photo from BBC
Just when you thought it was all over and it was safe to turn the TV on again without running into football after what seemed like months of coverage of the Brazilian World Cup, it’s not! Not only are the Premier League season and the Champions League season in full flow with matches seemingly being broadcast every other night, but also the Euro 2016 qualifiers are being played out this autumn too.
And if you’re wondering what Euro 2016 is, it’s probable that the man in your life could fill in the blanks for you, and probably quickly make you feel quite weary about the prospect of another football international tournament on the horizon in the process! The UEFA European Championship takes place every four years and, very conveniently for football fans everywhere, takes place two years after every FIFA World Cup, so we’re never more than two years away from a huge international footballing competition. Sigh!
You can already get a bet on which nation you might think win the Euro 2016. It’s one way to make the whole thing more interesting, to have a little bit of a gamble riding on the outcome. It makes the prospect of having to watch all the matches a little more exciting, if nothing else! If you don’t know much about football betting then don’t worry; you can find out more about it by checking out the news section on Bet365, a betting and sports news hub. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the winners of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil – Germany – are the favourites to take the tournament in 2016, priced at around 7/2 at the time of writing. However, the hosts, France, are up there and already the best price you can get on France to win is about 5/1. They may not be out and out favourites at the moment, but having the home soil advantage can count for a lot during an international football tournament.
You may already be dreading the idea of another international footballing tournament dominating the TV schedules that’s over a year away, but instead of putting up resistance, why not embrace it? You could even book a trip to France around it, and really make a great holiday out of it. The month long finals section of Euro 2016 will take place in June and July of 2016, so an almost perfect time to visit many areas of France. After all, Brazil was out of the reach of many a football fan’s budget, but nipping over to France is much more realistic for many families.
You don’t have to make the whole trip about the footie. In fact, it may not even be possible to secure tickets for any of the games. But there’s something exciting about being able to say ‘you were there’, even if the closest you get to a football stadium is to watch at a big screen in the same city.
Start planning now and you should be able to have a great trip, keeping the football fans in your family happy and having a great time enjoying la belle vie in France too.
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