Who’ll Shine at the Euros?

 Anticipation is mounting for the 17^th edition of UEFA European Football Championship, known in short as EURO 24.

The tournament that’s being held in Germany runs from June 14 to July 14 with the grand final to be held at the 74,461 capacity Olympic Stadium in Berlin.

This year there are 24 teams competing, divided into six initial groups. The top sixteen teams will then go through to the knockout rounds of the competition. The eventual winners will then go on to meet the winners of the 2024 Copa America in the CONMEBOL-UEFA Cup of Champions.

There are a number of nations heavily fancied to be the overall winners and it’s very likely that it will be one of these five.

England

Looking at the Euro 2024 odds the one team that are set to win are England. They have been largely fortunate with their Group C competitors. Denmark is the main threat but Serbia and Slovenia should, on paper, be relatively easy to overcome. However, Denmark will be looking for revenge after their semi-final defeat at Wembley in 2020.

Key players for Englandv are likely to be Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and Declan Rice. It could also be seen as the culmination of the success that Gareth Southgate has been gradually enjoying with the team.

That said, they have been favourites before but have fallen short on each occasion – and when it comes down to games that are decided on penalties, their record leaves a great deal to be desired.

France

France is another team that has had a fair number of problems when it comes to a penalty shootout. In the Euro 2020 finals Kylian Mbappé missed the crucial one to lose to neighbouring Switzerland and in the World Cup they suffered the same experience against Argentina.

But, despite being in one of the most hotly contested groups with the Netherlands, Poland and Austria, their depth of talent should see them through. Alongside captain Mbappé, there’s Antoine Griezmann and Olivier Giroud. With the Real Madrid pairing of Eduardo Camavinga and Aurelien Tchouameni they’ll be rock-solid in the midfield and William Saliba, Jules Kounde and Lucas Hernandez form a defence that could prove impenetrable.

In the group stage the major challenge is likely to come from a fast-improving Netherlands but a first-place finish is the most likely outcome.

Germany

There is nothing that the host nation would like more than to enjoy victory in front of a home crowd on July 14. To get there they will have to overcome group stage opponents including Scotland, Hungary and Switzerland and they have shown some vulnerabilities recently. One only has to look at defeats by Turkey and Austria to see their fallibility.

However, they have plenty to prove, and it will mean a lot to both players and management if they can achieve this on home soil. To help them get there, the talents of players like Ilkay Gundogan, Leroy Sane, Joshua Kimmich and Jamal Musiala mean that they have a good chance achieving their aim. Top this off with the canny management style of Julian Nagelsmann and they could surprise us all.

Spain

Spain finds themselves in what is arguably the toughest group of all alongside Italy, Croatia and Albania. They have also been struck by the potentially devastating news that injury has all-but ruled Gavi out of the tournament. Manager Luis de la Fuente is also a relative newcomer at this level so he may have his work cut out to steady the ship.

However, they were semi-finalists last time and have a good chance of making it through to this stage again if they come out firing on all cylinders. Instrumental in this are likely to be Rodri and Pedri but it’s all going to be dependent on not finding any potential banana skins as they negotiate the group stage.

Portugal

Portugal come into the tournament with a perfect ten out of ten win record in the qualification stages and it’s expected that the group stage should be equally easy for them. Possibly the biggest threat comes from Turkey who have surprised opponents like Germany and Croatia in recent times.

Their not-so-secret weapon continues to be Cristiano Ronaldo, although his skills may have been a little blunted by facing not such great opposition in the Saudi league. But, with the back-up of others including Bernardo Silva, Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo, Portugal will remain a formidable force to be overcome.

Of course, in a tournament like this there will also be room for surprises like the ones delivered by Denmark in 1992 and Greece in 2004. So this could well be the story of the tournament in 2024. But, whoever does go on to win, we’re promised a spectacle of fantastic action to light up the summer.