Well done Gem on Germany.

If more people place money on one team and their odds shorten, I would take that , by popular consent, they are favourites, regardless of whether any individual thinks differently.

I'm sticking with the same formula and results.

France win. Change of antision to inside 7th noted. I recall a bodily placement like this with Chelsea and it went with the favourites.

Italy/Holland-draw.. L10 and L7 in 7th-antisions.

From what we've seen so far, it would appear that the underdogs will need a very strong testimony to get anything out of these matches. On TV last night, Gary Lineker pointed out that the favourites have won all the games so far and the underdogs have failed to score in any of them!

France/Romania
Antiscion Mars (L1) in 7th. As has been noted, this could work as a positive for France (angularity) or a negative (France controlled or contained by Romania). Even if it does favour Romania, I think they'd need a stronger positive testimony to win. I'll go for France.

Italy/Holland
As John has said, Mercury (L1) and Venus (L10) both in 7th. Mercury is nearer the cusp but is it close enough? This is a difficult one to call. The draw is a possibility but since the chart is radical (hour ruler Sun) I'm going for Italy to win.

Italy/Holland

I am not sure about anything in this chart, yet a small testimony is the antiscion of Uranus applying (< 0.5 deg) to the MC. It favors the faves a little bit. Since we don't have any consistent testimony for the underdogs I'd go with Italy.

If more people place money on one team and their odds shorten, I would take that , by popular consent, they are favourites, regardless of whether any individual thinks differently.

Not exactly. We can't be sure why the odds shorten. E.g. Switzerland is the (or one of the) wealthiest country in the world. If 50k Swiss and 50k Czechs bet on their respective teams, more money would be on the Swiss team. Or 30k Swiss and Bill Gates
The bookies might change the odds even for no obvious reason (injuries, new players, maybe coach resigned etc etc) - sometimes they look where the sharp money is going. If the majority of the 'sharps' is betting on one team the bookies could tip the balance a little bit.

Maybe it is possible to determine the faves this way by using the punters' forums where they show the percentage of the 'votes' on each team. For example, covers.com for the US Sports.

Warning - Mercury retrograde!
Everyone knows what Mercury retrograde can do: The public is sent in the wrong direction and things get turned upside down. A few years ago I had the job of placing the 4 top performers in the Norwegian Idol. It's not quite soccer, but Mercury was retrograde.

My list was back-to-front: My no1. came 4th, no.2 came 3rd, no.3 came 2nd and the artist I rated as no.4 won the whole thing. This was while Mercury was retrograde.

History has since proven that the competition that got it wrong! The winner went underground since no one was meeting up to concerts. The artist in 2nd position has not been seen since. The contestant coming 3rd (my no.2) released a CD which received excellent critics, and no.4 (my winner) released both an albumn and a video still appears in television shows.

If anyone can trace the effects or upsets of a retrograde Mercury during the tournament, please feel free to comment.

Faves have won all the games so far but every once in a while they do slip up. It'd be nice if we get strong obvious testimonies for underdogs in the chart but often that's not the case as I remember us having not spotted underdogs winning several occasions last season. But as far as tonight's games are concerned, I'm going for the faves again. The chart isn't radical for France but there's Moon trine anti-Mars and Venus(L7) is combust(yes, Seiko, it's cazimi, to be precise... doesn't seem to make any difference in football charts though); and Italy, because the chart is radical.

Mercury being stationary may have some effects but I haven't personally seen much/any when sigs are represented by Rx planets.

L7 Venus is in cazimi (ASC being at 11SCO55) 0?07'59'' from the Sun. Yet since anti-L1 inside the 7th is not as compelling as the bodily placement would be, France it is. 1-0 or 2-0.

First surprises in the tornament last night:
France 0 - 0 Romania
Italy 0 - 3 Holland (Holland were magnificent!)
Were there any testimonies for Holland apart from the ones pointed out by John(which I thought were not strong enough)?

I agree, Holland were a very impressive side. I think our analyses were along the right lines but we came to the wrong conclusions!

After the France/Romania game, I was thinking again about the Sun/Moon relationship and how it affects the faves. I decided to wait until after the Italy/Holland game before posting about this, in case it proved me wrong - but it didn't.

At the weekend, the Moon and Sun were in harmonious relationship by sign (not necessarily in aspect) - Moon in Leo, Sun in Gemini. The faves won all four games. Yesterday the relationship was inharmonious - Moon in Virgo. The faves failed to win.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the same thing will happen again in today's games because, as we know, no method/technique is 100% reliable (rather like radicality), but perhaps it could be a helpful decider in certain instances.

Just a thought

Carrying on with antision

Spain win, L1 in 6th conjunct 7th. POF conjunct 1st from 12th

Greece win, L10 and L7 in 7th in 7th

Spain v Russia
18.00 local time, Innsbruck, Austria
Asc 14,49 Scorpio

Spain are odds-on faves.
Hour ruler Venus. Radical by triplicity using Ptolemy or Dorotheus trip rulers, but not using Lilly's trip rulers.
Antiscion POF conj Asc. As we have observed in the past, this isn't always reliable.
Antiscion Mars (L1) conj Desc but over 2 degs away in 6th.

Although the testimonies for Spain are slightly iffy, I can see no testimonies for Russia. Win for Spain.

Ficina
That's a very intriguing observation The Sun-Moon relationship affects the tides and things(bio-rhythms?), and even lunatics, so why not football matches too? In Election, the phase of Sun-Moon is also very important. It's definitely something to keep watching.

I'm more bothered by the Italy-Holland result as the chart was radical. The LOH was in the 7th in the DC sign... does this cancel out the radicality?

I've just seen your post above. I'm going for Spain too. The Moon in close trine to Jupiter'll also help Spain.

There's a partile square between Sun and Moon though!!

I'm more bothered by the Italy-Holland result as the chart was radical. The LOH was in the 7th in the DC sign... does this cancel out the radicality?

Possibly. I think it may have been cancelled out by the position of Mercury (L7) in 7th. I wasn't sure how effective it would be since it's over 3 degs from the angle, but I can't see anything else and, apart from radicality, there were no other testimonies for Italy.

Greece v Sweden
20.45 local time, Salzburg, Austria
Asc 17,13 Sag

Sweden are inexplicably the faves. Even the pundits on the sports websites are puzzled by this. Greece are the holders, so I'm inclined to give them the Asc. I think this is supported by colours. Sweden's blue/yellow seems to fit Gemini/Mercury.

Hour ruler Moon. Radical by triplicity - Moon and Jupiter in same trip in chart.
Jupiter (L1) sextile POF.
Mercury (L7) conj Desc but 2 degs away, retro in 6th.

A difficult one to call. Greece to win or a draw (bearing in mind the Sun/Moon thing).

Re Spain/Russia

Gem wrote:There's a partile square between Sun and Moon though!!

Yes, that's true but I'm not sure if that would be so significant in this case where the rest of the chart is more clear-cut, i.e. no testimonies for the underdog.