The final match days of the group stage are speeding up at Euro 2024. Here are four things you should look out as both Group C and Group D come to a head on the twelfth night of the tournament in Germany.
By Ian King
England probably still does expect
With the fewest goals scored and even the fewest points hanging about, it speaks volumes that England have effectively already qualified for the next round from Group C with a game to spare. This milquetoast England.
So England do have a game on against Slovenia tonight. If there is nothing else to be gained from Harry Kane’s somewhat waspish reaction to criticism of former players in the media, then let that be the rapid construction of a bunker mentality and a point that the players need to be proved. They can rebuild morale and get an increasingly sceptical crowd onside with a more positive and tactically thought-out performance against Slovenia, and second place in their group will almost certainly mean a daunting match against Germany.
The race for second in Group C looks like a relegation battle
While the group systems used in major tournaments is a league table, the only ‘trophy’ that really matters is whether you get through or not, but such has been the paucity of the football in this group that it has taken on the rather strange form of resembling a strange sort of relegation battle, with two teams still on two points and one on just the one.
England are through with a game to spare, but who else gets out of this group is completely up in the air. Slovenia really need a win against England, though a draw leaves them on three points and with a chance of getting through in third. For Serbia, only a win will realistically do. The three below England all have a chance of qualifying. Whether any of them particularly deserve one is a different matter.
France benefited more from Saturday’s goal than it cost the Netherlands
It’s unlikely that the (correctly, but still controversial) disallowed Dutch goal in Saturday night’s match against France will have terrible consequences. With four points from three games, the Netherlands are already guaranteed at least third place in Group D.
Assuming that the goal had stood and the final score remained 1-0, France would have dropped to third place in the group, level on points and goal difference with Austria, but below them on goals scored. The Dutch would have been on six and through as likely group winners. It’s still within their hands to do so, but they really need a win now against Austria to guarantee top place.
Droit au But?
That France are below Austria in Group D on goals scored highlights one stark fact: France have only scored one goal in two games so far, and that goal was scored for them by Austria’s Max Wöber.
There are three players in the French attack with 148 international goals between them, but there’s a problem with this: Kylian Mbappé’s nose is currently being held in place by scaffolding, Olivier Giroud is 37, and Antoine Griezmann has been finding ways of not scoring which have come close to defying the laws of physics.
But no-one else in the French team has reached double figures, and it says something about them so far that their stand-out player has been N’Golo Kanté, a midfielder of the box-to-box variety. Mbappé may not find the construction covering half his face to be a distraction. Griezmann may have a positive meeting with the witch who put a curse on him and get it lifted. Giroud has rolled back the years before. But this does all raise a couple of question marks over France that didn’t exist at the start of this tournament.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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