Get in the Game with Nigel Ridgway

Nigel says - "England often save their best for the crunch games, without necessarily winning" © bet365

France v England, Sunday June 13th, 19.45 BST
This is clearly the one that fans have been looking forward to ever since the draw was made, with a history of rivalry between the two countries, added to by the fact that most of the French side play in the Premiership. France arrive at the Finals with a few scores to settle, not least their abysmal performance in Japan/Korea back on 2002. They have been faultless in qualifying, taking maximum points, while scoring more and conceding fewer than any other team across the nine groups. Since winning the Confederations Cup Final last summer they have kept eleven clean sheets in a row!

Henry is at the top of his game and will have greater motivation than most to atone for the 2002 debacle, after being dismissed in the game against Uruguay that saw them crash out. England's qualifying has been less smooth than their opening opponents. Their `tired' draw against Japan was their fifth successive friendly without victory, while their 6-1 thrashing of Iceland at the weekend told us nothing that we didn't know. However, there is a case to be made that England often save their best for the crunch games - without necessarily winning - and a repeat of Euro 92's no score draw (the last time the two teams met in major competition) looks the call at 13/2.

In our outright competition betting Spain appeal at 6/1 to finally fulfil their potential. Although they have not won a major competition for 40 years they will never get a better chance on what is going to feel like `home' soil. Expect a major contribution from Raul, who is 9/1 in our `Leading Goalscorer' market. In Group C Denmark could be value to win top the group at 4/1. This is their sixth successive European Finals and in that time they have won the competition once and reached the semi-finals once, a better record than Sweden - and Italy for that matter!

PGA Tour Golf, Buick Classic, starts Thursday June 10th
This is a warm-up for next week's US Open, and some of the bigger names will be using this event to experiment with their games on this min-major set-up where accuracy is more important than sheer power. Ernie Els is the natural favourite, coming off his second tour title of the year at Memorial, and on a course where he has failed to break par just five times in 32 rounds. The question is whether he can putt like he did last week - surely nobody could putt that well two weeks in a row - although he seems the most likely of the bigger names to give his running this week. Sergio Garcia's record in this event is even more impressive - no finishes worse than a tie for 12th in four starts for the 2001 Champion - which makes him a must for any staking plan.. It might even be worth taking the 25/1 available with us now for next week's second Major in anticipation of a high finish at the Buick. Stewart Cink's share of fifth in 2002 and third in 2001 shows us his game is tailor made for this place, while Aussie Stephen Leaney has been stringing together some good form of late, and could make the frame at a juicy 80/1!

Get in the game and be lucky!

Nigel