Euro 2024 General discussion of tournament & teams' progress

[exile]

Looked up the FIFA rankings for Euro qualifiers. I know they have limitations, but still.

Scotland in the top 18 (i.e. top 3/4) down 5 places. Hadn't realised Germany so low, just 3 places above Switzerland.

2             France

3             Belgium

4             England

6             Portugal

7             Netherlands

8             Spain

9             Italy

10           Croatia

16           Germany

19           Switzerland

21           Denmark

22           Ukraine

25           Austria

26           Hungary

28           Poland

33           Serbia

36           Czechia

39           Scotland

40           Türkiye

46           Romania

48           Slovakia

57           Slovenia

66           Albania

75           Georgia

[Orraloon]

7th bottom and 8 teams go out in the first round. Sounds about right. 

[ceudmilefailte]

So 16 quality and we are 18th best plus the three teams in our group are miles ahead of us. 
 

Huston we have a problem. 

[exile]

Betting odds (just an example) from AKBETS

1 England 3 /1 2 France 4 /1 3 Germany 6 /1 4 Portugal 8 /1 5 Spain 9 /1 6 Italy 16 /1 7 Netherlands 18 /1 8 Belgium 22 /1 9 Croatia 45 /1 10 Denmark 55 /1 11 Austria 85 /1 12= Switzerland 90 /1 12= Turkey 90 /1 14 Ukraine 100 /1 15 Hungary 125 /1 16 Serbia 135 /1 17= Czech Republic 175 /1 17= Scotland 175 /1 17= Poland 175 /1 20 Romania 300 /1 21= Slovakia 500 /1 21= Slovenia 500 /1 23= Georgia 750 /1 23= Albania 750 /1
Oddschecker, Scotland to beat Germany 12/1 Scotland to qualify from group, 11/1

Edited June 2, 2024 by exile

[mccaughey85]

4 minutes ago, exile said:

Betting odds (just an example) from AKBETS

1 England 3 /1 2 France 4 /1 3 Germany 6 /1 4 Portugal 8 /1 5 Spain 9 /1 6 Italy 16 /1 7 Netherlands 18 /1 8 Belgium 22 /1 9 Croatia 45 /1 10 Denmark 55 /1 11 Austria 85 /1 12= Switzerland 90 /1 12= Turkey 90 /1 14 Ukraine 100 /1 15 Hungary 125 /1 16 Serbia 135 /1 17= Czech Republic 175 /1 17= Scotland 175 /1 17= Poland 175 /1 20 Romania 300 /1 21= Slovakia 500 /1 21= Slovenia 500 /1 23= Georgia 750 /1 23= Albania 750 /1
Oddschecker, Scotland to beat Germany 12/1 Scotland to qualify from group, 11/1

11/1 shows how little hope the bookies are giving us.

It's interesting that we are 11/1 to qualify from the group yet we are still the same odds as Poland and Czechs to win the tournament.

I wonder what the odds are for those two nations to get out the groups. Surely can't be as bad as 11/1.

[Orraloon]

29 minutes ago, todd said:

Best just not bothering turning up then...

Well, we didn't turn up last time round. 

[mccaughey85]

10 minutes ago, exile said:

Betting odds (just an example) from AKBETS

1 England 3 /1 2 France 4 /1 3 Germany 6 /1 4 Portugal 8 /1 5 Spain 9 /1 6 Italy 16 /1 7 Netherlands 18 /1 8 Belgium 22 /1 9 Croatia 45 /1 10 Denmark 55 /1 11 Austria 85 /1 12= Switzerland 90 /1 12= Turkey 90 /1 14 Ukraine 100 /1 15 Hungary 125 /1 16 Serbia 135 /1 17= Czech Republic 175 /1 17= Scotland 175 /1 17= Poland 175 /1 20 Romania 300 /1 21= Slovakia 500 /1 21= Slovenia 500 /1 23= Georgia 750 /1 23= Albania 750 /1
Oddschecker, Scotland to beat Germany 12/1 Scotland to qualify from group, 11/1

Pretty sure the 11/1 is to win the group. That's what bet 365 have us. They have us 8/11 to qualify which is surprising considering we have never made it out of the groups of a major tournament.

Bet 365 have us 16th favourite at 100/1 to win the tournament whereas Poland and Czechs are 150/1. Ukraine are 100/1 as well.

[exile]

49 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

Pretty sure the 11/1 is to win the group. That's what bet 365 have us. They have us 8/11 to qualify which is surprising considering we have never made it out of the groups of a major tournament.

Bet 365 have us 16th favourite at 100/1 to win the tournament whereas Poland and Czechs are 150/1. Ukraine are 100/1 as well.

Sorry, you are correct, 11/1 to win the group.

It was a last minute edit I added in. Not paying proper attention.

[mccaughey85]

40 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

Correct - and the play off too

We needed our strongest team available to really compete and it looks like we will be well short of that 

We are only really missing hickey. All our first team players are available. 

[exile]

If I am following the fixtures correctly, then if we qualified (in 3rd place let's assume) we'd play the winner of group B, E or F.

 

Group B is a sort of group of death and winner could be the likes of Spain, Italy or Croatia. E top seed is Belgium, F top seed is Portugal.

 

No easy games!

[The Black Bra]

2 hours ago, exile said:

If I am following the fixtures correctly, then if we qualified (in 3rd place let's assume) we'd play the winner of group B, E or F.

 

Group B is a sort of group of death and winner could be the likes of Spain, Italy or Croatia. E top seed is Belgium, F top seed is Portugal.

 

No easy games!

I think I can say without any doubt whatsoever that no one would give a shit who we played in the knockout round, it would be the greatest achievement in our history just to get there!

I’m pretty confident that 3 points would see us through the group ( in the current format, has anyone ever been knocked out in the group with 3 points?). Considering that we’ve beaten Spain, Denmark, Ukraine & Norway recently, is it really that far -fetched that we could beat Hungary or Switzerland? I just hope that if we get jumped by Germany, we can put it behind us and go for it in the other two games.

[The Black Bra]

‘Humped’, not ‘jumped’. Same thing I suppose.

[Grim Jim]

Going back to exile's OP, rankings are based on past performance.   We need to factor in who's on an upward trajectory.   Germany have improved, the Swiss maybe drooping a bit?

( I was never great at calculus though.   Should I be integrating or differentiating their results to get a prediction? 😬 )

 

[exile]

5 minutes ago, Grim Jim said:

Going back to exile's OP, rankings are based on past performance.   We need to factor in who's on an upward trajectory.   Germany have improved, the Swiss maybe drooping a bit?

( I was never great at calculus though.   Should I be integrating or differentiating their results to get a prediction? 😬 )

 

Sure, and the fuller rankings show Scotland dropping 5 places, so we are on a downward trajectory. Though we have a chance t reverse that in the coming week.

Could be differentiation to get the, er, slope of the line? That might equate with 'trajectory'?

[Grim Jim]

You're right exile, rate-of-change for us results wise is/was downwards, but have hopefully bottomed out.

Have never been happy with apparent peaks in 1973 & 1977 😳

[Texas Pete]

2 hours ago, The Black Bra said:

I think I can say without any doubt whatsoever that no one would give a shit who we played in the knockout round, it would be the greatest achievement in our history just to get there!

I’m pretty confident that 3 points would see us through the group ( in the current format, has anyone ever been knocked out in the group with 3 points?). Considering that we’ve beaten Spain, Denmark, Ukraine & Norway recently, is it really that far -fetched that we could beat Hungary or Switzerland? I just hope that if we get jumped by Germany, we can put it behind us and go for it in the other two games.

Debatable. If we finish in the top 2 and get into the last 16 then you could argue that was our greatest achievement but we have finished 3rd in our group before. Would doing that again (and hopefully being one of the best 4 3rd placed teams) be a better achievement just because the format of the tournament has changed?

We also reached the last 8 of Euro 92. 

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Grim Jim said:

Going back to exile's OP, rankings are based on past performance.   We need to factor in who's on an upward trajectory.   Germany have improved, the Swiss maybe drooping a bit?

( I was never great at calculus though.   Should I be integrating or differentiating their results to get a prediction? 😬 )

 

This is why rankings are to be taken with a pinch of salt. They could be based on a team's performance due to a few excellent players who have since retired or are injured.

9 hours ago, exile said:

Sure, and the fuller rankings show Scotland dropping 5 places, so we are on a downward trajectory. Though we have a chance t reverse that in the coming week.

Could be differentiation to get the, er, slope of the line? That might equate with 'trajectory'?

I'd say the Swiss are probably close to being in transition and both Hungary and Switzerland had easier qualifying groups than us. We had some friendlies against top opposition and a couple of dead rubbers. The only real disappointment was the NI result.

[exile]

10 hours ago, The Black Bra said:

I think I can say without any doubt whatsoever that no one would give a shit who we played in the knockout round, it would be the greatest achievement in our history just to get there!

 

Yes, I don't normally look ahead or care who the opposition would be. It was more that I was looking at the fixtures of the competition as a whole and noticing that any third placed team would face a group winner. Also, there are different permutations of what other third placed sides a given third placed side would be rated against.

[ThistleWhistle]

I think it's a tight group and the way the fixtures have fallen is a bonus for us.  If Hungary or Switzerland lose their first game the pressure is on whereas our first game is a shot to nowt really and even a morale boosting defeat isn't the end of the world.  If Hungary and Switzerland draw then they need to beat us or Germany get through too whereas we'd only need beat one of them and draw the other probably if Germany keep their shit together. 

I think the above rankings have to be taken in the context of their qualifying groups too:

Romania are 300/1 yet they finished ahead of Switzerland whose record what a bit shit really.  

4 wins - Belarus (a), Andorra (h & a - 'only' 2-1 away) and Israel (h)

5 draws - Romania (h) Kossavo (h & a); Israel (a) and Belarus (h)

lost to Romania away

 

Hungary topped their group but there was no big hitter in it with it being themselves, Serbia, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Montenegro.  In fairness they didn't lose, beat Serbia h & a but did draw all their other away games.

As such, looks like all three teams are pretty stodgy but maybe lack a bit going forward.  Wouldn't be surprised if it was a bit of a boring group for the neutral being honest:

Germany beat Scotland with a squeaky one

Swiss and Hungary bore the shit out of everyone 0-0

Swiss and Scotland bore the shit out of everyone 1-1

Germany beat Hungary 

Swiss beat Germany B 

Straight shoot out between us and Hungary for third.  

 

 

 

 

[HopelessUnbeliever]

10 hours ago, Texas Pete said:

Debatable. If we finish in the top 2 and get into the last 16 then you could argue that was our greatest achievement but we have finished 3rd in our group before. Would doing that again (and hopefully being one of the best 4 3rd placed teams) be a better achievement just because the format of the tournament has changed?

We also reached the last 8 of Euro 92. 

Agreed - 3rd at Euro 96 with 4 points (which was also last 16) and last 8 at Euro 92 are both better achievements than squeaking through this group in 3rd place. 

[The Black Bra]

1 hour ago, exile said:

Yes, I don't normally look ahead or care who the opposition would be. It was more that I was looking at the fixtures of the competition as a whole and noticing that any third placed team would face a group winner. Also, there are different permutations of what other third placed sides a given third placed side would be rated against.

If we manage to get through the group, the fans will be ecstatic to finally get that monkey off our back. It will be the same for the players, they will be buzzing and it could spur them in to put n the performance of their lives in the knockout round. There will be no expectations on us, the pressure would be on the higher ranked team and…..

I need to have a lie down.

[The Black Bra]

4 minutes ago, HopelessUnbeliever said:

Agreed - 3rd at Euro 96 with 4 points (which was also last 16) and last 8 at Euro 92 are both better achievements than squeaking through this group in 3rd place. 

You’re both right of course, it’s just that thing of actually getting through the group and playing knockout football.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, HopelessUnbeliever said:

Agreed - 3rd at Euro 96 with 4 points (which was also last 16) and last 8 at Euro 92 are both better achievements than squeaking through this group in 3rd place. 

It's not just about getting to the tournaments, it's how we did it.

In Euro '92 there were fewer national teams in Europe: Yugoslavia was in a civil war and the old Soviet Union was playing as the CIS. 

Although we won our qualifying group, we were one point ahead of both Romania and Switzerland. Switzerland were definitely a worse team back then. Their improvement is possibly down to the influx of football-loving; immigrants from the Balkans as football definitely isn't as popular in Switzerland as it is in Scotland . I fully expect Scotland fans to heavily outnumber Swiss fans in Cologne and in the stadium, so that's a positive.

Our Euro '96 qualifying group wasn't easy but it wasn't that difficult either. Greece were an OK but not amazing side and were our only realistic challengers for second place.  I definitely think our tournament performance was the best one of my lifetime, though.

This qualification campaign has possibly been our best ever in my opinion.

 

[JandC]

Yes, it used to be only 8 teams that qualified back in the day so we did really well to get in at all.

This one feels like the most open we’ve had in ages and question marks round all the bigger nations. 
 

I’ve got a bad feeling that Hungary might the dark horses this time!

 

 

[Toepoke]

1 hour ago, ThistleWhistle said:

I think it's a tight group and the way the fixtures have fallen is a bonus for us.  If Hungary or Switzerland lose their first game the pressure is on whereas our first game is a shot to nowt really and even a morale boosting defeat isn't the end of the world.  If Hungary and Switzerland draw then they need to beat us or Germany get through too whereas we'd only need beat one of them and draw the other probably if Germany keep their shit together. 

I think the above rankings have to be taken in the context of their qualifying groups too:

Romania are 300/1 yet they finished ahead of Switzerland whose record what a bit shit really.  

4 wins - Belarus (a), Andorra (h & a - 'only' 2-1 away) and Israel (h)

5 draws - Romania (h) Kossavo (h & a); Israel (a) and Belarus (h)

lost to Romania away

 

Hungary topped their group but there was no big hitter in it with it being themselves, Serbia, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Montenegro.  In fairness they didn't lose, beat Serbia h & a but did draw all their other away games.

As such, looks like all three teams are pretty stodgy but maybe lack a bit going forward.  Wouldn't be surprised if it was a bit of a boring group for the neutral being honest:

Germany beat Scotland with a squeaky one

Swiss and Hungary bore the shit out of everyone 0-0

Swiss and Scotland bore the shit out of everyone 1-1

Germany beat Hungary 

Swiss beat Germany B 

Straight shoot out between us and Hungary for third.  

The fact the Swiss could be playing a weakened already group winning Germany is definitely a concern.

Also unless we're sitting on 6 points I wouldn't want to be in third place having to watch all the other groups finish after us 🙈