Wednesday, March 2nd 2016 marks 100 days until Euro 2016 kicks off in Paris, and naturally the passing of this milestone means that it's time to allow yourself to get a little bit excited, especially if you are making the journey to France.
UEFA.com certainly got excited when they revealed their list of 100 players to watch, a pretty extensive list by the sounds of things, but after a quick glance, the list doesn't appear to make any sense at all.
We're not moaning about the fact that only three out of the 100 players named were Irish, it's just... The players they are urging fans to 'watch out for' includes Seamus Coleman, John O'Shea, and Robbie Keane.
Initially, they released their list as a sort of quiz, tasking their readers to name as many of the 100 players from this graphic as they could:
But now there is literally an article on UEFA.com that is titled:
Keep an eye out for that Robbie Keane fella, I hear he knows where the goal is.
The fact that Robbie may not see a single minute of action in France seems lost on a list that was compiled by someone who has literally only ever heard of three Irish players in Coleman, O'Shea, and Keane, but a glance at the 100 in full shows that it has to be one of the strangest 'players to watch' lists ever seen:
Igor Akinfeev
David Alaba
Jordi Alba
Dele Alli
Arda Turan
Marko Arnautović
Gareth Bale
Etrit Berisha
Jérôme Boateng
Leonardo Bonucci
Gianluigi Buffon
Sergio Busquets
Lorik Cana
William Carvalho
Petr Čech
Giorgio Chiellini
Vlad Chiricheș
Seamus Coleman
Thibaut Courtois
Vladimír Darida
Steven Davis
Kevin De Bruyne
Bořek Dočkal
Alan Dzagoev
Balázs Dzsudzsák
Artem Dzuyba
Breel Embolo
Jonny Evans
Christian Fuchs
Zoltán Gera
Olivier Giroud
Gökhan Gönül
Eiður Guðjohnsen
John Guidetti
Hakan Çalhanoğlu
Marek Hamšík
Joe Hart
Eden Hazard
Elseid Hysaj
Zlatan Ibrahimović
Sergei Ignashevich
Andrés Iniesta
Gökhan Inler
Andreas Isaksson
Marc Janko
Roland Juhász
Kim Källström
Harry Kane
Robbie Keane
Gábor Király
Yevhen Konoplyanka
Vincent Kompany
Mateo Kovačić
Toni Kroos
Grzegorz Krychowiak
Kyle Lafferty
Robert Lewandowski
Stephan Lichtsteiner
Hugo Lloris
Romelu Lukaku
Mario Mandžukić
Claudio Marchisio
Blaise Matuidi
Mehmet Topal
Arkadiusz Milik
Luka Modrić
João Moutinho
Thomas Müller
Nani
Manuel Neuer
John O’Shea
Mesut Özil
Pepe
Gerard Piqué
Łukasz Piszczek
Paul Pogba
Andriy Pyatov
Ivan Rakitić
Sergio Ramos
Aaron Ramsey
Răzvan Raț
Marco Reus
Cristiano Ronaldo
Wayne Rooney
Bastian Schweinsteiger
Selçuk İnan
Xherdan Shaqiri
Gylfi Sigurdsson
David Silva
Martin Škrtel
Yann Sommer
Darijo Srna
Raheem Sterling
Ciprian Tatarusanu
Anatoliy Tymoshchuk
Raphaël Varane
Marco Verratti
Jan Vertonghen
Ashley Williams
Andriy Yarmolenko
Watch out for John O'Shea and Robbie Keane, and the most well-known Premier League player from Ireland. Sensational scouting done there.
What is even more baffling is the inclusion of some genuine young talent to keep an eye on for the causal fan in the likes of Raphael Varane and Breel Embolo, mixed in with Bastian Schweinsteiger and some bloke called Cristiano Ronaldo.
We would have mentioned Gabor Kiraly as a ridiculous old player to include, but you actually should watch out for him to see if he has special Euro 2016 tracksuit bottoms to wear in goal for Hungary.
[UEFA.com]
