Match 13 - Italy v Romania / Dan Fitch / 12 June 2008 / Leave a comment

Absolutely typical. You wait around all week for a game that will have more than 2.5 goals and then two come along at once.

What was not typical of course, was the Italians conceding all of the goals when they faced Holland. The normally well organised Italy defence showed about as much unity as an Italian coalition government, as they were torn apart on the break by the Dutch.

To be fair to Italy, I don't actually think they played that bad and still stand a good chance of getting out of the group, having contributed to the best game of the first week.

Romania contributed much to what was arguably the worst game of the first week, but I must say that I gained a perverse sense of enjoyment from their stifling of France.

It put me in mind of the French horror film 'Them', in which a far too attractive and far too happy couple from France, move to a remote Romanian farm house. The couple are terrorised by a group of local ne're-do-wells, who infiltrate their way into the couple's idyll, before... well, murdering them, obviously.

The Romanian's didn't exactly murder France, but they certainly knocked their berets askew. With a little more ambition they could have even pulled off a 1-0 win, but were obviously content with a draw. Probably because they play a Dutch team in their last game, that they had the better of in the qualifiers.

The one thing I guess we can expect from a group of death, is that anyone can beat anyone. But still, hats off to Group C for actually providing a couple of surprises in this tournament.

Generally though, Euro 2008 has played out so entirely as expected, that I've half a mind that it's being scripted by writers from Eastenders. And what's with just two games breaking 2.5 goals from the first round of matches? It almost makes my job redundant (that's if I was actually being employed to give serious analysis on the 2.5 goals market, rather than the reality, which is to act as the betting.betfair resident court jester).

There does seem a decrease in the amount of goals flying in though. In 2004 there were four games in the first week that broke 2.5, whilst Euro 2000 provided five. Only the notoriously boring Euro 96 produced less overs, with just one first week game featuring three or more goals.

That tournament averaged just 1.6 goals per game in the first week and 2.3 goals, overall in the group. Euro 2000 averaged a whopping 3 goals in the first week and 2.7 in the group as a whole. Euro 2004 averaged 2.1 in the first week and 2.7 in all group games.

This tournament has averaged 2 goals per game from the first week and it will be interesting to see how it compares overall. An increasing amount of teams are playing with just a lone man up front and this may take its toll on goal totals.

I'm not convinced about Italy's forward line. Di Natale looked bright, but Toni seems no more effective that he was during the last World Cup and I see Camoranesi as a right sided midfielder, rather than a right sided forward. Italy have plenty of attacking options in their squad such as Del Piero, Quagliarella and Cassano. It's my hunch that they may need to shuffle their personnel and perhaps someone will break through and make an impact, like Rossi and Schillaci have done in the past.

Daniel Niculae had a fine game for Romania last week, but was too isolated to ever look like scoring. Niculae has just 5 goals from his 23 appearances and will need Mutu (28 goals from 62 games) to get closer to him if Romania are to have any intention to play for anything other than a 0-0.

I'm not convinced they will. If Holland could beat France, than a 0-0 against Italy would see Romania going into the last game, still bang in contention to progress. Should Holland have already qualified, then they could be forgiven for giving a few squad players a run out, making Romania's task more attainable.

Therefore I just can't see past the unders at [1.55], with over 2.5 goals at [2.8].

Tags: Del Piero, Euro 2008 betting, Euro 2008 odds, Italy, Romania