France the team to beat

Thierry Henry can guide France to glory

Scotland coach and Radio 5 Live summariser Craig Brown tells BBC Sport Online he sees no reason to alter his pre-tournament prediction that world champions France will lift another major championship this summer.

It has been a thoroughly enjoyable tournament so far and we have already seen a few surprises thrown up.

I tipped France to win Euro 2000 before the tournament kicked off and see no reason to change my mind now after the first round of matches.

They have been the outstanding side so far, along with Portugal, and I believe that coming into a tournament with a settled side always puts you in a strong position.

Encouragement

That is not the case with Holland, though they will take encouragement from securing a lucky win against the Czech Republic.

They don't yet have a settled side and they did not play well against the Czechs, but if you win when you are not playing well you have always got a chance of achieving something in the tournament.

The Czechs were very unlucky not to beat Holland on Sunday but I still feel they have a good chance of getting through the group stages.

Steffen Iversen sealed victory for hard-working Norway

If they do, it will probably be at the expense of Holland, but I think that is a real possibility.

There have been some contrasting styles, with plenty of teams opening up and some surprisingly erratic defending.

Not least in the last game of the first round of matches between Yugoslavia and Slovenia.

It was possibly the match of the tournament so far, certainly the comeback of the tournament.

England did well against Portugal but, ultimately, they came up against a better side

Craig Brown

Yugoslavia were just not in the game for an hour but then they started playing and Slovenia went to pieces.

Norway's win over Spain was a shock on paper, but the Norwegians are another settled side. They make things very hard for the opposition and the result did not greatly surprise me.

England did well to get two up in their game with Portugal, but ultimately they came up against a better team.

Better teams generally win football matches and, in all honesty, there is often very little any coach can do about that.