EURO 2024
Friday June 14th — Sunday July 14th
England @ 15/4
Spain @ 4/1
France @ 9/2
Germany @ 9/2
Netherlands @ 7/1
Portugal @ 9/1
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After much huffing and puffing, flopping and diving, remonstrating and gesticulating, 24 teams have been whittled down to a magnificent 8.
It’s the Euro 2024 quarter-finals, baby! Only the most brilliant, streamlined, and synthesized teams in the continent can possibly make it this far.
With the obvious exception of England, of course. Who have been none of those things. Instead, they have been boring, inept, and inchoate. Bumbling through the draw almost by accident, as if this tournament of footballing elites was just an extended episode of the Wacky Races.
Assuming the form of an unlikely iconic national figure, England are Mr. Bean-ing it towards glory. Nobody knows what they are doing. Nobody has even a scrap of a plan for the next game. They are just hoping that the gods of chance and slapstick will see them continue to pinball onwards against much more cohesive, more tactically prepared outfits than themselves.
Opposition teams and managers are violently clenching their fists, throwing their hats to the ground in apoplectic frustration; cartoonish jets of steam firing from their collective ears as England somehow progress and they do not.
Assuming the form of an unlikely national icon, England are Mr. Bean-ing it towards glory.
Will England finally change the channel this weekend? Away from dubious comedy to more serious programming? Or will they, to the relief of the rest of Europe, finally get their comeuppance for royally stinking out the place?
England v Switzerland is a 5pm kick-off on Saturday in the Rhine Valley city of Düsseldorf.
A factor that has prevented some teams from realising their potential at Euro 2024 has been the presence of one or two players; individuals whose very existence makes performing as a functioning unit very difficult. And it’s not because these individuals are bad; in fact, it is often the opposite.
These players are The Undroppables. They are The Egomaniacs. Just by being on the pitch they possess the power distort and disrupt those around them. And the most egregious of these individuals in this tournament so far, has been Cristiano Ronaldo.
The goal of the Portugal team is not really to win the tournament anymore, it is to create scoring chances for CR7. And, so far, he has failed to put any of them away.
This is knock-out football: there is no time to wait for someone to play themselves back into form.
The supremely talented midfielders have had to spend every game wheeling grampa Ronaldo along the beachfront in his wicker bathchair to give him one last chance to smell the sea air before he finally shuffles off his mortal coil. They could be doing so much more.
France has a bit of a Kylian Mbappé issue too. Given that he can walk, he starts. But playing with a broken nose is bound to impair your play, especially when you’re expected to head the ball. Would they be better off trying a different system? Does France even have a plan that doesn’t revolve around Mbappé?
Though Harry Kane is far from an ego machine, as captain and top scorer he is, to quite a large extent, undroppable. And following has last-ditch acrobatics against Slovakia, another England player is putting himself firmly in the other category. ‘Who else?’ but Jude Bellingham – no matter how poorly he plays now, can this burgeoning egomaniac be substituted?
Football is a team sport. And great teams are often formed around 2 or 3 players; players whose exceptional contributions can win games. But what happens when these players are no longer making those contributions? This is knock-out football – there’s no time to wait for someone to play themselves back into form.
The squad that best accommodates their egos into the framework; or at least finds a way to prevent the gravitational pull of their dominant egos from sending the team wildly off course, stands the best chance to progress beyond the quarter-finals.
Or will the team that actually plays like a team – where there is a complete dearth of ego – ultimately triumph in Germany?
For all your bets on EURO 2024, visit our dedicated football betting page.
