Euro 2008 Qualifiers: Better luck next time, England

So we are all set and ready for next year's Euro championship in Switzerland and Austria and England won't be there to play in the finals. They had their chance to make it, a chance they actually didn't deserve after they blew the whole thing against Russia. They had to thank Israel to get them back into the race and all England had to do was to get a draw against Croatia. And what did they do? They lost. They were trailing 0-2 after only 14 minutes, they got back into the game after a strange penalty call and a goal by Crouch and then there was Mladen Petric who delivered the final blow 13 minutes from time.
Frankly I don't see this as a surprise. England have been playing horrible over the past few years, their World Cup campaign was doomed from their first match and although they have such an amount of talented players (no goalkeepers though) they never lookede like a team with potential. It's a pity that there won't be any English supporters cheering for their team at the Euro 2008. When I was watching the England vs Sweden match with 30.000 fanatics at a site in Cologne last summer I was glad those crazy people came over and created such a great atmosphere. But, to be honest, if the team plays so bad it can't be helped. It's a pity that Scotland didn't make it. That would have been a pleasant surprise.

So here we are and those are the teams that will face each other next year

Poland
Portugal
Italy
France
Greece
Turkey
Czech Republic
Germany
Croatia
Russia
Spain
Sweden
Romania
The Netherlands
Austria
Switzerland

No real surprises and upsets there. Poland are a fresh face, but they played really well. It's also good to see Greece trying to defend their title. Russia seem to have gotten over their recent drought and only Austria look like they will be the first to go home. Luckily for them they won't have to make a long trip, hehe.