Euro 2008 starts today and happily we’re spared the agony of watching Scotland play. The BBC are doing their best to persuade us that even a tournament “without England” might be worth watching even though most sentient people appreciate that England’s failure to qualify actually enhances the tournament, especially for the TV viewer who might have an increased chance of intelligent, astute, imaginative, perceptive TV coverage.
Not so fast my friends! Here’s the BBC’s Gary Lineker explaining why he thinks Spain can win the tournament:
It is open, but I am going for those perennial underachievers in Spain…the feeling is that [the] team chokes, but they have done well in sports like golf and motor racing where they have shown they have the bottle.
So: Sergio Garcia winning a golf tournament or two and Fernando Alonso’s success in F1 enhance Spain’s prospects of winning Euro 2008? Amazing. Lineker’s other reason for supposing Spain can do well?
Spain also have this experience of players going abroad – their national team has never had that before.
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