Euro 2024 Daily | Germany v Scotland: who will be left thunderstruck?
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Write off the Germans. They say you should never do it, but we just have because today Euro 2024 Daily is channeling its inner William Wallace and is – for one day only – happy to do so. In the run-up to Friday’s eagerly awaited curtain-raiser between the hosts and Steve Clarke’s travelling Tartan Army, you find us buzzing on Buckie and basking in the sense of enormous wellbeing generated by the sight and screeching sounds of that bevvied-up pipe and drum band who went viral courtesy of their march on Munich’s Marienplatz from Odeonsplatz on Thursday. OK, so they may not have been as viewed as often as that tired and emotional lone bagpiper who went bahoochie-over-brogues off the edge of a München restaurant booth without so much as missing a note as he crashed down, but if the team can maintain similar composure in the face of extreme adversity, who’s to say they won’t get a result?
Watching from the other side of the Atlantic, I am always fascinated how England enter every major tournament with an enthusiastic: ‘It’s coming home!’ Even though it is quite clear that football has read Thomas Wolfe and knows that it can’t go home again” – Pat Condreay.
I don’t understand why Steve Malone is down about Wales failing to qualify for the Euros (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). I was quite persuaded by your analysis that none of the participants will hoist the trophy. So, a la Denmark in 1992, wouldn’t the organisers look to the last eliminated, non-qualifying nation to step up? Yup, Wales to win by default (maybe jointly with fellow playoff losers Iceland and Greece). Be proud, lads” – Mike Wilner.
I’m guessing Djinkin’ Djibril Cissé couldn’t bag himself any punditry work for the Euros. This would explain why he’s doing a DJ set at a trendy nightspot near me in Poitiers on the night of the first round-of-16 fixtures” – Ian France.
So the animal prediction business has started already – an orangutan struggling to definitively choose between Germany and Scotland (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition). The trouble with these things is that the choices are too limited: rather than just two bowls of food or whatever, there should be 24, weighted according to the probability of success. So France, at betting odds of 4-1, get a quarter-size bowl, while Albania at 500-1 get, er, one 500th of a bowl. Unfortunately that will make some bowls rather too small to see; we’ll need something with good eyesight – say, an osprey, or a bald eagle? The orangutan can be shifted on to UK general election duties, which looks somewhat easier to predict” – Charles Antaki.
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