Some More Words on Euro 2012

2 days to go until the start of Euro 2012. Office sweepstake done? Check. Polish colleagues getting hyper-excited? Check. Smart gamblers with outright bets placed months ago? Check (for the record, yours truly has the following: Germany outright winners @ 10/3, Klose top scorer @ 14/1, Russia each/way @18/1, Lewandowski top scorer @ 50/1. Some of those prices, Lewy for the Golden Boot in particular, are long gone). Less organised punters still floundering around for semi-decent prices? Check. Fantasy football leagues setup? Check

Instead of doing a straight rundown of Groups C and D, I thought I'd offer some more general musings on what to expect at Euro 2012, as well as a few tips for the floundering punters.

In the last few days, many people have been getting excited about France- they're now as short as 9/1 to win the tournament with many bookmakers, while centre-forward Karim Benzema is now as short as 12/1 for top scorer- both outcomes were available at much longer prices only a few weeks ago. Most of this interest has come about due to their impressive warm-up results, however one must note that the quality of opponents they have faced recently has been lacking- Iceland took a 2 goal lead against them before going down 3-2, Serbia are in transition under new boss Sinisa Mihajlovic and Estonia offered very little against Les Bleus after the first 10 minutes. They should comfortably qualify from Group D, and should come through a likely quarter-final against Croatia or an utter shambles of an Italy side, but their central defensive frailties, where 1st choice pairing Philippe Mexes and Adil Rami have both endured difficult seasons at club level, are likely to be exposed by the time they reach the semi-finals. There are also question marks over who will be protecting the back 4, with injury concerns over DMs Yann M'Vila, Blaise Matuidi and Alou Diarra. World Cup 2014 could be their time, though.

As for Benzema, he's a more realistic shout of claiming outright glory. Again, it's his form in the aforementioned warm-up games that has got everyone interested, as well as the defensive travails of all of their Group D opponents- he's also got plenty of creativity behind him, as well as a potential target man to play off if Laurent Blanc decides to throw Olivier Giroud on alongside him. That 12/1 is just about worth a few quid- kudos to you if you got him when he was still in the 20s

I'll do the other 2 groups within the next few days, i.e. before any actual matches are played