Flying elbows, mass punch-ups, mouthy players, shirt-tuggers and divers will be the main focus for referees when Euro 2008 kicks off in June.

UEFA handed a six-point list of instructions on Thursday to the 12 referees officiating at the tournament in Switzerland and Austria.

Referees will crack down on players who hold or push opponents during free kicks or corners. Mass confrontations between players will be dealt with by issuing a yellow card to at least one player from each team. When it comes to dissent, officials have been told they can accept “a spontaneous expression of frustration from players” but anything more than that will warrant a sanction.

UEFA will also use video evidence to punish divers and cheats who succeed in fooling the referee at Euro 2008, having trialled the idea in the Champions League.

The emphasis on shirt-tugging and the use of elbows also follows a crackdown in the Champions League, so UEFA argues the players have been warned.

At Thursday’s get-together in Zurich the match officials said they were ready to strictly apply the guidelines. Asked if he was prepared to award a penalty for a shirt tug in the first five minutes of the tournament’s opening match, one referee said he would be quite happy to award five penalties if necessary.

Is UEFA right in calling for greater respect for and stricter adherence to the rules or will a flurry of red cards and penalties ruin the tournament? Would you rather see a crackdown in other areas such as time-wasting?

If Wednesday’s friendlies involving the 16 Euro 2008 finalists are anything to go by, the June event should be a real treat for the fans, with plenty of goals, near-misses and desperate defending, and the chance of a few shocks too.

Written off by most pundits as little more than a punching bag, the Austrians showed in the first 30 minutes of their astonishing 4-3 defeat to the Netherlands that they might be a tough nut to crack playing at home after all.

A fierce Austrian onslaught coupled with a comedy of errors at the back by the Dutch, never really known for their defensive strength, gave the co-hosts a 3-0 lead before the “Oranje” turned the match on its head.

Poland’s Dutch coach Leo Beenhakker tipped his team to be the Euro 2008 surprise package after their impressive qualifying campaign but the 3-0 defeat by the United States suggests they might end up as mere also-rans.

Poor defending from set-pieces did not cost the Poles on the road to Euro 2008 as they were able to outscore their opponents most of the time but it could undo them at the next level.

Germany made it clear they are rightly one of the tournament favourites with a 4-0 drubbing of Switzerland, the other co-hosts, with Miroslav Klose taking his international tally to 38 goals in 73 matches.

An understrength France will certainly take heart from a 1-0 win over England as will Spain after beating world champions Italy by the same score thanks to a spectacular David Villa volley.

Anyone prepared to write off defending champions Greece may want to reconsider after their 2-1 victory over Portugal in a repeat of the Euro 2004 final. It was Greece’s third consecutive win over a team widely regarded as one of the world’s most talented outfits.

Romania’s 3-0 rout of eastern European rivals Russia and their effervescent performance suggests they have a fighting chance of surviving the “Group of Death.”

Croatia’s famous 3-2 win over England fuelled high hopes of glory among the country’s fans and media but Eduardo’s horrible injury and last month’s 3-0 defeat to the Dutch instilled more modest expectations of reaching the last eight.

England’s conquerors were not impressive in Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with Scotland at Hampden Park and their current form suggests they will do well to progress to the quarter-finals.

As ever, there are at least half a dozen heavyweights and it seems inevitable that one of them will be crowned European champions on June 29… unless someone can do a Greece. Give us your thoughts on that in the comments.

PHOTO: Klaas Jan Huntelaar (L) scores for the Dutch against Austria in Vienna, March 26, 2008. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

The great 1970s TV programme ‘Fawlty Towers’ left its mark by being voted Britain’s fifth best sitcom in 2004, and the way Fernando Torres is going he’s bound to leave an indelible print on English football.

‘Fawlty Towers’ only lasted four years, in which a mere 12 episodes were shot. No doubt Liverpool will want the 24-year-old Torres to stick around a little longer, even if he didn’t sparkle at the weekend against Manchester United.

But this is international week, and it’s a good time to consider whether Torres might be the man to lead Spain to long-overdue success at Euro 2008.

As Simon Baskett writes in his preview, Wednesday’s friendly against Italy is the perfect time for Torres to show his country how far he has come since leaving Atletico Madrid for Liverpool last summer.

As a 17-year-old, Torres became the youngest player to take the field in an Atletico shirt, and two years later he became the youngest player to captain the side. As if this wasn’t enough, that season (2003-4) he also made his international debut.

His first year in the Spanish top flight yielded 13 goals from 29 appearances which was an impressive return for an 18/19-year-old, but since then he has added a lot more to his game.

I’m thinking mainly about his willingness to get stuck in, just one of the many hurdles for foreign players to overcome if they want to succeed in the Premiership.

Back in September Torres was having lumps kicked out of him by Reading’s Andre Bikey during a league cup match but responded with a hat-trick rather than a sulk.

Then there are the goals – 27 of them this season.

Greece’s victory in the last European Championship continued a trend that has seen the last four titles going to the team with the greatest collective understanding.

That is in stark contrast to the two previous tournaments - events that are remembered for the genius of Platini in 1984 and the combination of Van Basten and Gullitt in 1988.

So, will this year’s European championships be won by a ‘whole’ team or a squad containing a few talismanic individuals? And with Torres, Fabregas et al, can Spain now claim to stand in the latter camp?

PHOTO: Torres falls to the ground after a tackle by France’s Lilian Thuram during a friendly in Malaga, February 6, 2008. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo

Spain’s likely performance at Euro 2008 remains an enigma but one thing that can be guaranteed is that Luis Aragones will step down as coach at the end of the tournament.

The grand old man of Spanish football has made it clear that he will be going at the end of June, a month before his 70th birthday, and after four turbulent years at the helm there will many who will be heaving a sigh of relief.

The atmosphere in Spanish football is tense enough without having a figure like Aragones as its most high-profile international representative. From the moment he took charge after the last European Championship, he has never been far away from controversy. From his derogatory comments about Thierry Henry, to his intermittent threats to quit, his decision to exclude Raul or his tendency to fly off the handle during news conferences, Aragones has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Brusque, outspoken and at times inadvertently comic, Aragones comes from the same mould as two recent predecessors Jose Antonio Camacho and Javier Clemente. But the word is that after his departure, the Federation will appoint former Real Madrid coach Vicente del Bosque.

While Aragones resembles a bad-tempered, somewhat eccentric grandfather, Del Bosque is like a kindly uncle, a model of diplomacy, politeness and sportsmanship.

The moustachioed 57-year-old also oversaw his former club during their most successful period since the late 1950s. In a little over three years, he steered his team to two Champions Leagues, two league titles, the World Club Cup, the European Super Cup and the Spanish Super Cup.

Florentino Perez’s decision to discard Del Bosque the day after the team won the league title in 2003 and a week after they signed David Beckham is widely seen as one of the prime reasons for the galactico meltdown that followed. Whereas Del Bosque managed to control a dressing room packed full of the biggest egos in the game with disarming ease, a string of successors were driven to distraction by the challenge. And the club did not win another trophy until Fabio Capello arrived on the scene four years later.

Del Bosque does, of course, have his critics. Perez said his methods were too old-fashioned and hinted that his dry, deadpan delivery and stoical Castilian image did not fit into his plans to develop the club’s global image. His only subsequent coaching job at Besiktas ended in failure and he has displayed little enthusiasm to renew his career at a club.

On the other hand you will never hear a bad word said against Del Bosque by any of his former players or colleagues and he is widely respected in the game. The Spanish Federation’s sporting director Fernando Hierro, who was purged from Real at the same time as Del Bosque, is reported to be the driving force behind the decision to appoint him.

Could Del Bosque’s safe pair of hands be just what Spain now needs?

PHOTO: Del Bosque parades the European Cup back in Madrid after Real’s final victory over Bayer Leverkusen in 2002. REUTERS/Sergio Perez