France play Romania today in Euro opener
PARIS: After a gruelling qualifying campaign, Euro 2016 gets underway on Friday with Cristiano Ronaldo and the rest of the continent’s biggest stars descending on France having to fend off minnows aiming to make their presence felt. This will be the first 24- team European Championship, a month-long marathon a far cry from the eightnation event when France with Michel Platini were last hosts in 1984. France launch the tournament with a Group A game against Romania on Friday. Les Bleus remain the last host country to lift the trophy — named after a Frenchman, Henri Delaunay — and also won the World Cup as hosts in 1998, when Didier Deschamps was the captain. Now he is the coach of a side looking to lift the spirits of a nation beset by social unrest and fears of a repeat of the Paris attacks last November. The tension has made some players nervous however. No limits for Spain For a Spain side in transition, the aim is to put their desperate World Cup showing two years ago firmly behind them and win an unprecedented third straight European Championship. They lost their final warmup game against Georgia 1-0 however. “We shouldn’t set any limits,” their coach Vicente del Bosque said. “We can’t say if we get to the semi-finals we will be happy, we need to aspire to win it.” For once expectations in England are not sky-high around their team’s chances. Coach Roy Hodgson has an exciting young squad at his disposal and the increased margin for error in the group stage may help his team. Ronaldo’s big chance? The French have sidelined Karim Benzema over his link to an attempted sextape blackmail. But his Real Madrid team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo will lead the list of stars on the field. The 31-year-old, fresh from winning the Champions League, will be expected to carry a Portugal side that lost on penalties to Spain in the semi-finals four years ago before limping out of the last World Cup in the group stage. This could be one of Ronaldo’s last chances to win an international trophy to go with his glittering array of club level medals, his three Ballons d’Or and his newest accolade, that of the highest paid athlete in the world, according to the latest Forbes rich list. France will also see Zlatan Ibrahimovic grace an international tournament for possibly the last time in the colours of Sweden, while Gareth Bale will hope to have a big impact as Wales return to a major finals for the first time since 1958. “We’re not going there just to make up the numbers,” Real Madrid forward Bale told a BBC Wales documentary recently. France savour Euro opener after blighted build-up Meanwhile, a tortuous build-up dominated by offfield controversy and untimely injuries comes to an end for hosts France when they finally get Euro 2016 underway against Romania in Group A at the Stade de France on Friday. Les Bleus’ preparations on the field have been distracted by claims from Real striker Benzema that his exclusion from the squad was racially motivated. Benzema hasn’t played for Les Bleus since October last year after becoming embroiled in a sex-tape blackmail scandal that targeted then teammate Mathieu Valbuena. France’s highest active goalscorer, Benzema — who is of Algerian descent — claimed coach Didier Deschamps had “bowed to pressure from a racist part of France.” (AFP)