It takes no big brain to realize that the Netherlands have become the strongest team in the Euro 2008 by far, remembering somehow to the 70’s Clockwork Orange –for those who have ever seen a video of that old team. The orange team has become a precision machine, and as I said before, an extremely quick and precise football machine. Taking the most out of any simple attack situation and holding up with a strong defense that has Van der Sar as a great security, the Dutch team already took the position of main candidate for this edition of the main European tournament.

The strength lives in each of the players, both in the main eleven and in those coming from the bench (Van Persie and Robben for instance), all of them carrying out their responsibilities with great precision and even taking other surprising roles in the game –Who would have EVER expected Boulahrouz appearing in offense so constant with a 2-0 advantage?
Lucky and with a few favors received from the referees, this young but still strong team has shown what in Argentina we call “The Champions Luck”, which is nothing more than being effective at every line in the team, even in the own goal. Luck they call it. But it’s not at all. France didn’t have much of bad luck but lacked in precision, and football is about winning, not deserving it.

With the ‘Death Group’ still open for the Rumania, Italy –thank Buffon- and France, the weakest team of these three has the best two teams in the last World Cup under its shoe, though still hoping for Van Basten to give a rest to his main eleven to have a real chance of advancing to the quarter finals. Italy and France will have to show tomorrow, for the first time in the competition, that they can actually develop an integer game, hoping of course for the Netherlands to give a hand.

The rest of the matches have been, mostly, breathtaking. The definition of Group A with Turkey advancing miraculously, with Nihat carrying the team on his shoulders, was just amazing (NOTE: this kind of matches and the ones left are not recommended for people with any heart condition). The same happened in the previous matches, with the great match Croatia did to defeat Germany. The best Eastern European team has shown a very effective strategic game that, though differing with the rest of the best teams in this Euro, has given amazing results to the team coached by Slaven Bilic. Many other matches showed what most of us were expecting, with almost every team taking big risks, forced by the qualification mathematics. As a result, thrilling games and a very exciting row of matches is to come, with the possible elimination of very serious candidates.

The first but less likely surprise would be the elimination of Germany, which as in almost every international competition, appears with its actual level only when the situation really asks for it. On the other side of the field Austria would be expecting a miracle to put it in the quarterfinal, 30 years after their victory over Germany in the World Cup ’78 in Argentina. Today we’ll know who advances with Croatia to the second round.

The other matches coming are also intriguing for they all define the road of many big teams as Sweden, France and Italy. Anyway, and to finish, there is something more than qualifying to the next round that might fly in the heads of coaches and players, and it’s to know who is going to be waiting in the quarterfinals. Almost already defined, Croatia will be facing Turkey and Germany (or the Austrian miracle) will be playing with Portugal. The Netherlands, already assured in the first position in their group, awaits for the winner of the Sweden-Russia match and Spain can face any of the three teams left in the Death Group (any of the three can be a serious threat for the Spanish team).

Time will say what happens, but the strongest teams have been defined and the definition of the first round is almost half gone. With many surprises still to occur, many historical national teams have a big chance to stay in the first round, but still, many of them will probably make honor to their name and show that in football, even in the toughest situations, history is not that simple to defeat.