As always we'll start this now the groups are drawn so we can have a bit of pre-tournament talk and predictions (over to you Stavros ).

Group B looks very tasty.

Group A
Poland
Greece
Russia
Czech Republic

Group B
The Netherlands
Denmark
Germany
Portugal

Group C
Spain
Italy
The Republic of Ireland
Croatia

Group D
Ukraine
Sweden
France
England

Group A looks very boring. Generally speaking, though, it looks as good as always. I love this tournament.

i like this, i think all the groups have potential for greatness / upsets.

Germany are still favourites for me in this tournament though. I love watching them atm, they have so many great young players and really have the potential to dominate the 2010s as much as they did the 1970s.

Yeah, the german youth level on and not on that team is nuts. Players like Reus, Gross, and Goetze might not ever play a minute in the tournament for them and they're still a beast.

Group A is boring, but im hoping the Czechs can come out of there.
Group B is nuts. Netherlands Portugal and Germany? Sorry Denmark. I dont think you get through this one.
Group C is sadly obvious who gets through. Spain go through fast, italy slower as usual.
Group D = panic for me cause i can see us losing to sweden or England. UGH!

Definite potential for England to go out in the group stage, especially with no Rooney.

If it was the usual France side I'd agree with Georgi, but it seems France are even bigger bottlejobs than England atm.

Blanc has improved them since the Domenech days though. I think England in a way might have benefited from drawing the Spain group - now they have expectation, and we know how English players deal with that usually.

I don't think that's a problem though, Georgi. I mean England generally do beat weaker sides than them, it's when they come against bigger or similar sides they do poorly.

England do have a good record of getting through the group stages and have only ever been knocked out in the knock-out stages of tournaments by Germany, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay (back when Uruguay were real giants, not that they haven't had a good side in recent years as well).

Just seen the draw having just come in. Netherlands v Germany, Spain v Italy, England v France all in the groups is exciting stuff. That's the good thing about the Euros is that the bigger football nations meet each other earlier.

I think England can be fairly content with their group, although the other teams in it would have preferred England to drawing Germany and probably Italy as well, so it works both ways.

France has crashed embarrassingly at 2 straight major tournaments now. Surely it's time for them to do something?

Group A: In many ways I think this may be the most entertaining group. Four evenly matched teams who will surely be looking to win their games against each other. Really hard to call. (1. Russia, 2. Poland)

Group B: Possibly this year's Group of Death but I'd still expect Germany and the Netherlands to go through. Denmark are a really solid team but perhaps don't have the attacking quality the other teams do and Portugal are pretty poor defensively (they conceded 4 goals to Cyprus in qualifying if I remember correctly?) (1. Germany, 2. Netherlands)

Group C: Can't see anything but Spain and Italy to Qualify. Ireland are very hard to break down and Croatia have a bit of flair to maybe cause and upset though. (1. Spain, 2. Italy)

Group D: I reckon this could be the most boring group. England and France have hardly set the world alight in recent years although France have improved under Blanc. Sweden were woeful when they came to Wembley last month and Ukraine are pretty poor too although they do have the incentive of home advantage. (1. France, 2. England)

England's Euro group record is quite poor though, not like a World Cup group where you get one, maybe even two, quite easy games. 1980, 1988, 1992, 2000 - all groups England didn't get out of.

Shall i do a crazy prediction thingamajig again?

My predictions are just the same as the rest of you guys's really

Getting quite excited over the tournament now. Got some bets on to add a little bit more interest but not sure what coverage I will get as i'm offshore in Kazakhstan and don't get home until 29th June. Nevertheless it should be fun