Betting.Betfair

[u]Match Odds[/u] Portugal's results appear to be welded to the performances of Cristiano Ronaldo. After a quiet start to Euro 2012, the captain has scored three goals in two matches and the team has started to look like plausible tournament winners. Portugal beat their neighbours 4-0 in a friendly at the end of 2010, but that was a while ago now and Spain gave the impression that the result of that game mattered less to them than it did their local rivals. That's not the case here. Spain will be writ large in the history books if they win this match and one more at the weekend. As Opta have noticed, the European and world champions have 17 wins from their most recent 18 competitive games, so there seems to be value in backing them to win in 90 minutes at 2.02. There is a concern,...

[b]There's not been a 0-0 at the tournament yet but Dave Farrar fancies France to make life very difficult for Spain on Saturday evening...[/b] Having struggled a little in their 1-1 draw with Italy in their opening game of Euro 2012, the World and European champions Spain face their second supposedly top-class test of the tournament, and there's a question about the state of mind of the French players going into the match. There are stories of a huge row in the squad after that insipid performance against Sweden, and if France are anything but fully tuned up for this game then they could be in for a beating. Laurent Blanc's right hand man Alain Boghossian has said that the row was the kind of thing that happens "between a couple" and that we shouldn't read anything into it. You can...

[u]Match Odds[/u] Most bettors would predict a comfortable victory for the reigning European champions, and it's anything but a surprise to see the market agrees with them. Spain's price of 1.27 will put off plenty of people but on the evidence of the group's opening games it's difficult to see anything other than a victory for Vicente del Bosque's side. The Spanish may have been a little more sluggish than expected against Italy (1-1) but it was the Republic of Ireland's defending against Croatia that will have set alarm bells ringing (you can see some analysis of that defeat here). Giovanni Trapattoni's side handled aerial balls into the box poorly and also struggled against some of Croatia's clever movement in attacking areas, so Spain ought to find more time and space in and around...

[u]The favourites[/u] [b]Spain (3.9)[/b] You can't argue with their status as favourites when we consider that the reigning European and World Champions have almost the same squad as they did when they won those two tournaments. But therein lies part of the problem. Almost. The absences of Carles Puyol and David Villa are two hammer blows to their chances because those are perhaps the two areas they could least afford to lose players. Fernando Torres comes into the tournament under-played and pretty unhappy with life, Fernando Llorente was excellent over two legs against Manchester United but anonymous in the Europa League final so maybe he can't handle the biggest stages just yet. I'm not sure this business of playing without a recognised striker such as Cesc Fabregas as the player...