On one side, you have the likes of Portugal, the Dutch or Spain, a bunch of daring young artists delighting football romantics with their wizardry. On the other side are the usual suspects, Italy and France, ageing cynics boring everybody with their cast-iron back fours and tireless holding midfielders.

Of course, the poets beating the bad guys at the end would be excellent news to the lovers of the beautiful game.

But wait a minute. Isn’t football about winning? That means you have to score one more goal than your opponents, so one’s enough providing you don’t concede any. A rock solid defence, then, is a good way to start.

And what’s wrong with merciless winning machines not allowing their opponents an inch of space and then relentlessly marching forward to get the goal they need? What’s wrong with the thrilling Euro 2000 final between France and Italy or the awe-inspiring AC Milan side of the early 1990s?

Can’t we have a soft spot for warriors compensating limited skills with total dedication to their duty, the team and the playing system? Do a google search and take a look at Didier Deschamps’s record, to name just one famous example.

Cristiano Ronaldo is all very fine but without a Chelsea-flavoured defence keeping shop at the back for Portugal, would he be able to show off his skills?

Football is a team sport and shouldn’t be just about individuals, however brilliant. There is room for different approaches and all are respectable as long as they win matches.

Football doesn’t have to be total, it just needs to be football.

Patrick Vignal, with the French team in Vevey

PHOTO: Cristiano Ronaldo stands on the pitch after the Group A game between Portugal and Czech Republic at Stade de Geneve in Geneva, June 11, 2008. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

The Bundesliga gets a bad rap at times. German clubs have for the most part failed to reach the latter stages of the Champions League in recent years, matches can sometimes seem to move in slow-motion and the officiating can be uneven or even downright scandalous (see Hoyzer, Robert).

But despite all that, Bundesliga players have been sparkling in Euro 2008. And with players from the German league on 15 of the 16 teams no league is more widely represented.
 
There have been players from the German domestic league in the starting line-ups of almost all the teams that have played of the tournament. Only Spain have no Bundesliga players in their squad.

And many are making a mark — from Franck Ribery of France to the Netherlands’ Rafael van der Vaart and Croatia’s Josip Simunic. Even the first goal of the tournament was scored by a player who cut his teeth in the Bundesliga — Vaclav Sverkos of the Czech Republic, who spent 2003 to 2007 at Borussia Moenchengladbach and Hertha Berlin.

After watching so many Bundesliga players popping up in post-match TV interviews and speaking their lightly accented German, I had a hunch the Bundesliga was probably the most represented of all domestic leagues at the Euro. And so it is, at least according to the Bundesliga’s website, which says there are 65 players on 15 teams at the Euro, comfortably beating the Premier League (44), the Primera Liga (43) and Serie A (38).
 
Here are a few possible explanations why:
 
German clubs — lacking the deep pockets of their rivals in England, Spain and Italy — have long been especially open to young (i.e. inexpensive) talent from Eastern European and Southeastern European countries, where bargains can be found. Secondly, Germany has large groups of immigrants from many countries in Eastern and Southeastern Europe and some of the best players for Turkey, Croatia and Greece, for example, grew up in ethnic communities in Germany and play in the Bundesliga.
 
Another factor contributing to the international feeling of the Bundesliga is that some clubs in the heart of Europe seem to go out of their way to bring together a nucleus of internationals from one country or another. Bayern Munich have their French connection in Ribery and Willy Sagnol. Hamburg SV have a Netherlands trio — Van der Vaart, Nigel de Jong and Joris Mathijsen. Nuremberg are filled with players from the neighbouring Czech Republic and Eintracht Frankfurt have a big Greece contingent in Sotiris Kyrgiakos, Ioannis Amanatidis, and Fanis Gekas.

Please go ahead and keep sniggering about the Bundesliga. But you have to admit — Bundesliga players are ueber alles. Aren’t they?

PHOTO: Franck Ribery sits on the pitch during France’s Group C match against Romania at the Letzigrund Stadium in Zurich, June 9, 2008. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

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.

And yes, you can come back and gloat when all our predictions turn out to be spectacularly wrong.

Kevin Fylan, Ascona

The Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia are all among the favourites for a place in the finals in South Africa in two years’ time but find themselves scampering for a coach with their opening group qualifiers four weekends away.

Media reports say the Ivorians are talking to Jean Tigana, the former France international whose origins are African but has never worked on the continent before.

Last month the Ivorian Football Federation decided they would no longer need the services of the German Uli Stielike, even though he had helped them through an unbeaten, and frankly impressive, run in the qualifiers for the 2008 African Nations Cup finals in Ghana.

Tigana, 52, last worked at Besiktas more than a year ago but has been linked with a number of jobs since. Born in Mali, Tigana’s managerial career has also taken him to Fulham in England and to a championship winning spell with Monaco in Ligue 1.

Once appointed he would have just a few weeks to prepare for the opening qualifier against Mozambique in Abidjan on June 1, on paper an easy-looking tie but in reality a potential banana skin for the highly-fancied Elephants.

Tunisia were due to name Jacques Santini as their new coach earlier this week but that has been put on hold because of a sticking point over who is going to pay his tax bill once ensconced in the job.

Newspaper reports on Monday said the Tunisian Football Federation has twice met Santini in Paris but the proposed contract had still to be signed.

As time runs out before Tunisia open their qualifying campaign at home to Burkina Faso on June 1, Santini’s appointment could be delayed as his agents and Tunisian officials quibble over 5,000 euros a month the coach wants to help pay his tax bill.

Santini is to receive a basic salary of 33, 000 euros a month, as well as housing and transport allowances and frequent free flights back to France, according to the state-run La Presse newspaper.

He is set to replace another Frenchman Roger Lemerre. The Tunisian Football Federation had first sought to replace him with the Etoile Sahel coach Bertrand Marchand but their negotiations broke down over his contract.

Morocco have twice postponed a planned announcement of the successor to Frenchman Henri Michel, who was fired after their first round exit at the Nations Cup finals in Ghana in January.

In March they were due to choose between six local coaches but cancelled a planned news conference. Last Thursday they again called off the previously-scheduled unveiling of the coach and have still to shed any light on who will take charge of their first World Cup qualifier against Ethiopia in Casablanca on May 31.

Lemerre, who has just ended a six-year spell in Tunisia, is the hot favourite with Morocco’s press reporting numerous flights in and out of Casablanca’s Mohamed V airport in recent weeks.

Senegal, who have a tough opener against Algeria in Dakar on May 31, have just received FIFA’s permission to overhaul the leadership of their football federation and would presumably seek to get those structures sorted out first before looking to employ a new high profile coach.

Henryk Kasperczak, the former Polish World Cup campaigner, quit during the Nations Cup finals in Ghana and his assistant Lamine Ndiaye took charge of the last match in the tournament against South Africa. But there is no word on who leads the Lions of Teranga later this month.

Mark Gleeson covers African football for Reuters

PHOTO: Former Besiktas coach Jean Tigana wearing a T-shirt with the words: “Kids, We believed. We won the Cup for You” after his team won the Turkish Cup in Izmir May 3, 2006. REUTERS/Fatih Saribas

Paris in the early spring - perfect for a few days’ break, and as long as you are not drowning in credit crunch debt, it is still the most wonderful city to go shopping for the latest fashions.

“You’d like a cap to go with that Armani suit, monsieur? Certainly, I have just the thing. These caps have not gone out of fashion since 1872 … suits you perfectly.”

Of course David Beckham does not have to go shopping for his latest England cap, he will be awarded it in the time honoured fashion of a special delivery from the headquarters of the Football Association.

I think it’s rather fantastic that in this age of the iPod, Xbox and Blackberry, England players still get a cap for playing for their country, just as they have done since the very first international against Scotland in 1872.

The FA tells me the same company that made the caps then still makes them today — but here’s something not too many people know.

David Beckham’s appearance against France means he will have played for England 100 times, making him only the fifth English player to do that, but he will be awarded just his 85th cap.

Players are awarded one cap for every match they play — unless they play in a World Cup or European Championship finals tournament. Then they are given just ONE cap to cover all the matches they play in that competition — with the names of all their opponents stitched into the fabric of the cap itself.

Beckham appeared in 20 of England’s 21 matches at the 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Cups and the 2000 and 2004 European championships. One cap was awarded for each of those five tournaments — which actually leaves him 15 short of 100 actual caps. Odd, but true.

Still, he is convinced he can make a valuable contribution for England until the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa as long as England qualify and if he does that he could also be in view of Peter Shilton’s record of 125 appearances.

Now how many caps did HE actually get…

Mike Collett, Reuters Football Correspondent, Paris

PHOTO: Beckham attends a news conference at the team hotel in Watford, March 24, 2008. REUTERS/ Eddie Keogh