ilunga

I've finished laughing at the market now so thought I'd start a thread. After saturday's debacle, England are still favourites with every bookie

Italy 9/1 in comparison is just so wrong but why so? I'm not sure. Then you have Spain 12/1, Portugal 18/1 etc. The more sensible play would be to lay England under 6/1, than to chance which of the contenders are most likely to hit form in 18 months time. Backing long-odds on shots isn't my style though at the best of times.

I'm happier trying to find a team that might be able to do a Greece.

1. Ukraine 100/1. There's not a lot of recent form to go on but they were shorter than this when the World Cup kicked off. If they could kickstart their campaign with a win over Scotland tonight, then Group B will be finely balanced. Getting out of that group could be tougher than actually winning the whole thing.

Bulgaria 150/1. I couldn't help but be impressed with the way they took the game to the netherlands on saturday. It really could have gone either way but they looked dangerous every time they attacked. Petrov was running the dutch defence ragged at times. When Berbatov returns to form they should possess the firepower to seriously challenge Romania for the second qualifying spot. Not the most demanding ask, when you look at some of the other groups.

Slovakia 250/1. With ROI seemingly out of the picture already, it's two from three in this group. An opening 6-1 rout of Cyprus was followed by a disappointing home defeat to the czechs. With Marek Mintal still recovering from injury, and his Nurnberg teammate Vittek also unavailable, they didn't quite possess the guile to open the czechs up, and were twice hit early on the break. I feel they fit the Greece profile though, and with Mintal now back to link up with Vittek, they possess the attacking quality to trouble most teams, as John Toshack will surely testify to. Getting in-between the two big boys will be a tough ask, but Germany didn't overly impress me against the Irish, and the Czechs are in somewhat of a transitional period, still recovering from their World Cup disaster. Wales gave them gave them a mighty scare in Prague. The result in Bratislava was flattering, and not enough to convince me that they are a class above the Slovaks. Tonight's game against Germany will be a huge indicator of what this side are capable of.