Reuters Soccer Blog
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Romania, not such dark horses
Having been drawn alongside Italy, France and the Netherlands in Group C, not many people would have predicted Romania would hold their own destiny and that of the world champions and World Cup finalists in their own hands going into the final group matches.
But my Reuters colleagues at Euro 2008 and friends back in Brussels — who are not laughing at me now – will testify that I was one of the few to tip the eastern Europeans as the dark horses to progress from the toughest group at the tournament.
Victory for Romania over the Netherlands on Tuesday would secure a quarter-final spot for Victor Piturca’s side, no matter what the result is between Italy and France. A draw in both games would also see the Romanians through and there are lots of other permutations, too many to explain here.
Any team that finished above the Dutch in qualification, beating them at home and drawing in Rotterdam, had to be taken seriously. Romania in fact lost just one game en route to Austria and Switzerland. A record any top team would be proud of.
Euro 2008: Our predictions, your predictions
Click on the video above to see just a few of our correspondents here in Austria and Switzerland giving their views on what to expect at Euro 2008.
At the end of the video we give our predictions on who’s going to win and we’d like you to follow suit. Feel free to upload your own video views somewhere (if you send us the link and we like what we see, we’ll showcase it here) or just let us know who you think is going to win in the comments below.
