Under Gareth Southgate, England’s national football team has been resurgent. At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the Three Lions topped Group B, amassing seven points to second-place USA’s five. From here, they made it through the quarter-finals after beating Senegal but were knocked out 2-1 by France in the next round.
A year earlier, in the rescheduled Euro 2020 tournament, England came closer to winning a major tournament than at any time since the nation’s World Cup win in 1966, only to be beaten by Italy in a fraught match and subsequent penalty shootout.
So in 2024, Southgate, his men, and the millions of England fans across the country are all eager to see this unfinished business put to bed. But can they do it or will the Lions be returning home to Wembley with their manes bowed and their tails tucked firmly between their legs?
What Do the Bookies Think?
When trying to assess a team’s chances in a major sporting event like the European Championship, many fans and commentators will turn their eyes to bookmakers to get their opinions. This is because major brands like Betway have teams of oddsmakers and pundits that will examine all of the different factors at play to understand who has the best chances of winning so that they can be reflected in the betting markets.
This year is no different and we can see from the Euro 2024 betting odds that England is considered to be one of the strongest contenders with a few months to go. With odds of 7/2, the Three Lions are the current favourites to win the tournament, as well as being clear favourites to take the top spot in Group C (4/11) ahead of Denmark (9/2) and Serbia (7/1).
As any veteran sports bettor will know, however, is that the favourite is not always the team that wins. In competitions like the European Championship, where the knockout stages are a winner-takes-all single-match affair, the pressure can get to some teams and things end up going against them.
So let’s take a look at the factors that are at play with England’s chances in Euro 2024.
Locale and Climate
The Euro 2020 tournament gave England the home-team advantage while competing in most of the knockout games. This was especially important for the final which was played at Wembley, the scene of the team’s World Cup victory in 1966.
Unfortunately for England fans, Southgate’s men won’t have the advantage of a home crowd in 2024 and this year’s tournament is being hosted by Germany.
This shouldn’t be too stressful for the team though as, unlike the Qatar World Cup in 2022, where the match-day temperatures were always in excess of 30 degrees; Germany’s climate is much closer to that of the UK. Additionally, the Central European Time zone won’t cause any issues for the squad.
Route to the Final
While there are plenty of variables at play, we can get a rough understanding of which teams England could face outside of the group stages. Following the current world rankings, if England win the group, they could face Austria, Romania, or Turkey in the round of 16, followed by Italy in the quarter-final, France in the semi-final, and Spain in the final.
This would be a tough run. Italy is the team that beat England in the Euro 2020 final and France knocked out the Three Lions in 2022. Spain are also a team you can never discount
Finishing runners-up wouldn’t be much easier as it would mean facing Germany in the round of 16, Spain, the Netherlands, and France.
Are the Players Up to the Job?
For too long, England has pinned too many of its hopes on other teams tripping up. As we can see from the teams Southgate’s team are likely to face, the chances of all these top footballing nations all having bad days is going to be low.
Therefore, the team needs to step up and fight for victory on its own merit. Thankfully, for the nation that gave the world football, England finally has a talented team with depth that can do this.
Names like Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane, and Bukayo Saka are no longer exceptional exceptions amongst mediocrity.
The true weakness might come in the team’s preference to play right down the centre when it comes to rules. In 2022, Southgate’s men were given the Fair Play award for clean games and the Euro 2020 final saw the home side subjected to a lot of rough tactics from the Italians.
England may, therefore, need to take their gloves off if they’re to live up to the favourable odds offered by the bookies.