Euro 2008, bet early and often

The regular Saturday visit to the bookies was as uneventful as usual.

Fill in the coupon, convince myself that Carlisle are bound to win at home to Crewe (8/13), go to the counter, lad behind the counter stifles a laugh, takes my money, and then go home, watch Soccer Saturday and discover that Carlisle are leakier than the Mahon Tribunal.

But this morning the Euro 2008 slips were out. So I had to have a look.

Euro 2008 will be interesting, with no teams from these islands involved it makes the betting market true, in the sense that there will be no patriotic money skewing the market.

The obvious thing that jumps out at you is of course Group C with Italy, France, Holland and Romania. Bookies have Holland as third favourites but I am not so sure France can perform this time.

In the overall market Germany are 4/1 and I think I will get on this now and steadily invest over the next 6 months. They are in a very easy group with Croatia and then arguably the two worst teams in the tournament, Poland and Austria.

Winning the group lines up Portugal or the Czechs and they will avoid Spain, France, Italy and Holland until the final.

With the Germans record in tournaments and their ability to win penalty shoot-outs is is hard to see past Joachim Loewe's men.

So next Saturday I will start the investment, hand over the money and wait. The final is on June 29th so I hope the lads behind the counter are ready on June 30th.

It should be me laughing that day. In the meantime fingers crossed for West Brom at home to Cardiff (4/6).