My copy of "UEFA Euro 2004 essential guide", produced by the competition's sponsors, had Greece down for a first-round exit and Spain a quarter-final exit.

This when Spain had been runners-up to Greece in their qualifying group. So much for experts.

The BBC's panel of Euro 2004 experts was criticised for not having an English representative.

Whether this was the BBC maintaining its commitment to providing un-biased

reporting I cannot say but it was certainly reflecting current top-flight English football, which is not much English participation.

What I am sure of, is that Euro 2004 proved once again that, come a major football tournament, you cannot keep the Germans down, with the Greek team's German coach.

Additionally, that when it comes to buying as opposed to selling players, Sir Alex Ferguson certainly knows when to move players on, as was shown by David Beckham's Euro 2004 performance and his season at Real Madrid.

Maybe, for the next European Championships we should press for teams to be managed as well as played by nationals of the competing countries and then our fortunes might improve.

Richard Lamb,

Greystoke Road,

York

Updated: 10:38 Saturday, July 10, 2004