It's back!
My second favorite tournament, the UEFA European Championships, have finally kicked off again. For the next month, I have a veritable feast of football awaiting me. I'm as giddy as Alan Partridge:
This means, of course, a bit of a respite from the usual superhero comics nonsense I've been posting here lately (unless something comes up). Instead, as I do every two years, I'll be doing a roundup of interesting thoughts from the most recent round of games. There will probably be stats and puns and ill-thought-out political commentary (also because, lucky us, the UK will hold its general election on July 4, smack dab in the middle of the tournament). So let's dive right in.
Overall, as I said in the title, there have been few surprises in the tournament so far. Just about every team that you'd expect to win has beaten its opponents, apart from Denmark, which led for most of its match against Slovenia, only to concede on 77 minutes. So far, that's the only draw we've had, but I'm sure before the group stage is out we'll have at least one dour 0-0.
Of the surprises that we have seen, they've fallen into two categories. The first is how dominant certain teams have been, specifically Germany and Spain. Germany in particular launched itself out of the starting block to thrash Scotland 5-1. Indeed, so hapless was Scotland in attack that their goal was scored by a German player who deflected into his own net. The talk before the tournament had been that Germany probably weren't ready, and no one knew where their goals were going to come from.
Well, the answer is that if Germany weren't ready before Friday's curtain-raiser, they certainly are now. And as for goals, the answer is that everyone's going to pitch in: all of Germany's five goals were scored by different players across their attack. This may not hold up as they get further into the tournament, especially as they encounter stiffer resistance than Scotland, but it's a good basis to build upon.
A word for the Scots: I may have said Scotland was hapless, but the picture may become clearer as we go on. Did the scoreline reflect how good the Germans were, how bad the Scots were, or was it just a perfect storm? I'd like to think that Scotland haven't fielded a team of complete no-hopers, given that they beat Spain in qualifying.
Speaking of Spain, they were also more dominant against Croatia than I'd have expected. Croatia seems never to run out of batteries, given that their main players have 368 caps between them (Modric, Perisic, Brozovic), and indeed they bettered Spain's passing and possession. But despite that, Spain scored three unanswered goals, which puts them in pole position in the group and makes Croatia's task of qualifying as one of the better third-placed teams that much harder. Like with Germany, the scoreline was a bit of a surprise, and the big question is how they will cope with stronger opposition in the knockout stages.
The other kind of surprise is the freak goals scored by the weaker/losing teams. Slovenia's has to count as the most influential of those, since it gave them the tournament's only draw so far. But the most notable surprise goal has to be Albania's against Italy, scored just 23 seconds into the game.
The consensus on Football Weekly and Totally Football is that the Albanians scored too early, which gave Italy time to get back into the game and win it. While that narrative is quite similar to the Euro 2020 final, in which England scored early only for Italy to equalize and then win on penalties, it obscures that in yesterday's game against Albania the Italians went ahead 15 minutes later, and the game trundled on at 2-1 for Italy until the final whistle.
My usual worry with Italy is that we never know which version of the team will show up. Three years ago, they set out their stall with a 3-0 demolition of Turkey (whom everyone had designated dark horses that could nick a result), while in 2008 Italy demonstrated their prowess as reigning World Cup champions by losing with an abject 3-0 to the Netherlands. Yesterday's performance against Albania was somewhere between those two extremes, but edging toward the positive side, since they won.
Another team that made heavy weather of their opening win was, of course, England. Jude Bellingham scored the game's only goal in the 13th minute, and the remaining 77 minutes (plus injury time) saw Serbia mount attack after attack on the English goal, only to miss quite badly every time. England didn't look that together in attack either, though, which will be worrying for their fans as they contemplate the knockout stages.
That seems to be my most enduring refrain, but in fairness, this is still only the first round of group fixtures, and we haven't seen every team play yet. Germany has set out its stall as the team to beat, and it'll be interesting to see if they can maintain that momentum as they go on, but the party atmosphere - everyone's very consciously trying to recreate the joy of the 2006 World Cup - should help the home team. Spain has an exciting young team and should qualify with ease, though I'd still like them to lose to Italy.
In terms of teams we haven't seen play yet, I'm most intrigued by France and Portugal. France has, to my mind, the strongest squad, man-for-man, than anyone else at Euro 2024. They face Austria first, which could be tricky, but, all things being equal, I expect France to roll over the hapless Poland and the less hapless but not convincing Netherlands.
Portugal, on the other hand, have a mixture of old stalwarts (Cristiano Ronaldo, Pepe) and newer players, and it'll be interesting to see how they gel. Their group consists of Turkey, Georgia and the Czech Republic, which isn't easy per se, but is also not any kind of "group of death". I expect Portugal to qualify relatively easily, even if they have to repeat their feat from 2016 and qualify in third after drawing all three matches.
I'm also a bit interested to see how Belgium get on. They're in a group of meh, rather than a group of death, but they're also in a bit of a transitional phase, as their old golden generation falls away and is replaced by younger players who aren't quite as heralded, at least as yet. I expect them to get through fairly easily, with Ukraine joining them.
I won't be watching quite every match, since some start at 6am and others will interfere with work. But I aim to catch as many noon games as I can, aided by my new subscription to Sling TV for the duration. If you're looking for a streaming package to catch the games, it's the best overall option, even if it doesn't have five matches that will be exclusive to FuboTV. Those Fubo-exclusives tend to feature smaller teams, and the majority are at 6am (pacific time, at any rate), so I didn't bother.
In any case, this is always a fun time of year, and I'm hoping for a good tournament. If Italy don't win (which would be nice!) then I want to see some exciting, classic matches. Luckily, the Euros are usually good for that. Roll on the next four weeks!
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