I am a massive football fan who takes interest in everything from non-league football, right through to massive world-stage tournaments (still a bit bored of the Scottish league mind only a joke sorry - sorry) and have been known, on the odd occasion, to indulge in the odd bit of gambling. Therefore, I couldn’t help but note that one of the latest developments on the Castrol Index site is rather interesting.

For under the ‘The Standings’ tab, those statistical boffins have graphically set up each fixture in the group stage – allowing you to access *deep breath* world ranking and the qualifying game stats for matches played, goals, shots on and off target, corners, offside, fouls, yellow cards, red cards and possession.

And all that information should come in rather handy when looking in depth at the game in advance of that shrill opening whistle. After all, it won’t need me to tell you that one can tell a lot about a team from their goalscoring exploits, openness of their play et al.

Oh – and if Spain end up playing Portugal during the tournament, you may well be advised to get a few quid on an awful lot of corners being conceded – just take a look at the ‘corners tab’ on the qualifying stats screen on the CPI and you’ll see what I mean. NB - The image is rather small, but should give you some impression of what is on offer.