The tournament will truly said to be underway when two of the fancied sides Germany and Portugal go head-to-head in Group B.
Germany fancied to get off to a winning start
The tournament will truly said to be underway when two of the fancied sides Germany and Portugal go head-to-head in Group B.
Germany appear to have tournament football down to a tee, getting to the later stages often with little early signs of being a threat.
But they approach this tournament as
3/1 second favourites with Sky Bet having won all ten games in qualifying and, perhaps more importantly, having seen off Portugal in their last two meetings scoring three on both occasions.
Not surprisingly given those stats, Joachim Low's charges are
even money favourites to make a winning start to the tournament with Portugal out at 13/5 and the draw 5/2.
Germany scored at least three goals in eight of their qualifying games and despite his off-night in Bayern Munich's Champions League final defeat by Chelsea, Mario Gomez is
9/2 favourite to score the first goal, 5/4 to score in 90 minutes and 7/1 to bag a brace.
All Arsenal eyes will be on their new boy Lukas Podolski who is a 5/2 shot for the opening or you can have 5/1 that be he and Gomez both get off the mark on Saturday.
Portugal have too much talent to be taken for granted despite their standing as 18/1 seventh favourites to win the tournament which is more to do with their positioning in the 'group of death' than any obvious weaknesses.
Any side spearheaded by 63-goal-season man Christiano Ronaldo has to be taken seriously and he is
11/2 to bag the first goal and 9/1 to score a brace. If you have a sneaking for the boys in red and green why not take the correct score group bet of 7/2 on offer for them to succeed by 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1.
