The 2020 European Championships start on Friday, a year late, with a total of 24 teams playing across 11 cities.
This is traditionally a difficult tournament to predict. There have been seven different winners of the last eight European Championships – who can forget Greece’s shock 2004 triumph, not to mention Denmark’s victory in 1992.
That said, given the quality of the top of the market, we think the winner of this tournament will come from the top eight in the betting.
Favourites for the event are the current World Cup holders, France. They have all the quality needed but do have a wonderful ability to implode, and we think are too short of a price given they have been drawn in a qualifying group that includes Germany and Portugal. All three teams could well get out of the group, but we’re not prepared to take a punt on that.
England are second favourites, and do have the advantage of playing most of their games at Wembley. However, there are big question marks about their defence, and they have a difficult draw should they top their group. They would face the second-placed team in the France group – their odds don’t reflect this, we feel.
Belgium have a good chance, and a reasonable group, but have flattened to deceive in the past. We feel they are too short a price for a team that has yet to deliver, while the Netherlands lost 4-2 to Turkey in their World Cup qualifying group, and could only manage a draw with Scotland at home recently.
This leaves Italy and Spain.
The Spaniards have drawn a relatively easy group and have talent in abundance. However, we’re a bit worried about their Covid situation, with Diego Llorente recently becoming their second player to test positive, joining captain Sergio Busquets. Both players will miss the first game against Sweden, while all training has been suspended. This can’t help.
The Italians are masters of tournament football. They won’t have the big names but are unbeaten in 25 matches, winning 20. They are defensively very solid, having conceded just three goals in their last 15 matches, and we think defences tend to win tournaments. We’re fans.
Turning to the top goalscorer bet, recent history suggests it is important to focus on those representing a nation carrying realistic trophy claims, and as mentioned above we fancy Italy and Spain to do well at this tournament.
However, we think Italy will base their success more on a strong defence while Spain have two interesting contenders in Alvaro Morata and Gerard Moreno. It’s difficult to know who will start up front and so we’ll leave alone.
Elsewhere, we think the Netherlands have drawn the easiest group, in Austria, Ukraine and North Macedonia, and this should provide Memphis Depay with plenty of opportunities to get on the score sheet. At 27, the Lyon star is in his pomp and he is on penalty duty. We’ll take a chance.
Recommendations:
Italy to win Euro 2020, 1 pt, at 8/1, widely available
Depay (Netherlands) to be top scorer, 0.5 pts each way at 16/1, 1/4 the odds for the first four, bet 365
