With Euro 2024 just a few days away, one of Action Network's most foremost analytics experts, Nick Giffen, has found his favorite Euro 2024 predictions.
He'll be providing his projections throughout the tournament after a wildly successful World Cup run in 2022. For his favorite analytics-driven futures, read on below.
Euro 2024 Predictions
Winning Group – Group B (+450 via DraftKings)
Group B has three of the top ~12 teams in the world, including three of the top eight teams in the tournament if you go by my power ratings. Group B also gets the best trio of potential round of 16 games, and the winner places a third-placed team.
The Group B runner up faces the Group A runner up – and they would be favored over any potential Group A runner up except host Germany, but Germany are likely win their group. Group B's third place team would face either Group E or Group F's first place, and at an absolute worst case scenario they would be a coin flip in this game assuming it’s not Albania.
Group B is also sneaky in that on average they get the biggest positive power rating adjustment, because these four teams on average faced the toughest schedule in meaningful games leading up to the Euros. It might sound crazy, but I have this as fair around +250, with Group B winning the Euros ~29% of the time.
Romania to Finish Bottom of Group E (+200 via bet365)
Group E features Belgium, Ukraine, Romania and Slovakia. Romania and Slovakia are nearly equal by nearly all measures, but for some reason books are making Slovakia nearly an even money favorite to finish bottom.
Their Elo ratings (47th vs 49th), FIFA rankings (46th vs 48th) and our predictive analytics make this a near dead heat. Romania and Slovakia are nearly equal in xGF and xGA this cycle, but Slovakia have actually faced a tougher schedule. In fact, Romania have played the easiest schedule in competitive matches of all 24 Euro teams.
In 17 competitive games, they’ve only played three games against teams in the top 45 in the world. They went 1-1-1 in those games, but all three were losses by xG so Romania were pretty lucky.
In those 17 games Romania gave up just eight goals versus 18.8 xG, meaning there is massive regression potential as they played almost no good teams that can capitalize on opportunities.
I have Romania as the team most likely to finish bottom of the group and would bet this down to +150.
Highest Scoring Group – Group F (+500 via ESPN BET)
Group F has the second and third-worst defensive teams in the tourney by our predictive analytics power ratings in Turkey and Georgia, while Czech Republic are also the eighth-worst defense. Portugal are the second-worst defensive team of the highest ranked teams in each group.
According to our very own BJ Cunningham, "The Czechs and Turkey will press and create very open matches with Portugal."
Having arguably the worst team in the tournament (Georgia) helps as Portugal and possibly Turkey and Czech Republic can run up the score here.
I have Group F as the highest scoring group, so getting them at +500 is incredible value, and I would play this down to +350.
