The squads are named and it's time to get down to it. Euro 2016 is a little over a week away and it's time to forget about the fact that we just lost to Belarus and concentrate on a summer of football that will live in our memories (for good or for bad) for an awful long time.
It feels like it's been an awful long time coming but one thing that has distracted us over the past few weeks and months has been the anticipation of who'd be going to France and who's be left behind. That debate has not only extended to Ireland and recently we've taken a look at the kind of players that Spain and France have been able to look past as the 23 man squads have come together.
We were able to put together a 'left behind' XI for Spain and for France but now that those provisional squads have been whittled down to 23, the overlooked XIs are starting to look even better. Rather than doing each one again we decided to update the Spain and France efforts, throw in Germany for good measure and eventually come up with a combined squad that would go quite some way to winning the tournament.
Note: When selecting these squads, we've only gone for players that have been left out as a matter of choice, not injury or UEFA mandated suspension. That means that Marco Reus is not available but Karim Benzema is, as it was France's choice to suspend him from the team. Mamadou Sakho is also available for selection after his anticipated ban didn't come to pass.
Spain
There's been quite a bit of change since we last took at look at Spain's provisional squad. Dani Carvajal's injury has brought Hector Bellerín into the squad, meaning we've given his place to Villarreal's Mario Gaspar. Isco and, most interestingly, Saúl Niguez were also cut from the final squad. We've had to fit both those players in there so Ander Herrera and Fernando Torres miss out.
France
There's not quite so much change in our French selection. Lassana Diarra was ruled out today and replaced by Morgan Schneiderlin so we've given the Man United man's spot to Lyon Maxime Gonalons. And given our tightening of selection criteria, the injured Aymeric Laporte drops out and Saint Ettiene's Loic Perrin comes in.
Germany
The second favourites for the tournament have a wealth of options to pick form but perhaps not as many household names miss out in comparison to France and Spain. Goalkeeper is an area in which Germany have a ludicrous amount of depth with PSG's Kevin Trapp not even getting a look in with the likes of Neuer, Leno and Ter Stegen.
In defence, Marcel Schmelzer has fallen out of favour with Jogi Loew so he's an obvious inclusion while his Dortmund teammate Matthias Ginter can fill in at right back. Robert Huth was unlikely to be welcomed back to the fold but nonetheless his Leicester performances are enough to get him into our squad, while Jonathan Tah will no doubt have plenty of opportunities at major tournaments in future years.
A midfield trio of the Bender twins and Gonzalo Castro is about as solid as you're likely to get while the forward trio of Brandt, Bellarabi and Volland offer plenty of attacking creativity.
Overall XI
Obviously enough, there were some tough calls to make.
We're not blessed with full backs but we've given the nod to Schmelzer and Mario. As for centre halves, Sakho and Javi Martinez seemed the obvious choices even though Robert Huth certainly deserves a shout for the season he's had.
In midfield, we've gone for the game intelligence of Gabi anchoring the youthful exuberance of Saúl and Rabiot. While in attack, Benzema was the obvious option though it was a toss of a coin between Cazorla, Mata and Lacazette with the Arsenal man just losing out as we decided to opt for the French attackers lightning pace owing to the significant amount of technical creativity already in the team.
