The Euro 2024 favourites have been named – is football finally coming home?
Here at FourFourTwo, we're gearing up for the tournament in Germany, with the countdown to another European Championship well underway. Euro 2024 promises to be huge, with so many European superpowers jostling for the trophy – and now that we know the group stage draw, it's a little easier to predict the fixtures of the tournament and some of the heavyweights' routes to the final.
Now we have an idea of the Euro 2024 squads, here's our run-through of the likely suspects to lift the Henri Delaunay trophy, courtesy of Betfair. You may want to favourite this page – there will be movement between now and the tournament kicking off this June…
Euro 2024 favourites to win odds:
1. England - 3/1
With Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham excelling abroad and Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice all thrilling in the Premier League, there's plenty of reason for optimism for this England squad. Arguably, the team is one of the nation's strongest-ever, making it understandable why the Three Lions are the favourites to lift the trophy in the final on July 14.
History does disagree with their billing, however. England have never won the European Championship, coming closest at Euro 2020, of course, while Gareth Southgate will be sweating on the fitness of key defenders John Stones, Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw.
Placing a bet on England, therefore, might not be as certain as the bookies think. Unless you're hopelessly patriotic, the odds are far too short for our reckoning when considering recent history and the quality of the other contenders, too.
2. France - 15/4
This is a France squad full to the very brim. Kylian Mbappe leads an all-star France squad full to the very brim of talent across the pitch, with Antoine Griezmann and Olivier Giroud supplementing the 25-year-old in attack, Real Madrid duo Eduardo Camavinga and Aurelien Tchouameni providing solidity and creativity in midfield, while William Saliba, Jules Kounde and Lucas Hernandez are defensive rocks.
Recent tournaments have been painful for Les Bleus in recent times, too, following their World Cup 2018 success, meaning they'll be out to avenge their heartbreak. A last-16 exit at Euro 2020 on penalties - concluded by Mbappe missing the decisive spot kick against Switzerland - was followed up with another shootout defeat in the World Cup final to Argentina. True, their odds might not be particularly favourable, but the squad's winning experience makes victory a very real possibility.
Don't bet against a very Gallic fallout, either: this is a nation that has a long history of imploding rather than being outplayed… and there are a fair few egos in this side, after all.
3. Germany - 5/1
This is perhaps the most underwhelming Germany squad for a generation, and yet, the bookmakers still regard them as third-favourites. That's largely down to the fact Euro 2024 is a home tournament, though, with recent tournament performances clearly not contributing to how much regard Die Mannschaft are held in: successive group stage exits at the past two World Cups sandwich getting beaten by England at Euro 2020.
But having a home crowd can prove the difference, and it's not as if they're completely devoid of talent, either, with some of the best players on Earth in the form of Ilkay Gundogan, Leroy Sane, Joshua Kimmich and Jamal Musiala making up their team. Manager Julian Nagelsmann may be young, but he's clearly a quality coach, too.
By FFT's reckoning, 5/1 odds are quite good considering Germany are the hosts and have a long history in the tournament. Plus, at Euro 2020, the winners were the best-coached team. We'd expect Nagelsmann to be the best manager at this edition.
=4. Spain - 8/1
The lack of an out-and-out goalscorer since the days of David Villa and Fernando Torres has failed to impact them in qualifying, though it could come back to bite a Spain squad in transition. New boss Luis de la Fuente is inexperienced at senior level, and could come unstuck in games where more ruthless ammunition is required.
Gone are the heady days of a decade ago when Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets reigned supreme, too, though Rodri and Pedri are more than adequate to dominant the ball in that typical La Roja fashion. Overcoming a difficult group containing Italy, Croatia and Albania is required before Spain even start to consider winning the tournamnet, and even then they'll want to ensure they don't get taken the distance in potential knockout games due to their woeful penalty record.
Odds of 8/1 are good for a country that made a semi-final last time around – but given how wholly unreliable the Spanish have been for over 10 years now, we'd hold off on that bet.
=4. Portugal - 8/1
The standouts in qualifying now have Roberto Martinez in charge, following his much-maligned spell with Belgium – who he didn't, by the way, do all that badly with, actually – while there are obvious superstars across the Portugal squad.
OK, so Portugal didn't have the most difficult group, their key player essentially hasn't played competitive football since the last World Cup (as much fun as it looks for Cristiano Ronaldo in Saudi Arabia) and the conversation about how to move on from CR7 is still bubbling. No one is expecting Portugal to sweep the tournament, despite the hype – hence their relatively low billing in the odds, here.
Can we shock you, though? This is our pick to bet on: and not because Portugal have great players but big-game players. They're a dark horse – duh, that's why they're worth betting on – but Ronaldo, Bernardo Silva, Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo, etc. are used to the big stage far more than so-called 'better' squads: and Martinez has a far better grip on these egos than his predecessor, Fernando Santos. Frankly, 8/1 are unmissable odds for a nation that absolutely blitzed qualifying.
The Rest
More Euro 2024 stories
England's side is likely to look like this for Euro 2024 – while Kieran Trippier has labelled team-mate Jude Bellingham as "frightening".
The Euro 2024 draw was interrupted by sexual noises in porn prank like the one heard during Wolves vs Liverpool earlier this year.
FFT have also created a Euro 2024 wall chart, which is free to download and contains the full schedule and dates.
