Some fantastic matchups await fans in Austria and Vienna next summer, after the group stages for Euro 2008 were drawn in Switzerland today. The groups are as follows:

Group A: Switzerland, Czech Republic, Portugal, Turkey

Group B: Austria, Croatia, Germany, Poland

Group C: Netherlands, Italy, Romania, France

Group D: Greece, Sweden, Spain, Russia

That's some fantastic competition, and although all the groups are tough, Group C will easily be the Group of Death for the tournament.

Group A is interesting with hosts Switzerland joined by the more attack minded Czechs, Portugal and Turkey. The Swiss didn't concede at single goal at last year's World Cup, and their young side will have matured even more now. The Czechs unfortunately suffer from a reliance on the ageing Jan Koller that has been ingrained into their playing style over the years, and the creative burden falls almost entirely on the injury prone Tomas Rosicky. Portugal will be as strong as ever, with clubmates Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani providing attacking wizardry, Deco pulling the strings, and Carvalho, Ferreira, Meira and Miguel provide class and experience at the back. Unfortunately their strikeforce is still suspect - Nuno Gomes is over the hill, and Hugo Almeida is still unproven. As for Turkey, well they will be as unpredictable as ever. They did well at Euro 2000, then finished 3rd at the Korea-Japan 2002, and then failed to qualify for either Portugal 2004 or Germany 2006. Temperamental but gifted, they boast an array of German-based (and German-born!) talent in the Altintop brothers, Nuri Sahin, and Yildiray Basturk. Then there's Nihat (Villareal), Emre (Newcastle) and Tuncay Sanli (Middlesborough). The living legend Hakan Sukur is still soldiering on (37 years old, 112 caps, 51 goal), and Besiktas defender Gokhan Zan is one of Europe's brightest young stoppers. Russia-based striker Hasan Kabze might just have a surprise impact. The Swiss-Turkey match is likely to be bad-tempered and exciting - they fought during the Germany 2006 Qualifiers, after the Swiss knocked out the Turks.

My picks: Portugal and Turkey. Portugal have too much talent and experience. The Czechs no longer have enough quality. The Swiss lack goalscoring ability. The Turks have a huge collection of imaginative, dangerous attackers, and if they click they will cause problems.

Group B will have Germany joined by neighbours Austria and Poland, and nearby Croatia (well, Europe isn't all that big anyways). Austria are severely short of any real talent, and despite the home backing, they're likely to fall short. Croatia have become an excellent unit, with depth in every position. Luka Modric and Niko Kranjcar are fantastic midfielders, and Arsenal striker Eduardo should be settled, fit and in-form by the time the tournament starts. Germany are stalwarts as ever, with Joachim Loew continuing the good work he started en route to Germany 2006. They have a batch of new talents, many of them with question marks over their heads, and a lot will depend on the fitness of Michael Ballack and how quickly the goalkeeping situation is resolved - if Lehmann continues to be on the bench for Arsenal, and Hildebrand continues to start for Valencia, then the latter will be Number 1. Poland qualified very easily, but are an ageing side that lack any genuinely top-class players. However they work well as a unit, and Rasiak and Zurawski work well together up front. 'Keeper Boruc is underrated, and could be one of the best at Euro 2008. This group should see a lot of intense matchups because of the presence of the hosts, and the regional/political rivalries of some of the countries, and the Germany-Croatia encounter will be a fascinating tactical matchup.

My picks: Germany and Croatia. The Germans will cruise through, and Croatia will be too classy and clever for the rest. The Poles might ruffle a few feathers, but will not cause any real surprises. Austria will be happy to get a draw or two.

Group C is going to be the highlight of the early part of the tournament, and sees two pairs of qualifying opponents rematched. The Netherlands have a lot to prove after repeated failures at major tournaments since Euro 2000 was played on their home soil. They have superbly talented players, but too many egos, and poor temperament. Van Persie, Robben and Van Nistelrooy make up a deadly attacking trio, with Van der Vaart, Seedorf and the amazing Sneijder providing the ammunition. The Dutch have one of the most talented squads in the world, but doubts remain over their defensive ability. Italy are Italy, and will always be tough. There are no new names or faces, although Totti has retired from Internationals. Gilardino is in much better form for his club now, and should provide more of a presence. Toni is banging in the goals in Germany. Apart from Pirlo, Italia don't have much creativity, but that's never been their strong suit, and they will always grind out results and get important goals. Romania are a talented but fragile team. They beat the Netherlands in qualifying, and they have a magician in Steaua playmaker Dica. They can also call on Fiorentina attacker Adrian Mutu, and Inter's Cristian Chivu, one of the world's finest defenders. They have a squad full of good technicians, many of whom ply their trade across Europe's top leagues. Finally, France will want to continue their post-Zidane resurgence. They have their old collection of big names like Henry, Trezeguet, Vieira, Thuram and Makelele, but they will be looking to the younger Franck Ribery for creative inspiration now. Ribery's former colleague at Marseille, Samir Nasri, and the two other French-Arab youngsters Hatem Ben Arfa and Karm Benzema (both from Lyon) are capable of sublime attacking magic. Much will depend on Domenech's willingness to give the new faces a chance. In Gregory Coupet, Mickael Laundreau, Sebastien Frey and Ulrich Rame, they have a varied but error-prone set of 'keepers. Apart from the obvious France-Italy and Holland-Romania grudge matches, every game in this group will be fantastic. The Italy-Holland games will be a fantastic battle of wits, tactics and skill.

My picks: Netherlands and France. The Dutch kids will finally come good. France are formidable, and already beat Italy in qualifying. Romania are too inexperienced and fragile. Italy have gotten away with having easy groups in past tournaments (not to mention "friendly" referees), but they will struggle in this mix.

Group D is unlikely to throw up too many surprises. Reigning champions Greece are still coached by German tactical magician "King" Otto Rehhagel, but are unlikely to be able to repeat the surprises of the last tournament. They have an ageing squad, with a sparse amount of attacking talent, and an unproven collection of strikers. But you can never say never. Sweden have always had a tradition of achieving results with average, workmanlike squads with a few gifted players. Previously with Dahlin, Brolin, and Larsson, and now with Ljungberg and Ibrahimovic, they benefit from a solid coaching setup, and a great understanding in the squad of how to play and compete. John Elmander is a very talented young striker who could have an impact. Not much can be said about Spain that hasn't already been said. Traditional flops at the major tournaments, but always blessed with world class players, they will arrive at Euro 2008 with Fabregas, Torres, Alonso, Casillas, Ramos, Puyol and so many other brilliant players in every position. Russia just managed to sneak through after finishing poorly. Hiddink is a great tactician, but with a harmful ego. Kerzhakov is their main attacking threat, and young 'keeper Igor Akinfeev is one of the best in the world, but he might not be fit for the tournament. The Spain-Sweden game is another rematch from the qualifiers and will be the highlight.

My picks: Spain and Sweden. The Spanish will get through the group stage easily enough, whether they can have the impact they should on the rest of the tournament remains to be seen. Sweden might have a few problems, but they will be able to get results. Greece are clever and can take points off the bigger teams, but are one-dimensional. Russia will be lost in the mix. 

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A strange old match. Brazil's midfield and attack boasted some of the world's most talented youngsters, the Polish side had some decent players, but were mostly a fit, organised bunch. An early goal, a quick sending-off and then dogged determination saw the Polish under-20 team upset Brazil.

Alexandre Pato of Internacional is probably the biggest star of this tournament, and he took the attack to Poland in the opening minutes. However the Poles, even though they weren't anywhere near as skillful, played intelligently, and looked to counter at every opportunity. No chances of note were created, and then in the 23rd minute, Krychowiak put Poland ahead from a free-kick. It was a decent strike, but not very powerful, and i'm of the opinion that the Brazilian 'keeper could have done much, much better.

The elation of taking the lead was then brutally ended when Polish midfielder Krol was sent off. It was a hard tackle, and definitely deserving of a yellow, but somehow the young Pole received a red from Premiership ref Howard Webb. There's no disputing that it was a foul, but both teams got away with the same thing throughout the match, with only yellows or free-kicks being issued. Harsh decision, and it really put Poland at a disadvantage. I'm not sure if Krol maybe swore or said something to the referee, but I couldn't see that.

Brazillian fans might say that on balance of play they deserved to win, because they attacked the most, had the most possession and dominated the game, but they did so against 10 men and never managed to look like scoring. They would probably have dominated against 11 men as well, so the Polish team had to show incredible, incredible bravery and determination to come away with the victory. Time and time again there would be last-ditch tackles, headers and blocks to deny the Brazilians, who despite all their trickiness and skill were less-than-effective, most often passing too narrowly and intricately and allowing the play to breakdown. In fact, Poland 'keeper Bartowski only had 2 or 3 real saves to make... the best of them being from a dribble and shot from Jo.

The Brazilian players really didn't show up either. Much of the focus had been on £18 million Chelsea-target Alexandre Pato, the Internacional attacker and current golden boy of Brazilian football, but he was missing his renowned composure. Manchester United and Arsenal target, Renato Augusto from Flamengo, was flickering but ineffective, and CSKA Moscow's Jo (prolific last year until injury) was threatening but lacked support. It was another talented midfielder, Leandro Lima, who was the most impressive Brazilian on show today, constantly tricking his way past defenders and trying to make things happen.

With 12 shots to Poland's 2, the Brazilians were clearly missing any kind of end product, and they will look to fix this in the next game.

Oh, and the pronunciation from the Canadian commentators is awful.

Sorry for the slight lateness of this, but as everyone knows, Platini's administration chose Poland & Ukraine's joint bid over the other top candidates of Austria-Hungary (are they trying to resurrect the empire again?) and favourites Italy. I'll confess, i've posted late because I spent the entire day laughing at the dismay of the Italians, most of whom were soooooo confident that they were going to get it.

Why? Because they're Italy. Because of the riots and match-fixing and other problems that they thought would secure the sympathy vote having assumed that people would want to see them rewarded for their self-inflicted problems. And Because they're "world champions". Guess what? They already got their sympathy vote - it's called the World Cup. Everything now is just karma for Fabio Grosso's honesty.

And there's the small matter of politics - Italy did not support Platini's UEFA presidential campaign (maybe because he seems to be slightly on the extreme side), and perhaps they are paying the price for that now. Italy still have the same old football administration that they've had for 20 years, and nothing has shaken it - not the doping scandals, not the riots and violence, and certainly not the match-fixing/calciopoli scandals. Perhaps they thought that they were too old and powerful for the young man, and now they've been shown up. This might be the catalyst for the shake-up that Italian football has required for some years now, and Platini might have precipitated it, which is ironic considering he spent his best years under the power shelter of the Old Lady in Turin. I'm not Platini's biggest fan, but I think if he had been president prior to calciopoli, there was no way AC Milan would have been allowed into Europe this season.

As for the decision in general, I think it's great. Countries like Poland And Ukraine are all part of "Europe", but let's face it, nobody really considers them to be. They will always be "those Eastern Europeans" to the self-important Western Europeans and it's time that something was done to give them a presence. Poland, despite being part of the EU are yet to be really accepted, and the Ukraine are just one of many nations trying desperately to gain membership into the EU. The leftovers of strife and communism are still visible over there, but it is major events like these that can literally transform the fortunes of a country.

It will help both countries (moreso Ukraine) on a financial/economical level, and will also bring them to the world stage. This is important especially in the case of the Ukraine, where a wave of mini-Abramovich's has seen football clubs being bought up and millions spent on bringing talent in from around the world. The announcement that the Euro is coming will only spur on the football interest in these countries, and meanwhile they will be busy cleaning up and preparing for a festival of fun and football. Meanwhile Sepp Blatter and his little sidekick Michel Platini can chuckle to themsleves. Who knows... maybe "incentives" from the Russian/Ukrainian mob were involved? With Blatter you can just never say.