Euros....

Don't lie James, you're only supporting Holland because of me

I think it's good to see the passion coming out of Rio but as a professional he should surely be capable of respecting a managers decision without whinging all over the press about it. I can't imagine this is doing the team morale any good, he is afterall an influential player for his club and country so I can only imagine it creating divisions in the camp. Add to that the fact that this looks as though it has, in some part, been caused by the whole race row which has left bad blood between the ferdinands and Terry it would maybe have been wise to keep his mouth shut to avoid all of the negative press. Not exactly a great send off for the lads is it?

My favourite view that I've heard about England leading up to this tournament is that fans are expecting so little of England that inturn the team may do better with less pressure.... therefore people are actually becoming more expectant again because of being unexpectant.......!

Only with England fans....

I"m with KTF on this - I will be watching, and stongly supporting England, because it's the natural thing for an English footie fan to do. The team being pretty hopeless is irrelevant.

I agree too that some folk just enjoy a moan. And as for Adrian Durham.... I have given up listening to Talksport wholly to avoid the sound of the man's peurile, self-obsessed offerings. He is the purest example I have ever come across of the kind of radio "personality" (sic) who would swear black is white if he thought it might prompt the tiniest bit of futile listener reaction. I find him truly unbearable, a blight on present football coverage.

I'll be watching... although the performances against Norway and Belgium are already filling me with dread that this tournament will be no different to the last few.

I'll support them as ever.

My main concern is the real lack of quality we have, we're not exoecting much because we have a really average looking team if not poor.

All the Premier League has done for the National team is weaken the English talent as only "top" foreign players are brought into teams rather than strong academies bringing through the youngsters ( ok I know there are a couple of execptions ) but I can only see the England side getting worse!

I too will be watching, and supporting, England. Not expecting much - especially after half of our first choice XI have been decimated by injuries.

Germany would be my tip in what I think will be a good tournament - some great games right from the start!

True Blue - I do actually get the impression that, finally, we've started to wake up in this country. The FA reform that was ratified recently will help produce better, more technical young English players.

FFP will mean more emphasis on youth development which means these players /should/ get more chances. The EPPP too should benefit the highly talented kids and stop the inflation on young English players (albeit to the detriment of smaller clubs which I don't like).

There also seems to be an attitude change to more technically adept players rather than physical specimens who can lump a ball 80 yards. Swansea gain huge plaudits for the way they play in the EPL and more teams who go up seem to be of that style now rather than the Stoke ethos. And we do have some good technical midfielders now as well (Wilshere, Cleverely, McEachran etc.) so it might not be as bad as you think

How can you be a footy fan and not be drawn to the second biggest competition in International football ?!!

All this talk of low expectation and higher achievement is just another way of setting us England fans up for a mighty fall. We will find it tough to get out of the group and if we do, it only gets tougher from there.

On the Ferdinand issue, I'm afraid Hodgson had "Sophie's choice" and once he went for Terry, there was (and is) no turning back. But Ferdinand can feel dissappointed that he is the innocent party and has been well and truly dumped on!

Germany to win for me and Sweinsteiger to score the winning penalty!

Ill be watching, and ill put my (rented) house on that we perform exactly the same as we have over the past 20 years - dispite going from the "golden generation" to the "not so optimistic being understatement of the year generation"

I take your point Greatness but is it too little too late or closing the door when the horse has bolted, it's going to take a good number of years to find out.

Still, can they be much worse than the last few tournaments!

Apart from the trouble, the home Nations was scrapped because England and Scotland wanted time to play "better" teams, maybe it's time to resurrect it and give one home Nation team the chance of winning something!!

I'll be watching as ever, though I don't think we'll make it out of our group. This was a poor England side before all the injuries we've suffered - it's now a very poor one. The one thing about Euro 2008 was that it was nice just being able to appreciate the football (particularly from Spain) without all the suffering England inflict on us.

As for our chances, people have been saying the Ukraine game will be key but I think the Sweden one's more important. We'll almost certainly be beaten by a vastly superior French side and we may need to win both of the other games to qualify. Without Rooney for the Sweden game I think we'll really struggle to beat them to be honest and that might be curtains before we even get to play the hosts.

Holland are my pick for winners - they're looking really good. Spain, Germany and France are all in with a really good shout too though.