Austria vs France Predictions, Picks | Euro 2024 Match Preview

Monday, June 17

3 p.m. ET

FOX

Austria Odds	+450
France Odds	-182
Draw	+333
Over / Under	2.5  -138o / +110u

Odds via bet365. Get up-to-the-minute Soccer odds here.

France and Austria will open their tournaments with a crucial match in Group D.

After losing on penalties in the 2022 World Cup final, France is out for redemption at the Euros, looking to win its first major international trophy since the 2018 World Cup. They are the second favorites behind England and have the best player in the world in Kylian Mbappe, but this is a tricky first match for them in what will be a difficult group.

Austria comes into the Euros after an impressive qualifying campaign under Ralf Rangnick. They finished second to Belgium in their qualfying group, but the underlying numbers were incredibly impressive. They are set up incredibly well to play as the underdog and will give France a lot of fits both in and out of possession.

Let's take a closer look at this matchup in our Austria vs. France preview.

Austria

Austria is also a really good transition side that likes to utilize its ability out of possession, forcing high turnovers to create easy direct counter attacking opportunities. When they do transition, they like to get the ball out wide to create opportunities via cutbacks or crosses to the far post. They were top eight in accurate crosses per 90 minutes in the Euro field, while also having the sixth-most counter attack shots.

That actually is going to work really well against France, which allowed the highest cross-completion rate in qualifiers. What is also concerning for France is they didn’t really win many duels in their own final third, as they had the second-lowest defensive duel win rate.

Austria is very versatile in possession as well. Because of its ability both from build-up situations and attacking in transition, Austria averaged 2.05 xG per 90 minutes and the fourth-most shots per 90 minutes during qualifying. They have a pretty decent striker as well in Michael Gregoritsch, who averaged over four shots per 90 minutes in qualifying and is coming off a productive season, with Freiburg putting up a 0.57 npxG per 90 minute scoring rate.

France

Austria is the type of opponent that I am not sure France is ready for.

France is a really unique team in the fact that is not interested in controlling or holding a majority of the possession in a match. They want to try to get in transition as often as they possibly can. That worked throughout qualifying against the Netherlands because they let them have the ball and created a lot of transition opportunities. Where they had some struggles were against teams that played very compact low blocks.

They also did not face a team that pressed or won duels at the rate Austria does. Rangnick is not going to have his side press recklessly, but if they do force France into long balls out of build-up moments, they allowed the third-lowest long ball completion percentage and had the highest duel win rate of anyone in the Euro field during qualifiers.

Of course, France has Mbappe and all of the attacking talent in the world, so they are a team that can blitz you at a moments notice, but consistently losing duels all over the pitch makes them an overvalued favorite.

Austria vs France

Prediction

France is one of the favorites in this tournament for a reason. They have way more talent than just about every team in this field, but being so reliant on trying to play direct has come back to bite them in years past. They also have been facing a ton of low defensive blocks throughout qualifying and haven't faced a mid-to-high block pressing team like Austria.

Austria is a really underrated team in this tournament. Being good out of possession, winning duels and hurting teams in transition is vital if you want to pull off an upset as an underdog — and they have all three.

France may very well win with their quality, but they are overvalued in this first match. I only have them projected at -153, so I like the value on Austria +1 at -105.

Pick: Austria +1 (-105 via bet365)

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