Group of Death begins action on Monday

BERNE, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Group of Death will begin action on Monday with Marco van Basten's Dutch side taking on world champions Italy and Romania playing World Cup runners-up France.

van Basten is no stranger to the Italian team, especially to its coach Roberto Donadoni, who was his teammate at AC Milan and his sometime golf partner.

"We have some contact every now and then," said van Basten. "We played football together, but also played a lot of golf together, and he really is a true sportsman and also a real winner. He did not accept the easiest job by taking over the Italy team as reigning world champions, but he took on the challenge and has done it very well so far - and I think he is a good coach for this team in the position Italy are in right now."

Van Basten rates Italy as "a good footballing side" and predic this team's first game in Berne be a tough one, especially against such strong opponents like Italy.

"Italy have a lot of experience," he said. "They have made few changes from two years ago, so we can expect a very tough match, as they are a strong team, who play good football and have a lot of experience. It is going to be a huge challenge."

But van Basten was not sorry to be up against Italy in the early stage of the tournament. "The advantage is that from the start you are straight into the tournament, from the first moment you realize it is super important," he said of the tough opening fixture.

"We only play three matches in the group, and one is against the world champions and one against the world's second's best team (France), so you have to have focus from the start or you will immediately get knocked out."

van Basten's counterpart Donadoni has established himself by leading Italy through a difficult qualifying campaign. The former AC Milan midfielder now aims to continue where his predecessor left off by winning Euro 2008.

Donadoni felt the pressure of great expectations. "It's never easy when everybody has such great expectations," Donadoni said. " The team, however, responded perfectly in all respects. When I took the job I inherited a group of top-level players and a very good coaching staff who gave me a great deal of support. Everything went well after that."

But Donadoni is fully aware of his challenge. "You start again from zero," he said. "Qualifying is history now and those past performances will not give us any advantage in the finals. As always, we'll have to measure ourselves against opponents who will be out to cause us problems. There's nothing new there. We just need to have the right attitude."

As the group also includes France, also a title contender, neither the Netherlands or Italy could afford a loss in their opening match as a defeat could mean an early exit from the tournament.

The other match, to be played in Zurich on Monday, pits " outsiders" Romania against France.

Romanian captain Cristian Chivu believes his team can spring some surprise in the tournament.

"The other teams will certainly respect us but I don't think they feel we have a chance," Chivu said. "They know it won't be easy against us but it's to our advantage that they don't know too much about us. They only know two, three or four of our players and I think this will be our surprise."

But their first opponents France will certainly refuse to be the victims of the Romania surprise. Instead, they will try to repeat the winning start they made 12 years ago at Euro 96 at Romania's expense.

With world champions Italy and the Netherlands still to play, France will be desperate for a positive result in the first game of what appears to be the toughest of the four groups at EURO 2008.

Recent history favors France, the winners in the teams' last three encounters, the middle one of which was the aforementioned victory at EURO 1996.

Romania's last victory against France was a 2-0 friendly win in Bucharest in April 1972.

Overall, France have recorded six wins to Romania's three in the course of ten head-to-head meetings.