Euro 2012 - Five Favorites, on Paper, Will Be Tested on the Field - NYTimes.com Here is a look at five favorites in the European Championships, which begin Friday and will be played in Poland and Ukraine. Spain It says everything about Spain's reign in soccer that no team on earth has outplayed it in a competitive match over the past four years. Trying to stop Spain from passing the ball is the most common approach: dull the playmakers Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta by denying them space with one, or even two, lines of obdurate defense, then strike when they grow weary or impatient - or wait and get lucky in a penalty shootout. Chelsea and Inter Milan have done it to Barcelona, and Bayern Munich did it this spring by counterattacking against Real Madrid. But Spain is unlikely to change the formula that has made it the reigning European and World Cup champion, mainly because that formula is often exquisitely, brilliantly enough to win. Spain is not at full strength - it will miss defender Carles Puyol's aggressive leadership and forward David Villa's industrious running - but there is hope that striker Fernando Torres is showing signs of re-emerging into the form that made him one of the world's most feared strikers. "We are favorites," Coach Vicente Del Bosque conceded, "but Netherlands and Germany are also clear favorites because of their impeccable Euro 2012 qualifying. Then you have England, Italy, France, Portugal - all have excellent players. Germany A wise man never bets against Germany at the major tournaments, and the team that Coach Joachim Löw has been painstakingly building over six years is now expected to be ready for the European Championships. The belief is that its young players - like Mesut Özil and Sami Khedira of Real Madrid, and Thomas Müller and Toni Kroos of Bayern Munich - are more worldly than they were when they blossomed at the 2010 World Cup, and that the experienced guys - like Philipp Lahm, Lukas Podolski and that inveterate striker of goals, Miroslav Klose - are tired of finishing second or third. Germany does not have an easy group in Ukraine. It opens in Lviv against Portugal and then travels to Kharkiv to meet the gifted Dutch. Finally, Germany has a game against a Danish team that by then might have nothing to lose. "I am not even thinking about the possibility of failure," Löw said. Netherlands From Johan Cruyff to Robin van Persie, the Netherlands has come close to imposing pure technique and a free mind on the field. But close is not enough. The individual talents keep on coming but - with the exception of a lone European title in 1988 - the Netherlands remains the nearly men: entertainers and challengers who fall short of taking home the silver trophy. Maybe the pain of so many close calls explains why the Dutch have sought to lace tough pragmatism with their skills. We will never know what might have happened in the 2010 World Cup final had they trusted their creative players - Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, Rafael van der Vaart and van Persie - to go skill for skill against Spain. The attacking talent is there again, but the hard men at the core of the team remain: Johnny Heitinga in central defense and the midfield destroyers Mark van Bommel and Nigel de Jong. Coach Bert van Marwijk believes he is getting the balance right, and with a group that includes Denmark, Germany and Portugal, he better. France Can France, the good and harmonious France that won World Cup and European titles in 1998 and 2000, be a real contender for this title? Coach Laurent Blanc, a key defender from that era, thinks so. He is charged with piecing together the remnants of a divided, obstreperous French squad that mutinied against his predecessor, Raymond Domenech, at the 2010 World Cup. His team has gone 19 games without a defeat, a run that includes a 2-1 win at Germany earlier this year. "Everybody was a bit scared before that game," Blanc said. And everyone was pleasantly surprised. Victory in Bremen showed we could raise our level. But it was one game - whether we can do it throughout a competition is another question. France does have talent. Karim Benzema scored 32 goals for Real Madrid last season, and he is supported from midfield and the flanks by Franck Ribéry, Samir Nasri and Mathieu Valbuena. The defense is weakened by injuries, so the key role in midfield could rest on Yann M'Vila, a powerful defensive midfielder adept at snuffing out trouble. Croatia Croatia, the No. 8 team in FIFA's world rankings, does not see itself as an underdog. "We try to dictate the rhythm of the match," Coach Slaven Bilic said, "and mostly we succeed." Croatia could not, he suggested, turn defensive against the better opponents in this tournament, even if it wanted to. The strength of the team is technical quality, personified by the midfield artist Luka Modric, and striking talent, led by the naturalized Brazilian Eduardo da Silva and Nikica Jelavic, a big, bold front-runner. Modric is as close as anyone outside of Catalonia can be to replicating the passing fluidity of Barcelona. So Spain versus Croatia on June 18, with Modric trying to out-pass Xavi and Iniesta, could be an encounter to light up the tournament.