EURO 2024: Who Are The Teams To Watch?

By Ryan Brolly

Another International football tournament can only mean one thing, I try and analyse who has the best outside chance of doing well, risking looking very silly, riding a wave of predicting Morocco to go far in the 2022 World Cup on the ‘Sporty Scoop’ podcast, I am going to try and do that again without mentioning the obvious favourites and likely finalists; England and France. 

Germany:

I am already breaking my ‘no obvious contenders’ rule by putting my weight behind one of the most successful national teams of all time with a league that houses one of the best teams in the world Bayer Leverkusen and Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund. However, Germany whilst coming in as one of the top contenders , I am not the first to think they will do well, they have had an awful few years following their World Cup triumph in 2014, flopping at the two following World Cups and the Euros in between. This has forced talks of a ‘rebuild’ from the DFB, the German FA, starting with the hiring of Julian Nagelsmann who at a time was tipped as the next big thing in coaching but following a poor time as coach of Bayern Munich his stock had fallen. Nagelsmann seems to have found a rhythm with Germany defeating the Netherlands and France in the March 2024 International friendlies, deploying a 4-2-3-1 formation he gets to play with generational talents Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala alongside İlkay Gündoğan offering the experience, all behind Kai Havertz who after a solid campaign with Arsenal may have the confidence to lead the line at the tournament, his understudy Niclas Füllkrug will also be looking for a good tournament after the Champions League final where he should have scored at least once against Real Madrid. These two players have a lot of pressure on them as Germany have had issues finding competent centre forwards since icons Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski retired in 2014 and 2017 respectively. With the players I have mentioned and the talent around them I would expect Germany to at least make the semi-final in their home tournament if not win the entire thing. 

Hungary: 

We move into the outside shouts now, Hungary who under their boss Marco Rossi who was appointed in 2018 have had a great rise, qualifying for Euro 2020 but being eliminated from the ‘Group of Death’ they managed to shake off that disappointment and go on to lose only three games in 2022, go unbeaten through all of 2023 and win both fixtures in 2024 thus far. These runs have not been exclusively against minnows either with famous victories against England in Budapest 1-0 and again in Wolverhampton where they thrashed England 4-0. They have also achieved a win and a draw against Germany and collected a win against fellow ‘dark horse’ Serbia in Belgrade. This represents a great rise in form coinciding with a talented group including Liverpool midfielder Domink Szoboszlai, SC Freiburg ace Roland Sallai and stalwart defender Willi Orbán, I predict they will make it out of their group containing Germany, Scotland and Switzerland rewarding Rossi for his impact on the team. 

Georgia:

I do not think Georgia will win Euro 2024, but this is their first ever international tournament of any kind and I expect them to provide a good showing. Under manager Willy Sagnol they line out in a five at the back formation so do not expect lots of goals from Georgia but their fans should make up for any lull on the pitch with the passion being evident when they qualified in a play off against Greece on penalties in Tbilisi during March. Georgia also have players occupying places on teams within Europe’s top five leagues, Spanish giants Valencia share a starting goalkeeper with Georgia in the form of Giorgi Mamardashvilli, Napoli star Khvicha Kvarastkhelia is undoubtedly the best player in this team and is their top scorer, Giorgi Chakvetadze is name familiar to all Football Manager players as he was labelled as a ‘wonderkid’ in the 2021 edition of the game and Georges Mikautadze was signed by Dutch giants Ajax before instantly being loaned to French Ligue 1 side Metz who has triggered their option to buy clause in hopes for selling the striker for upwards of €20m.

Alongside these three deep dives I also will be keeping an eye on Austria as they contest a ‘Group of Death’ under their coach Ralf Ragnick with a supremely talented squad. I will also be watching Slovenia in the hopes attacker Josip Illicic has the send off he deserves on the International stage by bagging a goal for his national team. 

Ryan Brolly is Sport Editor at The Scoop