The UEFA Women's Euros started last night with two matches, one of them featuring hosts, Finland, against near-neighbours Denmark. Despite dominating most of the first half, Denmark fell behind to the only goal of the match when Finland's Saari scored just after the break in front of 16,324 spectators at the Olympic Stadium, a record for women's international football in Finland. The tournament's opening match was won by the Netherlands over fellow tournament newcomers Ukraine. This afternoon stages the highly interesting Germany-Norway fixture with Iceland-France playing later in the evening. The first round is completed tomorrow with England-Italy and Sweden-Russia.

The major European leagues are starting. In England, they've already played a few games in the Premier League and the Italian league got going this weekend. In Spain, they've just had their Super Cup and will be starting their league campaigns shortly. Autumn will soon be here in the northern hemisphere! Brrrr!

Getting back to summer again, next summer, the qualifiers for next year's World Cup Finals in South Africa are starting for the autumn. Some matches were played a couple of weeks ago with slight shock, for me anyway, when previous bottom team Norway beat Scotland 4-0. Croatia won against Belarus to keep the pressure on England while Germany strengthened their hold on group 4 after beating Azerbaijan 2-0. Next matches will be September 5, when the most interesting match will be between Argentina and Brazil.

All the best.