This weekend, the second most important sporting event in the world, the European Football Championship, will start in Switzerland and Austria. For the first time in more than 20 years, no team from the British isles have qualified, and as a result, the English press have gotten antsy for another team to get behind. Readers and writers of both the Daily Mail and The Guardian, two newspapers otherwise far apart, have picked the Netherlands as the team to support. The former selected 10 reasons why they would support ‘Oranje’, with “they like darts too” topping the list. The Guardian let its readers decide in what looks like a completely above-board and impartial Internet poll.

Via De Telegravin (Dutch). Souce image: The Guardian. The question was: “Who should we back in Euro 2008?”

Update 20:15: Arnoud Engelfriet spoils, er, spills the beans. Apparently the Guardian’s voting process was helped along by what the newspaper called “a triumphant piece of hacking” by the Geen Stijl-blog.