With summer well on its way it is nearly time for Euro 2008.  With the lacklustre performance of the England side now but a distant memory it’s time to decide which team you’ll be supporting when the contest kicks off on June 7th.  A total of 16 teams will be competing, with Austria and Switzerland automatically qualifying as hosts and the remaining 14 teams being determined through qualifying matches.  The other teams set to compete are Poland, Portugal, Italy, France, Greece, Turkey, Czech Republic, Germany, Croatia, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Romania and Holland.  It’ll be the first time that Poland and Austria compete and Poland in particular should be an interesting team to watch with several emerging talents in the Polish side.

With football betting websites already taking bets on who will be the outright winner of the contest, realistically there are only a handful of teams that stand to take home the trophy.   Blue Square betting has Germany as the favourites at 4/1 and on the strength of their invigorated performance in the last World Cup, where they played lively and attacking football, they are looking very strong with a youthful team.  Spain are the second favourites to lift the trophy at 13/2 and with Xavi Creus and Fernando Torres onboard they will be a tough side to beat.  Portugal and Italy are joint 3rd favourites at 7/1.  Both of these teams have world class players that can help steer a team to victory.  The last of the main contenders is France, who are at 8/1.  As the runners up in World Cup 2006 you could expect their odds to be even shorter, but with the retirement of Zinedine Zidane, the man instrumental to their success in that contest, the team will have to regroup and prove themselves without such a key figure in the mix.