Euro Mills & Boom: England spirit is key

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Hi everyone, Danny here checking in from Poland. You can hear my thoughts on Euro 2012 every morning on Sky Sports News Radio.

Have a read and leave a Comment below.

Germany show their quality

It was quite an interesting game [v Greece]. The fact that the Germans made changes up front made them look a bit complacent in the first half. The tempo of the game was a little bit slow but when the Greeks equalised they stepped up a gear and you realised then that they have some real quality in their side.

The Germans controlled it without having to try too hard and if England do manage to beat the Italians, I think the Germans will step it up and, on paper, will be too strong for England.

Spain too good for France

The French are always a bit like the Dutch in that they’re only a moment away from imploding, but I think they are a good side.

I think the Spanish will be slightly happier playing France rather than England, which would have been a real tactical, dogged affair, so they can go and play their normal game.

Spain haven’t been great so far, they’re a team that has just been doing enough, but they do have real quality. I think they’ll have too much for France and will be comfortable winners.

Rio right to praise England spirit

You always get cliques in the dressing room because players gravitate towards their friends.

Back when Rio [Ferdinand] was in the squad and I was there players didn’t move around as much. It wasn’t such a diverse England squad, there were Man United players, Liverpool players and Leeds players and these are your friends, these are the guys that you saw week in and week out and that you had something in common with. But I don’t think it was a massive issue then.

The team spirit thing is quite an interesting one and is always a lot easier to get when the team is winning and not getting beat.

I think Roy Hodgson deserves a massive amount of praise for what he’s done. The John Terry thing was a real issue before the tournament began, would it work?, would he cause dissension in the ranks?, would the camp be split? – but it hasn’t been like that and Hodgson’s done really well in managing that and results have shown that it’s worked.

So you could say that Roy Hodgson, looking back on football decisions or not, definitely made the right call by taking John Terry.

England’s postitivity paying dividends

In England we love an underdog and I think the fact that the England team were written off, had too many injuries and didn’t have the quality has done them the world of good.

Their attitude has been to go out and prove a few people wrong, and the fact that they’ve shown heart and they’ve shown spirit is really good and I think that’s the most important thing in this team.

England have been labelled in the past, particularly in South Africa, that they didn’t have the passion and weren’t playing for the shirts but they’ve shown that this time and the results are starting to pay off.