European Football Championships on channels 14.6.–14.7. Go to the competition website from this link.
Listen to the latest episode of the 11 friends podcast below or from this link.
At 18:15 EM studio
E block:
At 19:00 Ukraine–Belgium
At 19:00 Slovakia–Romania Areena
F block:
At 22:00 Czech Republic–Turkey
At 22:00 Georgia-Portugal Areena
Three of the initial groups of the European Football Championship have been played. There have been enough awkward situations when looking at the final rankings, and the same can be expected even today.
On Wednesday evening, before the two intermission days, the last preliminary blocks, E and F, will be played.
Portugal is the sure winner of Group F. Turkey, the Czech Republic and Georgia still have a chance to advance. For Turkey, a draw is enough for second place in the group.
The Czech Republic needs a win against Turkey, as two points would not be enough to compare the group three.
At 19:00 on Wednesday, the E group, which is the longest in the tournament, will be played. Romania, Belgium, Slovakia and Ukraine are each on three points. Nothing like this has been seen in EC history.
You can read more about block scenarios in the link below.
What is interesting is that Romania and Slovakia will both definitely advance – Slovakia at least in the third group – if they draw.
Former Romanian national team player Danut Lupu downloaded a wild claim for Romanian Antena Sport.
Lupu said that he is sure that the Romanians and Slovaks will “get along” and play evenly.
– It is organized. It would be a shame if we both didn’t continue. Why risk it?
– At this level, the players get along very well with each other. Why take a risk, repeated Lupu, who made his playing career in Hungary, Italy and Greece, among others.
Romanian head coach Edward Iordanescu assured According to the BBCthat the team is aiming for a group win in hopes of a better playoff schedule.
– But the most important thing is to get to the playoffs, which is our goal, Iordanescu nevertheless stated.
Also the Italian head coach of Slovakia Francesco Calzona comment on the possibility of a draw.
– We are professionals. We know a draw will help us into the last 16, but it means nothing because we want to play our own game.
Slovakia have won just one of their 11 matches against Romania. It was a friendly match in August 1942.
Romania has been to the European Championships five times and only once, the quarter-finals in 2000, it has qualified from the initial group.
As an independent country, Slovakia has also played in the European Championships in 2016 (lost in the quarterfinals to Germany) and 2020 (left in the first group).
The twists and turns of the blocks played
Germany and Switzerland advanced from Group A. Hungary is still participating in the group three comparison. At the moment, Hungary is fourth in the comparison, while the best four of the six group threes advance to the playoffs.
In the rankings of group A, more precise calculations were not needed, since all the teams got a different number of points. Although Hungary’s victory over Scotland was just coming off by Kevin Csoboth finish in time 90+10.
In Group B, Spain dominated and won all three of their matches, but otherwise there was enough drama. Albania equalized against Croatia in 90+5 and Italy equalized against Croatia in 90+8.
The European Championship has already seen a historically high number of goals (9) in extra time of the match.
That’s how Italy grabbed the second place in the group, so the reigning champion will continue to the playoffs. Croatia finished third in the group, and two points are not enough in that comparison.
There was enough to talk about on Tuesday evening. In group C, England’s game has not been convincing at any point, but the victory over Serbia and the draws against Denmark and Slovenia were enough to win the group.
At the same time, there was a sigh of relief in England when the team got to a clearly easier route in the playoff schedule.
England-Serbia was the only match in the group that did not end in a draw. Denmark and Slovenia played three draws each.
In Denmark and Slovenia, the other comparable factors also went the same way, all the way to yellow cards – or so it was thought at first. In that case, the duo’s rankings would have been decided by the EC ranking, which Huuhkaji also had an influence on.
In the end it turned out that the Slovenian assistant coach Milivoje Novakovic had received a yellow card in the match against Denmark. Thus, Slovenia had seven and Denmark six disciplinary points.
Drama was already seen in Tuesday’s previous matches in the D group. If England’s game hasn’t convinced the champion favorites, France won’t either.
France’s first group ended with a goal difference of 2–1. In the victory over Austria, Austria scored an own goal. France then drew 0–0 with the Netherlands and 1–1 in the group jumbo against Poland.
France’s goal against Poland was scored by a tough guy who played with his face mask on Kylian Mbappéi.e. not a single situational goal from France has been seen in the tournament.
Austria was already raised as a potential surprise before the tournament, but the team has played even more spectacular and entertaining football.
When Austria beat the Netherlands in the final round, they won the group. France goes on as second in the group, Holland in the comparison of the three.
Austria pushed France onto a clearly more difficult path in the playoff table. On the same side of the chart are the championship favorites France, Portugal, Germany and Spain.
If the favorites make it through the first playoff round, the semi-finals will feature matches between Spain and Germany and Portugal and France.
Statistics service Opta’s biggest favourites the current champions are Germany (19.99%), England (17.66%), France (15.93%), Spain (13.99%) and Portugal (10.09%).
Before the start of the last group round, the Gracenote data service predicted the championship favorites in the order of Spain, France, Germany.