their group opponents. It's as hard as ever to see them winning the whole thing, but they have it in them to give anybody a good hiding.
NORWAY s unimpressive form in a very weak qualifying group suggests that their muscular methodology is finally being left behind by the harsh pace of international football evolution.
In what amounts to a huge blow for them, Ronny Johnsen will miss the finals due to a lack of fitness after being injured all season. The resultant giant hole at the back will be filled by Erik Hoftun. The Rosenborg captain is every bit as good a defender as Johnsen, but lacks the United player's impeccable ball-distribution skills.
The rest of the side is largely the same as it was four years ago. The team really needs sprucing up with fresh ideas, and this is where Eirik Bakke (Leeds) and John Arne Riise (Monaco) might come in. Both have enjoyed excellent seasons and must surely get a run at some stage.
But with Solskjfr and Steffen Iversen totally wasted as wide men in a formation which panders excessively to the needs of Tore Andri Flo, and with many of the squad not getting regular first-team football (Liverpool's Heggem and Manchester United's Berg being prime examples), Norway don't seem to have enough about them to finish second.
YUGOSLAVIA have grown old together over the past five years. The side they send out could include as many as seven over-30s, and it is this collective superannuation that will probably prevent them making a serious impression on Euro 2000.
Though their coach Vujadin Boskov is known to have a yen for 3-5-2, the Yugoslavs generally play 4-4-2 because of a lack of good wide right-footers (England's problem in reverse). The defence will be buttressed by the peerless Mihajlovic of Lazio, alongside Valencia's Djukic, who, though not the fastest, played superbly in the Champions League this year.
Unbelievably, they still haven't found anybody better than 35-year-old Dragan Stojkovic for the playmaker role, which says much about the imbalance in their squad. They're up to their necks in good attackers Mijatovic, Kovacevic, Drulovic, Dejan Stankovic but the fact that they're still using Stojkovic (who played in Euro 84!) speaks volumes.
To be honest, if it wasn't for Zlatko Zahovic, there wouldn't be much reason to go out of your way to look at any of SLOVENIA's games. The 29-year-old from Olympiakos is an attacking midfielder of unbelievable guile and skill, and should be a joy to watch on this, the biggest stage he's ever likely to be handed in his career. Zahovic usually has a free role in Slovenia's 3-5-2 formation, and will be familiar to Champions League watchers from his years with Porto.
It's just a shame you'll only get three chances to see him (or fewer if he receives one of his frequent suspensions). Slovenia, for all the obduracy and spirit they showed in defeating a fine Ukraine side in the play-offs, are as close to a one-man team as has ever lined up at the European Championships, and, to quote Tommy Docherty, they'll be home before the postcards.
Prediction: 1 Spain, 2 Yugoslavia, 3 Norway, 4 Slovenia.

GROUP D
HOLLAND shot to prominence as favourites, as much for the advantage of playing on home soil as for the undoubted quality of their squad.
A lot rests on Dennis Bergkamp, now 31, who is coming off the back of a curiously unimpressive year at Arsenal, where he never seemed to deliver on the big occasion. This is Bergkamp's last ever tournament (assuming he doesn't travel to the 2002 World Cup by trans-Siberian express), and he'll be desperate to make a good impression after his erratic performances in France.
He and Barcelona's Patrick Kluivert will be the main men up front. But Holland, perhaps fatally for such an attack-minded team, don't have that much cover in their forward line, with Ruud van Nistelrooy and Rangers' Michael Mols both badly crocked.
Who will load the bullets for the front two? Rijkaard should go with a 4-4-2 formation that sees either Boudewijn Zenden or Marc Overmars as a wide man on the left, with a deep-lying player on the right, Davids and Winter in central midfield, and Jaap Stam and Frank de Boer as the central defensive pairing.
Naturally, it's hugely important for the Dutch that they start well and set the tone for the entire tournament, as France did two years ago. With that in mind, though, they could have done without facing the formidable Czechs first, at the Amsterdam Arena on Sunday night. It'll surely be a cracker: if Holland don't win it, they'll be on the back foot almost from the word go. But I fancy them to do it.
Though the CZECH REPUBLIC were only given anything like a test in the qualifiers by a mediocre Scottish team, they have to be respected as a fine side.
Their talisman is Pavel Nedved of Lazio, a dynamic midfielder who never stops running and is a constant source of goals. He will be aided and abetted by Patrik Berger and Karel Poborsky, two more guys who seem to save their best form for internationals. Coach Jozef Chovanec will probably go with those three in midfield and a back three of Tomas Repka, Jan Suchoparek and Karel Rada.
Up front they rely on the Jancker-like figure of Jan Koller, who scored in the final five qualifiers and recently gave Paul Butler a roasting at Lansdowne Road. The biggest question mark is in goal, where first-choice Pavel Srnicek has endured an horrific season at Sheffield Wednesday.
The Czechs play in a fluid manner, with midfielders frequently either dropping back to help the defence or making dangerous forward runs. It'll take a good team to eliminate them, and I fancy them to have the edge on France and Denmark in this group.
Though DENMARK themselves remain as consistent as ever, you can't see them doing anything in such a hard group. With the Laudrup brothers now retired from international football, they lack inspiration and guile on the ball, and you can see Peter Schmeichel continuously having to bail them out at the back.
It's a bad sign for Denmark that many of their players have had poor seasons with their clubs. With Allan Nielsen being forced out of Spurs, Per Frandsen struggling in the Nationwide with Blackburn, Thomas Helveg a perennial reserve at AC Milan and Jes Hxgh barely playing at all for Chelsea, their squad has a rusty look about it.
Another problem is that their strikers, Ebbe Sand of Schalke and Jon Dahl Tomasson of Feyenoord, are generally considered too "nice" for international football, a claim borne out by their records. Denmark won't be thrashed (teams in the European Championships rarely are) but they've no hope of getting out of this group.
You wouldn't set too much store by FRANCE's current status as world champions when assessing the form for this tournament.
In front of what is admittedly the best defence in world football Patrick Vieira should be given a fair chance in central midfield, but probably won't. Vieira, as he proved again for most of last season, is one of the best readers of the game in England, and should have displaced the ageing Didier Deschamps by now.
Further forward, little has changed. It's not that France can't score goals, it's that their strikers can't score goals. Every attack still goes through Zinedine Zidane, whose floating role makes him difficult to mark. But France haven't settled on a central forward.
The obvious choice is Thierry Henry, in such good form at Arsenal, but coach Roger Lemerre might instead opt for the wretched Nicolas Anelka, whose brief end-of-season flurry of form can't hide the fact that he looks as suited for international football as I do for a triathlon. Repeat once more with feeling: #23 million, #56,000 a week after tax, four goals in a year.
Looking at some of those qualifying games, the suspicion persists that France's World Cup win was more a one-off explosion of home form than a genuine confirmation of being best in the world. The Dutch and the Czechs may well find them out this summer.
Prediction: 1 Holland, 2 Czech Republic, 3 France, 4 Denmark.

HOW THEY LL START
GROUP A Germany, Romania, England, Portugal
GROUP B Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Turkey
GROUP C Spain, Norway, Slovenia, Yugoslavia
GROUP D Holland, Czech Republic, Denmark, France

HOW THEY LL FINISH?

QUARTER FINALS: Portugal bt Belgium, Holland bt Yugoslavia, Italy bt Romania, Spain bt Czech Republic.
SEMI FINALS: Spain bt Portugal, Holland bt Italy
FINAL: Holland bt Spain