The Evo-Web Football Thoughts Blog

[Carles P.]

Good evening fellas! You should be long enough on evoweb that you know where you can find the correct subforum for such things and et-voilá there is a thread for the tournament:
https://evoweb.uk/threads/uefa-euro-men-2024.98382/

Have fun to watch and talk about the Euro. Thanks buddys!

 

[PES4eva]

But there's very little jeopardy in the first round if four of the six third-place teams advance. We have a group in this tournament with Spain, Italy and Croatia in it, and all three of them are all but certain to go through; if it was only two advancing, that would make for much more compelling television.

It's a fine tournament, but it doesn't exactly explode out of the gate like a World Cup does or the previous Euros did.

It’s exploded out of the gate 5-1 lol
I get what you’re saying though but there’s always jeopardy after the group stages.

 

[Ravager29586]

Can't wait... almost all groups are interesting/competitive. I think it's gonna be a great tournament: great teams, great host. I'm gonna go ahead with my predictions:
GROUP A: Germany, Switzerland and Scotland
GROUP B: Spain, Italy and Croatia
GROUP C: England and Denmark
GROUP D: France, Netherlands and Austria
GROUP E: Belgium, Ukraine and Slovakia
GROUP F: Portugal and Czech Republic

Spain will have a great tournament, I think they have the quality to win it. Austria or Ukraine are my candidates to take out a big team in the knockouts. Netherlands go out in the round of 16 and Germany in the quarter-finals.

Don't sleep on Hungary. A recent loss to Ireland is too irrelevant because it's a friendly. They were still unbeaten in competitive games since September 2022 and might be the ones that will surprise people.

Here's my full predictions (traditional one used by the most YouTubers):
GROUP A: Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Scotland.
GROUP B: Spain, Croatia, Italy, Albania.
GROUP C: England, Denmark, Slovenia, Serbia.
GROUP D: France, Austria, Netherlands, Poland.
GROUP E: Belgium, Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania.
GROUP F: Portugal, Turkiye, Georgia, Czechia (Yep! I wanted Georgia to go further as debutants).
Best 3rd Place Teams: Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Georgia.

Second Round:
Spain over the Netherlands (another disappointing performance for the Dutch in the Euros), Germany over Denmark, Portugal over Italy (very close game, since it's a great matchup between the last 2 winners of Euros), Austria over Ukraine, Belgium over Switzerland, France over Turkiye, England over Georgia (see it going past the 90 minutes), Hungary over Croatia

Quarterfinals (This is literally a tough):
Germany over Spain
Portugal over Austria (desire won't be enough for the Austrians)
France over Belgium (Belgium couldn't get a revenge for the 2018 World Cup semifinal loss)
England over Hungary (might be the close game, but not enough for the Hungarians to continue their upset, so no repeat of the 4-0 win in 2022 Nations League match)

Semifinals:
Portugal over Germany
France over England (best game of the tournament)

Final:
France over Portugal (1-0, in a repeat of the Euro 2016 Final, but with opposite result!)

Some notes:
-Italy to go through in the last game against Croatia, which was a very close draw.
-Scotland will finish dead last in the group and even surpassed Turkiye's disappointing Euro 2020 performance by conceding so many goals (they had just got battered 1-5 by Germany in the opener and could have been a higher).
-Poland will surprise the Netherlands by picking up a draw in the opener, then simply lost to Austria and France.
-Both Austria and Hungary, two teams could surprise anyone.
-England will recover back from their disappointing performance vs Iceland by winning 2 games and drawing vs Denmark, but not good enough for them to win the whole thing. They will lose to France on extra time in the semifinal.
-Georgia will barely qualify for the Round of 16 as a debutants by beating Czechia.

I must say that, since it was expanded to 24 teams, it's become less interesting for me (16 is perfect). The tournament now really drags — it's a lot of matches to eliminate a third of the teams. I'd almost prefer the Euros to expand to 32 and have no third-place teams advance.

Saying that, I think it's going to be a France-Portugal final with Les Bleus lifting the trophy.

Euro with 32 teams only increase the risk of bad injuries due to the additional 12 games. 24 teams is still good. The same format also applies to the AFC Asian Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). And you know that we still have a 32-teams Club World Cup and 48-teams World Cup in the next two summers.

Would be interesting to see Euro 2016 Final rematch happened this time around, with France winning it. We could have another France vs Italy major final in football - just like what happened in 2006 World Cup Final - coincidentally enough in Berlin's Olympiastadion, where this year's Euro Final also will be played. Italy must finish top on the Group of Death with Croatia and Spain to make this happen, which is unrealistic for them.