Euro 2024 Latest

The Group Stage ended with England through to the Round of Sixteen but Scotland knocked out, unable to go through in a 'best third place' capacity.  All of our predictions were for Scotland to lead a 'Highland Charge' through to the knockout rounds for the first time but it was just not to be.

Scotland's first game was also their heaviest ever defeat in the Championship, suffering a 1-5 defeat to hosts Germany. Once more their 'top scorer' all time record is 1 goal, this time around Scot McTominay joins that list for scoring Scotland's solitary goal of the three games, against Switzerland. Well, not exactly the solitary goal, as they notched another in that opening game against Germany, although that was an own-goal by Antonio Rudiger.  Although not recorded by the UEFA website, technically Rudiger became Scotland's joint top goalscorer at a European  Championships!

England have looked uninspiring in each game, and weak at the back.  Their 'safefty first' approach of passing out from the back has caused some high stress levels amongst those of us watching; These players are not Barcelona and the wayward passes across midfield and defence, and a goalkeeper that sometimes plays as sweeper, often look clumsy and too inviting to the opposition who tend to press hard and find a goal.  However some last gasp heroics from Bellingam (bicycle kick!) and Kane (confident header from Ivan Toney's flick to the back post) spared the three lions from an embarrassing flight home.  

Like it or not it is a tactic that has just about worked, and other teams have done well in tournaments in the same way.  Momentum is everything and in knockout football the key is to get out of the group with as few injuries or cards as possible then gain momentum, peaking in the big games.  England somehow won their group, scraped past Slovakia, and now it is time to turn on the style.  Maybe, just maybe, this time we can say #itscominghome ?

Here are out predictions for the Round of 16, what are yours?

	AG	KT	Dice
Switzerland v Italy	0 - 1	0 - 1	0 - 2
Germany v Denmark	2 - 1	3 - 1	3 - 1
England v Slovakia	2 - 0	0v0 (5v4 on pens)	0 - 4
Spain v Georgia	3 - 1	4 - 0	2 - 2 (3 v 1 AET)
France v Belgium	1 – 1 (3 – 2 AET)	2v2 (5 - 5 AET  5v4 pen)	0 v 0  (0 v 0 AET,  0 v 1 pens)
Portugal v Slovenia	3 - 1	2 - 0	6 - 3
Romania v Netherlands	1 - 1 (2 - 3 AET)	1 - 0	0 v 0 (2 v 0 AET)
Austria v Turkey	4 -1	1 - 1 (3 - 2 AET)	0 - 5

As usual, we present these predictions for fun only and do not encourage gambling, nor do we suggest that you use any of this information to inform it!

Euro 2021: Great Brits' Second Fixtures

Another week and another set of results for our Home Nations heroes!

Wales has now fulfilled three fixtures and qualified for the Round of 16. Well done Bale & Co. 

Their progress was though predicted by the dice. More about that next time when we consider the final group rankings.

For now it is enough to say that our random dice roles "knew" the welsh would beat Turkey, although not the exact scoreline. Which is more than can be said of us, as we were not so optimistic, predicting a draw at best.

The biggest game of the weekend for us was England v Scotland.  Yes we know that there were many big games, not least Germany v Portugal, but from a soccermadboffins perspective it was the game at Wembley that was most anticipated.

Alex thought it would be an end-to-end thriller of guts and glory, with England eventually winning 3-2.  Kevin was a little more conservative, believing that England would scrape past the Scots 1-0 (perhaps a Harry Kane penalty?). The dice called it at 0-2 to the Scots!  

The reality was 0-0 but the game was far from boring. Some great passing moves and several chances on goal for both sides made it an edge-of-the-seat emotional rollercoaster. But one thing was apparent: If Harry Kane is marked out of the game or deprived of service, then there are no prolific strikers in either country at this level. Perhaps an indicator of the reliance on imported talent in the Premier League? 

Finally, on Sunday afternoon Italy beat Wales by 1-0, although the welsh were down to ten men for a  portion of the game, so it really wasn't a bad result, although a win would have been a nice Fathers Day gift for some!

How did we do with this one? Well Kevin was bang on with his prediction, whilst Alex got the outcome right, but not the exact score.  The dice were wrong about everything.

Full details are provided in the table below which compares the actual results with our predictions.

More coming soon, including a round-up of the remaining Group Stage scores, as well as final Group rankings, and our predictions. How closely did we call it? Tune in next time to find out!

Euro 2021: Great Brits' First Fixtures

What a few days! All three of the GB teams that qualified for the Euros have now played their first fixtures.  

As reported previously, we are once again running our predictions vs those of a dice throw.  So far the only actual correct prediction was Alex who fortold of Wales' 1-1 draw with Switzerland.

Today saw a valiant Scotland lose 0-2 to the Czech Republic, a result that did not live up to either or our optimistic predictions, nor those of the dice.

Football took one step towards home yesterday when England scraped past Croatia by a goal to nil.  Neither Alex nor Kevin had seen that coming, perhaps bearing in mind the last time that these two met in a major tournament, and/or England's usual stuttering start in these things.  The dice showed most confidence calling it 3-0 to England and although the scoreline was far more conservative, all points did go England's way.

When we look at goals scored things do look more accurate: Alex, Kevin and the dice all predicted that Wales would find the back of the net once. Alex and Kevin also both knew that England were good for a goal against Croatia, and the dice somehow knew that the Croats would fail to score. Kevin was most realistic about Scotland's finishing, whilst the dice cannily 'knew' that the Czech's would put two past them.

More updates coming soon. We'll try to report back regularly in relation to the three 'Home' nations involved as well as the usual Group Stage summary and Final Report once the tournament has drawn to a close. 

So, watch this space!