Analysts from all over Europe put France forward as the clear favorite to win EURO 2020. The reigning world champion already had a selection full of world top players and national coach Didier Deschamps also announced the return of Karim Benzema at the last minute. lesson Bleus now also has access to an absolute elite striker. Sports analytics company’s data experts
By Thijs Verhaar
The sports analytics company collects data from nearly 200,000 football players and hundreds of leagues, making it easy to compare players. SciSports also assigns ratings to players and an algorithm determines a level that the player can achieve in his peak years. The SciSkill Index (a score between 0 and 180) by definition does not say whether someone is the best or worst football technically, but shows whether someone at a certain level has had an influence on the team result. The higher the score, the higher the chance that it will have a positive effect on the game progress.
This means that the team with the highest SciSkill can be expected the most at the European Championship. However, the country with the highest SciSkill does not listen to the name France. The strongest starting eleven of Les Bleus Although it comes to an impressive average of 118.95 points, it still has to give way to England (124.15) and Germany (125.24). Slightly lower on the ladder, Spain (112.87) and Portugal (114.87) complete the top 5. Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark and Croatia follow behind. All countries in the top ten have a score of more than a hundred points, which indicates that the differences among the starting teams are not extremely large.
Of all 24 participants, North Macedonia has the weakest starting eleven on paper.
However, North Macedonia (54.1), Finland (56.1) and Hungary (59.7) seem to have few illusions as the weakest brothers of this European Championship. With their selections they would not even rise above the middle bracket of the Eredivisie, although you are talking purely about averages. Players like Goran Pandev and Teemu Pukki could of course make the difference individually and that’s exactly why North Macedonia and Finland can always have a glimmer of hope. Even if the odds are not in your favor, in football it is always possible to win.
The Finns even proved that with a 1-0 victory over the normally much stronger Denmark, but due to the nasty incident about Christian Eriksen, there was logically modest reaction to that unexpected victory. The future must show whether Finland can surprise against a stronger opponent under normal circumstances, while it is logically impossible to put into figures how the Danish team will perform in the rest of the tournament after this traumatic experience.
The starting eleven of Germany is slightly stronger on paper than those of England and France.
The ten highest ranked countries of this European Championship are, in contrast to the Finns and the North Macedonians, world-class teams. In theory, they could well compete for the overall victory in the Champions League, which is of course not surprising when you can unite many of the best football players in the world in one country tournament. Most of those top players can be found in Group F, where France, Portugal and Germany are together in a group. These are three of the five strongest countries in Europe on paper, which is of course underlined by their status. France is the reigning world champion, Portugal won the last European Championship and the Nations League, while Germany was the best at the 2014 World Cup.
As is known, the group is completed by Hungary, which is much weaker on paper. They also miss their star player Dominik Szoboszlai and know that all three superpowers will go full for the victory, knowing that all numbers 1 and 2 will continue in a group, plus four of the six best number 3. With a big win and two small defeats give you a very good chance to continue, which takes the tension off the mutual squatters a bit. Nevertheless, it will be very interesting on Wednesday to see how France will do against Germany, which is therefore estimated by SciSports as an even better team.
On paper, seven countries are stronger than the Dutch starting eleven, but the the Dutch is the strongest party in Group C.
England has already proven itself as number two on the virtual placement list of the sports analysis company with a victory over Croatia ranked tenth and also does so with one of the youngest selections at the European Championship (24.8 years on average). Only Turkey has a slightly younger team than the English with an average age of 24.6 years. With an average of 26.9 years, the Netherlands has the fourth youngest selections, while Maarten Stekelenburg also has the oldest player of the European Championship in its ranks. The oldest selections for this tournament come from Belgium and Sweden (every 28.7 years). The latter two countries can therefore race on their experience and are therefore less erratic, according to SciSports, which can be an advantage in a tournament.
For the future, however, it is not a good sign, as the teams need to be replaced. This is also apparent from the potential figures. Belgium now has one of the best selections, but has little growth margin, while France and certainly also dark horse Italy, with their relatively young teams, can rise much further. According to SciSports, players reach their absolute peak moment around the age of 27, but thanks to new experiences, footballers can also take steps faster. The well-known phenomenon of ‘growing in a tournament’ can therefore play a role again, so that some extra spotlight can be focused on Italy. They have not yet proven more than seventh place, but potentially have the fourth best starting eleven, as the table from SciSports shows above. The Netherlands has the seventh strongest team on paper and will remain so if everyone achieves their maximum potential. the Dutch is the best on paper, however, Group C is.
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