The impending European Championships and my most recent "...but England aren't even playing!" moment

It feels like everywhere I look I see this pic

I am fudging excited about the European Championship, I've been scouring the internet for related websites for news, stats and old videos (yes I'm that sad), I've set the BBC Euro 2012 Website as my homepage at work, I'm following Euro2012Tweets on Twitter, I'm doing it all. And then came the news. At work I'm currently involved in a project, in which we're trying to implement a new IT system. The User Acceptance Testing phase of the project is due to start in June however we are slightly behind schedule, some bright spark has suggested we work after hours for 2/3 weeks in June. After hours being from 5pm (kick off time of the 1st game in the day) to around 9pm so basically I will see none of the tournament. My response was simple, "No!" No way! No chance, not even if they gave me quadruple pay. At one point I could see that they were close to suggesting that it'd be OK as they'd make sure I'd get to see all the England games... Upon reflection they thought better about going down that route. The weird thing is, and this is genuinely weird, you may even say laughable, I had a dream a few months ago that I missed Euro 2012. At the time, I kid you not, I woke up in a cold sweat and thanked god that it was just a dream, now it looks as if my nightmare may become reality (how melodramatic do I sound).

Let's move onto some positive stuff, I sense the tone of that last paragraph wasn't in keeping with the rest of this blog so far. So here's what I call a "brain dump" of my thoughts re Euro 2012.

First things first, England. England apparently played out a pretty drab 1-0 win against Norway on Saturday.  I didn't see any of it because my weekend basically consisted of barbecuing every piece of meat in site and watching the West Indies struggle to a 9 wicket defeat against England at Trent Bridge. Yes my second sporting passion is Cricket, not that FC Twente 20 rubbish or any other form of 1 Day pyjama Cricket, proper red ball, white clothes, don't score a run for 20 minutes, Test Match Cricket. Love Test Match Cricket me, unfortunately I'm a massive West Indian fan and just like the other "West" in my life (that of the "Ham" variety) they're useless and continually disappoint me. So on Saturday I spent the day praying they'd get some wickets and eating burgers, and got so carried away with the outdoor lark that I totally missed the England football team hand Norway "One hell of a beating". I'd love to name some famous Norwegians in the style of the fella in the link but I don't really know any. Erm, "My Mate Marlon (who lived in Norway for a short while, but is from Harrow)! John Arne Rise! The Hot Blonde Girl at Uni that didn't talk much! Tore Andre Flo! Havard Flo! Jostein Flo! Flo Jo! Your boys took a hell of a beating!" Well not quite from what I hear and now Gareth Barry is out, which I don't see as a major blow, he hasn't even been replaced by another midfielder. Saying that Jordan Henderson is terrible, I'd have called up a player in a different position just to avoid choosing him too. Fact of the matter is, England wont get knocked out because they were missing Barry, no we'll choose some other scapegoat. On a side note, I see that Wayne Rooney is 33/1 to be top scorer I'm willing to bet anyone he won't score more than 2 goals in the tournament, I'll come back to this when England are eliminated and see if I'm right.

In other team news, the Italians are embroiled in another match fixing scandal they've dropped Criscito as a result and Mauri has been arrested. Anybody with decent knowledge of international football history will know that this pretty much means Italy will win the tournament, as their last two World Cup triumphs both came off the back of match fixing scandals. The other 15 teams don't stand a chance.

Will he sort himself out?

Fernando Torres has made the Spain team despite being about as deadly in front of goal as Emile Heskey in the past 18 months and seemingly at the expense of Roberto Saldado who I think can feel a litle hard done by seen as he has been very un-Emile Heskey like. Soldado has 3 goals in 4 games for Spain including two in a recent Friendly against Venezuela. Torres has... erm secret videos of Vicente Del Bosque in compromising situations? God knows?? Luckily Del Bosque saw sense and took Fernando Llorente from Athletic Bilbao otherwise he'd have had me the whole of the Basque Country to answer to.

Germany lost on Saturday. I'm not sure how or why, but I do know that none of their Bayern Munich players played. I said the Germans would win this tournament over 2 years ago, in the face of all the Spanish bandwagoners, and am sticking to my guns. A lot of other people are now starting to defect to Ze Germans, pfft I set trends rather than follow them. All I need now is Mario Gomez to do at Euro 2012 what he's being doing at club level for a while.

I'll be back later this week with another 10 Things (it'll be European Championship related), I'll leave you with this BBC video of the best of Euro 88...