Asked if that meant questions on Ferdinand were now off limits, Bernstein replied: “As far as I’m concerned, definitely. I’m sure he แทงบอลออนไลน์ can speak for himself, but I imagine you’ll get the same answer from him, too.

“He’ll look after himself very well indeed, as he always does. There’s no point in pressing. There is no way we are talking about players who are not here. We spent a deal of time preparing for this, training for it.

Hodgson said: “We want to do well. The nation wants us to do well. Any team can win this thing. Denmark came off the beach to win in 1992. Greece won it against the odds in 2004, when nobody gave them a prayer.

“It’s a knockout, like the FA Cup. It’s not the Premier League or the Champions League, when the cream always reaches the top. It’s not a tennis tournament, when it’s always the first and second seeds. It’s a football tournament and we have a chance.

“We all want to win. Everybody wants to win. We feel this team has a good chance to win. And we will do our best to win. I would be disappointed if we came away feeling it had been a complete disaster because that’s not what it should be.”

“Difficult births often lead to beautiful babies,” the French football great concluded in March as Poland and Ukraine finally declared they would be ready for the June 8 kickoff when an estimated worldwide audience of at least 150 million is expected to be watching.

Only time will tell whether Platini will return to UEFA’s headquarters in Switzerland a proud father.

Most major sporting tournaments experience a rocky buildup, Poland and Ukraine’s has been at the turbulent end of the scale — understandably so, given the countries’ lack of major event experience coupled with ambitious improvement plans that are reported to have cost $38 billion combined.