To be ahead of all the masses publishing their Euro 2020 in 2021 previews, here’s an early one! No squads have been announced yet and in accordance with the name of this blog, I will provide a numerical – “statistical” would yield some confused faces from the Football Stats community – preview for Euro 2020.
Group of death
No tournament preview in history has ever missed the chance to pick a “group of death”. For this year’s contest there is only one nominee: group F with last edition’s winners Portugal and runners-up France, Germany and Hungary.
From all 26 countries that have competed in more than one Euro Cup, Germany (53%), Portugal and France (both 51%) have the highest win percentage. Obviously, all of them are also past winners of the Henri Delaunay Trophy (The what? Yes, that’s for winners of the Euro Championship). No other group holds multiple winners. Poor Hungary.
The “worst” group seems to be Group C with 1988 winners The Netherlands, Ukraine, Austria and debutants North Macedonia. Netherlands will play all group matches and home and the other three combine for a total of ONE win in the Euro Championship history. The Netherlands missed the last two big tournaments (Euro 2016 and World Cup 2018) and lost each of their last four Euro’s games, so can likely not be too confident at the highest international stage.
Netherlands, oh, Netherlands
As said the Dutch cannot build on a very good “recent” run in international tournaments. Having lost their last four Euro games, there is only one team who is on a worse streak: Ukraine, their opponents in their opening group game! The team from current manager Shevchenko failed to score in each of their last five Euro games and lost all of them. Only Yugoslavia (1968 to 1984) ever made it six defeats in a row.
Debutants
Finland and North Macedonia will both make their first appearance at the UEFA’s highest stage. How well do teams making their debut fare at the Euro’s?
Since 1980 – when for the first time the tournament was played with an opening group phase – 24 countries have made their debuts at the Euro Championship. Only 9 (38.5%) of those qualified for the next round and none of them made the final. The best performing nation’s on their maiden participation made it to the semifinals:
- Portugal in 1984
- Sweden in 1992
- Croatia in 1996
- Wales in 2016
That said; from the five countries that made their first appearance in 2016 four made it to the next round. Obviously helped by the fact that some spots in the knock-out stage were reserved for third-placed teams.
Better than 2016, please
For the people that came to see goals – and aren’t we all – Euro 2016 was one big disappointment. It saw just over two (2.12) per game and that way was the lowest scoring tournament since 1996. We also witnessed the same amount of own goals (3) as the previous three tournaments combined.
Portugal’s title was a testimony to that: they scored 9 goals in 600 minutes of football and won only one game in regular time, beating Wales 2-0 in the semis. Éder (who?!) scored the only goal in a final in which the Best of Europe only had one shot on target in regular time.
Team to beat
Eyes are obviously on Portugal as they are title defenders and have some half decent players here and there, but .. they are also the team that is on the longest current unbeaten streak in the tournament: 11 games (four wins and SEVEN draws, taking results after 90 minutes). Only one team, 2008 and 2012 winners Spain, have ever kept a longer run without defeats: 14 games, from 2008 until they met Croatia in 2016.
King Germany
Germany is the absolute king of the tournament. They are leaders in:
- Euros won: 3 (together with Spain)
- Euro finals: 6
- Euro semifinals: 8
- Euro games: 49
- Euro games won: 26
- Percentage of Euro games won: 53%*
- considering only teams with more than one participation; Wales won 67% of their games in 2016.
Hat-tricks
It has been three tournaments since the last time we saw someone score a hat-trick. In 2008 David Villa put three past Russia in the group phase. In total there have been eight hat-tricks scored, with only Michel Platini doing that more than once: in consecutive games at the 1984 Euro. The last one tripple he netted was against Serbia and was the quickest in history: only 18 minutes between the first and last goal.
Cristiano Ronaldo
And there is no way around CR7 of course – and what better than to have his name as header to come out on top of Google searches?! He won the Euro 2016 in a managerial role but will now be back with probably one goal: one goal is what he needs to become the all-time top goal scorer of the Euro history, a stat he currently shares with Michel Platini. Haters will not believe it, but none of the Portuguese’s nine goals have come from the penalty spot! All nine of his goals were assisted – by eight different players – and five of them came from the Portuguese forehead.
From all active players, 2016 finalist Antoine Griezmann – topscorer of Euro 2016 with six goals – and Zlatan (who will miss the tournament with an injury) are closest to him in the table. A man can dream: if Le Petit Prince nets three in the opening two games and Ronaldo keeps quiet, Portugal play France in round 3 of the group phase and we will see a face-off between the two stars to see who will surpass Platini.
A last goal stat on the number 7: after scoring goals in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016, he is now looking to score in his fifth consecutive Euro Cup. Only Zlatan could come remotely close if Sweden bring him to the tournament and he karate-kids one home: it would be his fourth (although not consecutive as he did not score in 2016!) tournament with at least one goal.
Also in terms of assists the new Ronaldo is on a rampage course; needing only two of them to surpass Karel Poborsky* as player with most goal assists in Euro history
*Note: UEFA credits Karel Poborsky with eight assists, but I could not find that one. Also other stat pages give him two rather than three (according to UEFA) at the 1996 Euro’s.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s (potential) records
- Player with single most goals scored (currently 9): one goal to surpass Platini
- Player with single most assists (currently 9): two assists to surpass Karel Poborsky
- Player with at least one goal in most editions of Euro Championship (currently 4): already record holder
- Player with most tournaments played (currently 4): one minute to play to surpass several others
- Player with joint most tournaments present (currently 4): to be in squad to match Iker Casillas
- Most Euro Championship matches played (currently 21): already record holder.
- Most Euro Championship matches played as captain (currently 12): three matches to surpass Gianluca Buffon.
- Most Euro Championship matches won (currently 11): one match to win to surpass Fabregas and Iniesta
- Most Euro Championship finals played (currently 2): one final to surpass 21 others.
- Most games with a brace (currently 2): one brace to score to surpass Griezmann, Platini, Rooney, Völler and Gerd Müller.
In the footsteps of Berti Vogts
German forward Berti Vogts is the only person ever who has won the Euro championship as a player, albeit without making any appearance for West Germany in 1972, and as a manager: Euro 1996.
Two of the current managers can match that feat: Frank de Boer (1988 winner) and Didier Deschamps (2000 champ).
Speaking of Frank de Boer; he is only on of three managers at the 2020 Euro who can really tell his players how to bang in goals at this tournament, scoring twice at the Amsterdam Arena – where The Netherlands will also play all group games this edition – including below screamer against France.
Doing the double
Eleven players have won the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Euro in the same year:
- 1964: Luis Suárez (Inter Milan & Spain)
- 1988: Ronald Koeman, Hans van Breukelen, Gerald Vanenburg, Wim Kieft* and Berry van Aerle (PSV & Netherlands)
- 2000: Nicolás Anelka* (Real Madrid & France)
- 2012: Fernando Torres and Juan Mata (Chelsea & Spain)
- 2016: Cristiano Ronaldo and Pepe (Real Madrid & Portugal)
*both did not make an appearance in the Euro Championship final.
The following players are looking to join that list:
Mateo Kovačić (Croatia)
Andreas Christensen (Denmark)
Ben Chilwell, Reece James, Mason Mount (England)
N’Golo Kanté, (France)
Kai Havertz, Antonio Rüdiger, Timo Werner (Germany)
Jorginho (Italy)
César Azpilicueta (Spain)
Squads
Age distribution
The average age of players select for Euro 2020 is 27.4. Here’s the age distribution per squad with the average age for the same:
Turkey and England youngsters
Tuekey have selected the youngest squad from the 2021 tournament; the twenty-six players average just under 25 years when the tournament kicks-off. It is the youngest squad to go to a Euro Championship since the Soviet Union in 1972.
The youngest ever squad selected for a Euro Championship was Yugoslavia in 1968: their players were on average 23.6 years old. The youngest ever team to lift the Euro Championship Trophy was Germany (25.1 years old) in 1980.
England is the second youngest team (25.3): it is the youngest team in they’re bringing to this tournament in its history.
The most “inexperienced” team this tournament is Scotland, whose players on average have featured in only 17 international games.
Football in numbers 