[ainsworth_21]

had my eye on this bet for a while, before the games in the group started, and i hope it unfolds like i imagined.

I fully expected spain to beat russia (well hoped dearly), and a win in the other match for either sweden or greece. that happened and so i'm tipping [B]Russia to qualify @ 2/1[/B] Stanjames.

The scenario that needs to unfold now for this bet to come off is that spain needs to beat or even draw with sweden. Hopefully by a big margin, but a draw would still be ok. Russia needs ideally to beat greece, and im pretty confident of this. now for the reasoning....

Firstly Greece were terrible in my opinion, and all talk of them as 'defending champions' was overhyped; from what i saw they couldn't defend at all save from passing it persistantly on the half way line between centre backs. Sweden i thought were ok, good effort by them but they've lost wilhelmsson, who i thought was one of the stand outs, and also alexandersson who wasn't bad either. Basically i think spain should be able to beat them.

I think Russia were beaten by a very good side in Spain, and they were very poor at the back but to beat greece i think they have enough attacking prowess to see of the greeks.

[I]If[/I] this goes to plan, then it leaves potentially a sweden- russia play-off for the 2nd qualificaion spot. The prospect here is that arshavin will be back for russia, and they will be much stronger with him, he will inject a lot of confidence into the attack and resume his role as a v. good playmaker. Really the only thing that i think might spoil this bet is the 4 goals conceeded by russia in the first match. this could be a big factor meaning the pressure could be on for russia to beat sweden and not draw, but i'm willing to risk it.

a lot of hypotheticals maybe, but well in the realm of possibility i think. Cheers.