Admin picks!

About 15 hours until Euro 2024 kicks off!  We have 40 entries already which already surpasses our Euro Pool totals in 2012 and 2016.  We are on track to break the Euro Pool record of 49 entries in 2021 and become our 5th highest entry total for any of the 15 soccer pools (behind World Cups 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022).

I will be on a flight tomorrow morning so I'm hoping there will be a bunch of entries when I land and will send out any modifications to picks late Friday night (right now, tiny issues on 11 of 38 (29%) entries, not to bad considering we have to deal with 3rd place permutations).

But here, here I lay out my two picks for the tournament.  Will it be $20 down the drain?

• Futbol Fab Fünfzehn - Since 1998, I have always tended to pick France to win the World Cup (was the only one to do so back then).  With their talent, hard to pick against them.  My bracket laid out a good path for Portugal, even though they wouldn't necessarily been my top 2 to make the final.  Fünfzehn (or fuffzehn if the U with umlaut causes me any troubles) is German for fifteen (15), which this is our 15th soccer pool.
• Germany Minus One - The host has not won the Euro since 1984 (France).  Germany is uncharacteristically ranked #16.  Yet, yet, if they can get past the Iberian peninsula teams (Spain and Portugal) in the Quarters and Semis, it's a coin flip in the final against France or England (in this case, England - sorry, it's not coming home).  Having seen the masterpiece Godzilla Minus One on Netflix, this German team is down, knocked by a poor 2023 record, but could they rise out of the ashes to claim their 4th Euros to match their 4 World Cup titles?