Euro 2024
Omar Mahmoud
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Welcome to another article.
I decided to write this article as there is a big event coming up: The Euro. You know the World Cup? The tournament for 32 teams from all over the world? For national teams? This is the equivalent of it for Europe. There’s one for each continent; the Copa America for South America, the AFCON for Africa, the Asian Cup, etc.
This; however, is by far the best of them. People even compare it to the World Cup in terms of quality. It is no secret that European teams are the best in the world. They combined have the most WC titles ever, with 12, compared to South America’s 10. They have the biggest clubs, hence everyone supporting big European teams as their favourite, and the Champions League being the biggest yearly tournament.
As a result, the Euro gets a lot of hype. In the World Cup, you get to see 13 European Teams with their immense quality fight it out, and they usually win against the weaker Asian, African, North American teams.
Here, we see 24.
History
The Euro was created first in 1960, and has been held every 4 years since (except the 2020 tournament was held in 2021). It is timed so that it is between the World Cups. This way fans get a big tournament every 2 years and the players have enough time to rest before the next tournament. It has been held 16 times, and 10 different nations have won it. Germany and Spain have both won it 3 times, France and Italy won it twice, and Portugal, Netherlands, Russia, Czech Republic, Greece and Denmark won it once.
Format
The format has changed MANY times over the years, and the last change was the tournament being made a 24 team tournament instead of 16. This change was made during the 2016 edition.
Basically, how it works is that the 24 teams are taken and split into 6 groups of 4. The teams compete in round robin style matches (every team plays the other teams once each) with 3 points given for a win, 1 for a draw, and 0 for a loss. At the end of the group stage, the knockouts begin. The top 2 teams from each group qualify, ending up with 12. That number does not work out in knockout tournaments, as you will eventually end up with 3 teams and you need to have 2 in the end for a final.
The ones who finish 3rd in their group are now looked at. There are 6 3rd place finishers, and those are ranked 6 by points. Then, you take the highest 4 ranked and add them to the 12 automatics. That gives 16. From there it is a straight knockout to the final.
This Edition
Now let’s go over the details for this edition.
The Host: Germany
The Dates: June 14 to July 14
The Stadiums:
Olympiastadion Berlin in Berlin
Alliance Arena in Munich
Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund
Stuttgart Arena in Stuttgart
Frankfurt Arena in Frankfurt
Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen
Volksparkstadion in Hamburg
Dusseldorf Arena in Dusseldorf
Cologne Stadium in Cologne
Leipzig Stadium in Leipzig
The Group stage will run from June 14 to June 26, and the knockout stage will go from June 30 to July 14. There is no 3rd Place playoff in the Euros.
The final will be held in Berlin
At first glance, you immediately notice two things: Group B and D
The toughest groups: 2 Groups of Death, specifically Group B.
You have the team with the most Euro wins ever in Spain, Italy who are the current title holders, and the current World 3rd place team from the World Cup Croatia. (Who also, by the way, got 2nd at the previous World Cup).
And then there is poor Albania. Look, I’m not going to even comment on them being the weakest team because I have done that WAY too many times and that team always ends up having an underdog season or something like that. The takeaway is that all 3 of those teams are making it out of their group, as even the 3rd placed team will rank high enough to be the best 4.
Group D is less so, but there is France, the Netherlands and Poland, all 3 who made it to the knockout stage of the previous World Cup (Poland out in R16 to France, Netherlands out in QF to Argentina, France lost in the final). There is also Austria who are in really good form recently, even beating the hosts, Germany. So, although this one is not an eye catcher like B, it sure is fire.
For the other groups, you have the host group Group A which is actually not too shabby itself. Switzerland and Hungary are both underdogs, and I would not be surprised if either of them made it out of their group, despite Scotland and Germany being favourites here.
Group C is pretty obvious. England will win their group, Slovenia will finish rock bottom, and depending on how Denmark are feeling (they are good in normal games, but did horribly in the previous World Cup) they will either finish 2nd or 3rd. Denmark is better on paper, but they might just not show up and Serbia will clinch second.
Group E is probably the most boring one. Belgium are in a weak patch despite all the names they have. Slovakia have a good history, but are decent at best. Ukraine are pretty strong and finished in the Quarter finals last time around, and Roumania is, I’m not going to lie, pretty bad. Overall this is pretty low quality.
Finally, Group F. There are the secondary hosts, Turkey, (this was a joke, Germans are known to have a high Turkish ethnicity and population, so people are saying their games are going to have a high fan advantage), Portugal, one of the favourites of the tournament, the Czech Republic, and Georgia, who are debuting in their first ever international tournament.
Predictions
Tournament Winners:
The favourites that everyone agrees on :
England - INSANE squad depth and their players are doing really well in their clubs
The top favourites, they’ve never won it though
France - World Cup finalists
The second favourites, in my opinion they have a better chance of winning than England
Spain - High squad depth
Germany - The hosts; however, they have pretty bad form overall
Portugal - Really good squad, with lots of great players
Italy - Okay squad, mostly here due to the fact they are the title holders
Round of 16 Members:
My predicted to qualify from the groups are :
Germany
Hungary
Spain
Croatia
Italy (will qualify with Spain and Croatia in any order)
England
Serbia (I actually think they will edge it out over Denmark)
France
Netherlands
Belgium
Ukraine
Portugal
Turkey
There are 3 more that will come from the 3rd place finishers, but I can not determine those. To be honest, anything could happen.
The Golden Boot:
The Golden Boot will probably either go to Mbappe or Harry Kane. They are the prolific scorers of Europe at the moment (along with Haaland, who did not qualify with Norway), and I expect one of them to win it, especially since they are also tournament favourites.
So, that’s it guys. I guess there won’t be an article reacting to this tournament, as this is the last edition of The Raven’s Call for this year.
Make sure to check out my articles on the European finals (UCL,UEL,UECL)
Page layout by Omar Mahmoud
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