Over the past few decades, teams have tried various methods to qualify for the Euro tournament. With this in mind, can performance during the qualification stage shed light on their chances of winning the final tournament?
HOW IMPORTANT ARE EURO QUALIFYING MATCHES?
It’s incredibly challenging for bettors to predict the outcome of international football matches. Every Premier League team plays 38 matches in a season, but for an international team to play that many matches, it takes years. For example, England’s first of 38 matches leading up to Euro 2024 was their 2-0 victory over Germany in the previous tournament, three years ago. Predicting becomes even more difficult given that nearly a quarter of those games were friendlies. Moreover, qualifying matches against teams like Andorra, Malta, and San Marino can hardly be considered true competition.
Still, as we approach the upcoming European Championship, we’ll try to determine whether a team’s form in qualifying impacts their performance in the tournament itself, as qualifying matches make up a large portion of a team’s competitive international play.
Understanding the variable nature of the qualification process doesn’t make things easier. Euro 2024 will be the eighth tournament since 1996, when the tournament expanded to 16 teams. In this time, seven different methods have been used to select the countries for the final stage. Despite the varying approaches, there has always been a breakdown of teams into group winners, second-place teams, and/or playoff winners.
Euro 2024 will take place in Germany, featuring 10 group winners, 10 second-place teams, and three playoff winners—24 countries in total. Using data from Wikipedia, we can analyze team results from previous European Championships and explore how they may influence betting choices. By the way, if you’d like to test your sports knowledge and analytical skills, we recommend visiting the bookmaker rankings via this link: https://odds2win.bet/bonuses/pakistan and claim a personal bonus for your first deposit from one of the reliable sports betting sites.
HOW DO EURO PLAYOFF TEAMS FARE IN THE FINAL TOURNAMENT?
Three teams qualified for Euro 2024 through the playoffs: Georgia (making their debut), Poland, and Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, due to their longer path to the final stage, playoff winners in the last seven tournaments (excluding Euro 2008) have not had a stellar track record. However, as with any rule, there are exceptions.
In 2004, the Netherlands reached the final four, and eight years later, Portugal—who beat them—did the same before losing to Spain. Apart from these two examples, the record is slim. Of the 21 playoff winners since 2000, only two teams have battled their way to the quarter-finals. At Euro 2020, none of the four playoff teams made it past the group stage.
This lack of success is reflected in Pinnacle’s odds for Euro 2024, where none of the four playoff winners are given more than a 1% chance of winning the tournament. Preliminary forecasts suggest that only Ukraine is likely to make it to the playoffs.
HOW DO SECOND-PLACE TEAMS FROM QUALIFYING GROUPS PERFORM AT THE EURO?
Ten teams that finished second in their qualifying groups will compete at Euro 2024 in Germany. These teams include Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Italy, the Netherlands, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Switzerland.
Teams that automatically qualified but finished second in their group have historically performed better than those relying on the playoffs. There is even a finalist among them, but given that it was Germany in 2008, this is hardly surprising.
Due to the diversity of qualification methods over the years, most teams that meet this criterion participated in Euro 2008 and the two preceding tournaments. These teams performed better in Euro 2008, but they were stronger at the time, and the final stage included only 16 nations, not 24.
Five of the eight quarter-finalists in Austria and Switzerland 16 years ago were second-place qualifiers, and three of them reached the semi-finals. Along with finalist Germany, this group included the Netherlands and Portugal, all of whom could easily have won their qualifying groups.
Eight years later, Wales finished second and reached the semi-finals, while Iceland and Poland made the top eight. More recently, Denmark reached the semi-finals in the last tournament, while the Czech Republic was eliminated earlier.
In two tournaments with 24 teams, a quarter of the second-place finishers in qualifying reached the quarter-finals. Pinnacle’s odds for Euro 2024 suggest that two of the 10 second-place teams—Italy and the Netherlands—will reach this stage. With Croatia ranked ninth alongside Denmark, it’s quite possible that a third of these teams will make it to the final eight. The publication was interesting and useful! Would you like to get predictions for a football match? Follow the link https://odds2win.bet/predictions/football and check out the latest analysis for upcoming football matches. Bet wisely!
HOW DO GROUP WINNERS PERFORM AT THE EURO?
This year’s group winners include Albania, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Turkey. While expectations for these teams vary, this group includes four of the five nations with the lowest odds on Pinnacle’s Euro 2024 winner market.
The reasons lie in history. Nine of the 12 finalists from the last six European Championships came from this group, as did the winners of every tournament. These teams also account for 13 of 24 semi-finalists (54.2%) and 30 of 48 quarter-finalists (62.5%). Since group winners make up 48.2% of the teams since Euro 2000, it’s clear that they represent the majority of teams in each of the last three stages.
In 2020, only Poland failed to make it past the group stage. Austria and the Czech Republic faced the same fate in the previous tournament. In other words, the majority of these 10 nations should reach the Round of 16 in Germany, and one of them will likely be playing on July 14th in Berlin.
HOW DOES THE HOST NATION PERFORM AT THE EURO?
Germany will host the European Championship this summer, and their team is third on Pinnacle’s list of favorites to win the tournament.
There wasn’t a true host at Euro 2020, but since England played all but one of their matches at Wembley Stadium, they were effectively a penalty shootout away from the trophy.
Of the eight countries that hosted the previous five tournaments (including co-hosts), two were finalists, and another reached the semi-finals. However, their rank in continental standings seemed more important than the fact they played on home soil. All three teams that advanced to the later stages ranked 14th or higher in FIFA’s world rankings at the start of the tournament, while five of the teams that failed to make it past the group stage were ranked 20th or lower.
History suggests that Germany should be considered a solid bet to reach at least the semi-finals.
CONCLUSION
Setting aside the host advantage, the overall picture is clear. Whether analyzing quarter-finals, semi-finals, or the final itself, the majority of teams that advance come from group winners, followed by second-place finishers, with playoff qualifiers being the least successful.
These conclusions may seem obvious, but having data to support your assumptions can help you identify valuable betting opportunities.