Euro 2024 Draw (Saturday 2nd December 5pm)

[Gordopolis]

1 hour ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

Fair enough, happy to bow to your superior knowledge. They always seem pretty decent when I've seen them but don't think I have since the last World Cup.

They were pretty doggedly good at Euro 20 too IIRC - beat France and reached the QFs.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Gordopolis

[Gordon EF]

Every pot (or potential teams from play-offs) in order of most wanted to least wanted.

Pot 1: Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, England, France

Pot 2: Romania, Albania, Austria, Turkey, Denmark, Hungary

Pot 4: Estonia, Luxembourg, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Bosnia, Georgia, Finland, Israel, Greece, Wales, Poland, Switzerland Ukraine, Serbia, Italy

Key for each pot:

1: Avoid France, England, or Portugal. Chances of taking anything from these three is probably slim. Germany, Spain, and Belgium would be favourites against us but it feels like we'd have a significant chance of getting something from them as they've all shown some vulnerability recently.

2: Ideally Romania or Albania. There isn't much to seperate the other four. Romania and Albania won weak groups. Albania's success, in particular, was built on very strong home form. That might not translate to a tournament on neutral ground. Romania are probably the weakest of the bunch based just on squad strength. Realistically, we're capable of beating or being beaten by all of these teams.

4: Avoid Italy at all costs and hope we get one of the diddier teams who get through a play-off. Italy is nightmare scenario. Someone like Serbia, Switzerland, or Ukraine would basically be like having another pot 2 level side in the group. The rest kind of get easier on a sliding scale and I'd be reasonably confident of getting the win that would take us a long way to getting through against any of them.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Gordon EF

[Gordopolis]

Would take that

[AndrewFFC]

2 hours ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

Being mega-optimistic, if we did get through...

Best groups to be group winners are B, C, E and F as they all play third place teams, the other winners have to play runners-up.

Best groups to be runners-up are A, B, D and E as they would play other runners-up. The other runners-up play group winners.

All four third place teams that go through play group winners so no difference there.

Best group to be in would be A or B due to having a longer rest before the knockouts surely

[Hendricks]

3 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

Every pot (or potential teams from play-offs) in order of most wanted to least wanted.

Pot 1: Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, England, France

Pot 2: Romania, Albania, Austria, Turkey, Denmark, Hungary

Pot 4: Estonia, Luxembourg, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Bosnia, Georgia, Finland, Israel, Greece, Wales, Poland, Switzerland Ukraine, Serbia, Italy

Key for each pot:

1: Avoid France, England, or Portugal. Chances of taking anything from these three is probably slim. Germany, Spain, and Belgium would be favourites against us but it feels like we'd have a significant chance of getting something from them as they've all shown some vulnerability recently.

2: Ideally Romania or Albania. There isn't much to seperate the other four. Romania and Albania won weak groups. Albania's success, in particular, was built on very strong home form. That might not translate to a tournament on neutral ground. Romania are probably the weakest of the bunch based just on squad strength. Realistically, we're capable of beating or being beaten by all of these teams.

4: Avoid Italy at all costs and hope we get one of the diddier teams who get through a play-off. Italy is nightmare scenario. Someone like Serbia, Switzerland, or Ukriaine would basically be lke having another pot level side in the group. The rest kind of get easier on a sliding scale and I'd be reasonably confident of getting the win that would take us a long way to getting through against any of them.

 

Good post. 

The pot 2 and 4 sides minus the Italians and possibly the Path C qualifier are all very much of a much ness and on any given day we could win or lose to each. 

I think I said it earlier in the thread but if you were to guarantee us avoiding France, England and Italy right now I'd take it. We'd be in a massively competitive group with a fighters chance regardless. Something like Germany, Austria and Greece would give us a right good chance. I think it's highly likely that we are going to want the Pot 1 side to win the other games thus making it into a mini group scenario with a free hit at Pot 1 ourselves. I wonder if Spain might be quite a good option give recent fixtures and maybe it would be played cautiously. 

There are other reasons for avoiding certain countries, ticketing for one; don't want Turkey who will have tens of thousands there given over a million live in Germany!

[HeartsOfficialMoaner]

Want to avoid teams with violent or racist fans also.

[BFTD]

Saw someone pointing out that Hungary might be the team to avoid in Pot 2. They've pulled off some sensational results in the past few years and are on quite a run. They're obviously not the most talented squad, but have clearly managed to gel as a team in a similar way to Scotland.

I'll take Germany, Denmark, and one of the Nations League qualifiers please. Maybe they'll have sorted themselves out by next summer, but that pair are all over the place just now, with the Germans losing to anyone who fancies having a go and Denmark making heavy weather of a straightforward group. They just lost to Norn Iron, for God's sake.

[nate]

BELGIUM/ALBANIA/PATH C (prob GREECE OR GEORGIA)

The bonkers thing here is that Pot 4 could very well end up being tougher than Pots 2 & 3. Pot 3 is already tougher than Pot 2 if FIFA rankings are to be believed. No Pot 2 team faced any of the so-called big five in their qualifiers…that’s why they’re in Pot 2 in the first place. We shouldn’t fear any of them. 

[PSJ.84]

 

Agree with the above post about avoiding Hungary. Very much greater than the sum of their parts, plus an exceptional talent in Szobszlai. It’s tournament football though, so 95% of the games are likely to be tough. 

[forameus]

I've no idea (well, actually, I do have an idea, given it's almost certainly just down to name) why everyone seems so terrified of Italy.  They're down in pot 4 for a reason, and although I'd still prefer, say, the Path C playoffs option than them, I wouldn't be averse to drawing them.  They've been to as many tournaments as we have since 2018, and although the one they did go to they won, they've shat the bed getting to two World Cups.  They're not to be overly feared in the way you'd fear France or similar.  

Anyway, using that handy wee app someone put forward, it's just mugged me right off by suggesting Italy are amongst the hardest draw (based on ELO).

Think if we got that, we'd stand a decent chance of getting something from Denmark or Italy, but could also see us getting papped out with nothing.  When you're hoping for a "better" nation to f**k up, not the best position to be in (especially when we're well capable of doing similar).

The "hardest draw based on market value" replaces France with England (curiously with the same "value" as France).  I'm not as afraid of England as some, but again it's basically a question of which England turns up.  They're well capable of turning in an utterly turgid mess of a performance (their November has them up there with Belgium in the "talented but tedious" stakes), but they proved at Hampden that if they want to, they could hold us at arms length and win comfortably.  

Onto the draws we definitely won't get, and based on ELO, it's this one

I would definitely take that.  Germany are an awkward one, as they'll be at a home tournament, and surely can't be as bad as they have been, but...well they have been utter shite.  Seems like the sort of perfect storm moment for them to have a real shitemare and start another reinvention that ends with them winning the 2030 World Cup.  We should be able to beat Albania to secure 3rd, and Poland seem to be on the slide down while we go in the other direction.  2nd definitely not beyond us, and if all the stars align, that's probably a group we could actually win..

 

[Guest]

10 hours ago, HeartsOfficialMoaner said:

Want to avoid teams with violent or racist fans also.

That's England out etc

[craigkillie]

1 hour ago, forameus said:

I've no idea (well, actually, I do have an idea, given it's almost certainly just down to name) why everyone seems so terrified of Italy.  They're down in pot 4 for a reason, and although I'd still prefer, say, the Path C playoffs option than them, I wouldn't be averse to drawing them.

They're still clearly the best Pot 4 team, given that the other two teams already in Pot 4 both finished with worse records in easier groups, and the other three options from that pot didn't even qualify.

[VictorOnopko]

I would take this draw, although Serbia not ideal from pot 4.  No one in pot 2 gives me the fear.

Only really desperate to avoid France, England, Portugal (10 wins in qualifying), Italy and (in a hopefully N/A scenario) Wales.  Turkey will have a huge support but on the other hand they looked pretty tame in last night's game against the Welsh and weak group winners. 

Germany losing 2-0 to Austria last night underlines how much they are struggling atm.

Yes Italy have been rubbish recently but I still wouldn't want to face them as 4th seeds; no one would be surprised if they controlled the game and smothered our glittering creativity to win 1-0.

 

[MarkoRaj]

1 hour ago, forameus said:

I've no idea (well, actually, I do have an idea, given it's almost certainly just down to name) why everyone seems so terrified of Italy.  They're down in pot 4 for a reason

 

The reason they're on pot 4 is because they had one of the harder groups. 

[kennie makevin]

13 hours ago, Autistisches Nilpferd said:

England

Albania

Slovenia

Greece

 

France

Denmark

Scotland

Italy

That's your draw right there !!

[VictorOnopko]

 

[vince sinclair]

Take France, chances are they win all 3.  Let us fight it out with other 2 (Albania / play off winners)  

[HeartsOfficialMoaner]

4 minutes ago, vince sinclair said:

Take France, chances are they win all 3.  Let us fight it out with other 2 (Albania / play off winners)  

It means we can’t get them in the next round. 

[Billy Jean King]

Why the hell anyone wants us to draw England again is beyond me (on so many levels).

[2426255]

Seems we'll have a fight on our hands to qualify from whatever group we get - even as one of the 4 best third place teams. All other things being equal im expecting we'll have to be close to our max performance levels for at least two of the games, maybe three.