Mesut Özil believes England are among the favourites for the Euro 2016 Championship this summer, and suggests that this year’s tournament is going to be incredibly open, as reported by The Evening Standard.
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Germany are unquestionably one of the real favourites to lift the cup, with the World Cup holders looking incredibly strong once again. England have been looking good too recently, but we all know what their history is like at major competitions.
Özil believes that despite their past failings England are still a team to be feared, and insists that he isn’t just giving the diplomatic answer when he says they are genuine contenders. The only Arsenal player in the squad is Jack Wilshere, but Özil clearly feels he could potentially lift the trophy.
“More than that is hard to say — it is difficult to speak about who will win because the tournament is very open,” he said.
“But, for me, they are one of the favourites for the title — and that’s not just a diplomatic answer!”
This was all said before England kicked their Euro campaign off with a draw against Russia, so would Özil’s opinion change after seeing that display?
In all honesty England actually played pretty well, and they were very unlucky not to get all three points against an average Russian side. That said though, it’s something we’ve seen from England all too often, flattering to deceive and not getting those all important victories.
As we’ve seen regularly with Arsenal, there’s no point in dominating a game if you can’t turn your domination into goals, and a good performance is only really a good performance if you get the win – especially on the tournament stage.
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While this does look like a more solid England team than we’ve seen in a while, it’s hard to see them competing against the likes of Germany, Spain, and France this summer.