10 questions I have after Euro 2016...

1. Has the Ronaldo / Messi debate been put to bed? They've traded La Liga titles and Ballond'Ors but now Ronaldo has an International tournament win to Messi's Olympic gold medal.

2. What next for Italy now that Antonio Conte has left for Chelsea? This maybe the weakest generation of Italian players in the history of forever and Conte had them playing like world beaters in a tight system. Can the next manager keep them anywhere near this level of play let alone better it?

3.Whats eating Paul Pogba? After his amazing domestic season viewers and fans were queueing up to see Paul Pogba dominate this final, but it didn't happen...

4. Where will Robson-Kanu be playing next season? He let his contract at Reading wind down, he scored the goal of tournament, is that enough to get a new club interested in him?

5. Will England continue fooling themselves into thinking Wayne Rooney is a world class midfielder? All through the tournament England had many faults but the worst was this joke of an experiment in midfield, surely they wont persist with it for another tournament?

6. Is Will Grigg still on fire?

7. Have Belgium morphed into Holland? Belgium, full of skillful players like Kevin De Bruyne, Jan Vertonghen and Eden Hazard but played like strangers and full of infighting rumours. Do we become our worst enemies?

8. What next for the underdogs? Iceland getting to the knockout stage, Wales to the semi finals and Hungary taking the lead against Portugal three times - it was a tournament for underdogs but attention turns to the World Cup qualifiers and with less places up for grabs will they even qualify let alone bring the tournament to life again?

9. Where next for Antoine Griezmann? The winner of the golden hoof/boot/slingback and after a magnificent two years for Aletico Madrid, surely the worlds his oyster?

10. Is finishing runners up enough to bring the people of France together? Bombings, murders we all know what happened in France and this tournament was seen as the ideal opportunity to bring the countries people back together. Ladies and gentle readers it is the firm hope of this blogger that it was enough.

Tips for Euro 2016

Good evening ladies and gentle readers, on the eve of Euro 2016 its time for my irregular betting and trading tips for Euro 2016! And without further ado...

Starting off big, outright lay of France to win the thing @ 4.5

We've all seen it before, being the home nation artificially shortens a countries price. You will never convince me in a decade of Sundays that France are a 4.4 shot. Outright lay and I will say this now France wont win Euro 2016.

Group B winner a back of England @ 1.85

Heresy I hear you say, how can you tip the noisy neighbours from over the bridge? But hear me out! Look at the price! Look at the qualifying form! Look at the opposition! You will never get a price this good on a team in this situation.

Lay of Turkey to finish top 2 in Group D @ 3.05

A small lay as I favour Czech Republic or Croatia to qualify alongside Germany.

Lay of Sweden to finish bottom of Group E @ 2.90

I think Group D is the group of death that will see Rep Ire wiped out as the rest battle for the top spot.

Albania V Switzerland back over 2.5 goals @ 2.78

Turkey V Croatia lay under 5 booking points.

and thats it for the moment, I hope to see you on the other side with a slightly swollen purse.

The Euro 2016 Draw

So ladies and gentle readers the draw for Euro 2016 has finally taken place and for the first time in what feels like a life time Wales were in it. Going into it I was dreaming of the glamour teams and a group involving the likes of Spain, Germany, Italy, Croatia and Sweden. I wanted a proper group full of mouth watering fixtures and slowly one by one the teams were drawn;

Up first we had the noisy neighbours next door, Woy Hodgsons boring army. The only top ranked team I didn't want as they usually stink up the tournaments with boring matches over the last few tournaments. Plus the media and fleet street regulars will be ignoring the Welsh point of view and covering the match from England's point of view with a 'Battle of Britain' mantra nobody cares about.

Please pretend there something witty written here - I have no Slovakia material.

Up last we had Russia, now its getting juicy, if I could take you back a decade dear reader, the closest Wales have ever got to the Euros before was Euro 2004 where we finished second in our group to Italy, cue highlights of the classic Wales 2 Italy 1 match;

We were drawn against Russia in the playoffs and after a hard thought 0-0 in Moscow they scored from a badly conceded free kick at Cardiff to knock us out. A proper grudge match here and the standout fixture of the group.

Well my thoughts are that its a disappointing unsexy group but we've got a decent chance of second place, the countdown to summer 2016 starts now...

Wales Qualify for Euro 2016!

Ladies and gentle readers last night for the first time in my lifetime the Wales football team has qualified for a tournament. Over the years we've come close a few times and other times never been in the chase. Only in the last qualifying campaign we finished second bottom of our qualifying group only ahead of Macedonia. In fact over the last decade its been campaign after campaign of building and we now have a team made up of Wayne Hennessey, Chris Gunter, Ashley Williams, Ben Davies, Jazz Richards, Joe Allen, Joe Ledley, Aaron Ramsey and Gareth Bales AND WE FINALLY DID IT!

Last time we even came close was a decade ago when the likes of Captain Fantastic Gary Speed, John Hartson, Simon Davies, Craig Bellamy, Simon Davies and Robbie Savage came second to Italy and we lost a playoff to Russia by a goal. A crazy campaign where we beat Italy with Simon Davies and Hartson coming third and fourth in the goal scoring table to Inzaghi and Del Piero. Sadly we faded after the first four games and it didn't happen.

Before that it was another decade before we came close with the legendary Terry Yoraths team of Ian Rush, Mark Hughes, Dean Saunders, Neville Southhall and Ryan Giggs fell at the final hurdle against Romania. Sadly no matter how many times I rewatched Paul Bodins penalty over the years it refuses to go in.

Recently there have been glimpses of what could be and reasons to keep the faith, be it Wales 2-1 win over Montenergro or a hard fought 1-0 loss to Germany. Finally we've put a string of results together and reached the promise land of Euro 2016 in France. Meaning for the first time this blogger wont be pulling names out of a hat to decide who to support.