Aragones: Italy and France are Euro 2008 Favourites

Spain coach Luis Aragones isn’t a professional bookie. But if he was, he’d be slashing the odds on France and Italy winning Euro 2008. He said today that those two were his picks for the tournament, and not his own team.

Not exactly jaw-dropping stuff I know. Italy and France are the 2006 World Cup finalists, so why shouldn’t they be favourites? Well, the David Healy inspired loss to Northern Ireland aside, Spain put in a very solid showing in Euro 2008 qualification and topped the group. They even beat France back in February, but Aragones still isn’t convinced.

“The favourites are still the same, Italy and France, but Spain cannot be called a favourite,” he said. “Spain haven’t done anything big, but we are a team that can beat anybody when we are playing at 100 per cent of our potential, but that can lose against anybody as well. Our year has been great and we can hope it will continue on the same way. The teams are so close that if you do wrong one day you are already out of every competition.”

And that right there is exactly why tournament football is so exciting.

Aragones’ team plays Italy tomorrow (LiveBlog here) but even a win over the Azzurri probably won’t change the old fella’s mind. Most likely he’s just trying to take the pressure off his own players. Plus it’s difficult for a team to be favourites for a competition when there’s still a chance they won’t even be there.