Euro 2008
2008-06-07 - Switzerland vs Czech Republic
A Sports Betting Pick by chappers
EURO 2008
Basle, June 7 1700 BST
Switzerland (hosts) FIFA Rank 48th
Only the third time that Switzerland have made the Euro Championship's and I guess that if they had not been joint hosts there would be a good chance that they would be having the summer off.
They have only ever played six games in the finals and are yet to pick up a win, also interesting enough they have played England twice, drawing one and losing one. Also with the team being ranked at 48th in the world there is a good chance they this tournament will no be one of the best for them, even if it is in front of their own fans.
The Swiss of course have not played anything other than friendly this season with them being hosts so it will be hard to judge what kind of team they have. They have played three times in 2008 so far and did manage to win last time out near the end of May when they beat Slovakia 2-0 in front of their own fans. Before this saw them lose heavily 4-0 at home to the Germans and England also beat them 2-1 at Wembley.
In 2007 they played mostly at home and to be honest didn’t seem to set the world alight with defeats when they played Nigeria (0-1) and the USA by the same score line. However at the start of the football year in 2007 they did have back-to-back wins against Holland and Chile.
Czech Republic FIFA Rank 6th
The Czech Republic are past winners but that back in 1976 and to be honest they have a decent enough record in the Euro's over the years with them being runners up once back in 96 and also third place twice and even last time out in 2004 they got to the semi finals and were beaten by the winners Greece.
2008 has not been all that nice to them in regards to results with not win recorded in the two games they have played, Drawing away at Denmark and losing away to Poland, but they did win the group overhauling the Germans with a great back to back run of six wins which also included a 3-0 home win over the Germans.
Verdict
First game of any tournament are always hard to predict and over the years you will quite often see a bit of an upset, and this could well be one of those cases and with the host nation being involved it could be even more so.
However I'm backing the Czech Republic to make it out of this group and they will make on massive step with three points in this game and despite it being a home game for Switzerland and the opening game of the tournament I think that the Czech Republic will be just too strong and win this game.
It won't be easy but a close game with the Czech's coming away with the three points for me.
The Pick :
Czech Republic to win this game
