Who Can Win the 2020 European Championship?

Euro Qualifiers | Opinion

20/03/19

Who Can Win the 2020 European Championship?

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With the 2020 European Championship Qualifiers starting this week, the nations involved will be hoping to make a good start in their pursuit of reaching the finals next summer.

However, there are only 24 places in the finals and 20 of them will qualify via the group qualification process.

The remaining four teams will come through the UEFA Nations League and that means we will see some smaller nations at the tournament next year.

It will be great if Kosovo, Belarus, Georgia or Macedonia could make it but which teams have a realistic chance of winning Euro2020?

The bookmakers have France as the early favourites and it is easy to see why following their success at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. They will face a couple of tough games in their group against Turkey and Iceland but should come through as group winners without any problem. You must go back to 1984 to find the last time France won the European Championship and they lost in the final in 2016.

There is no doubt the French squad has the ability to lift the Henri Delaunay Trophy but who could stop them?

Germany were poor at the 2018 World Cup but with Netherlands and Northern Ireland the only teams capable of giving them a game in qualifying group C, they should qualify with ease. Joachim Low has taken the drastic step to tell some senior players they will no longer be considered including Jerome Boateng, Mats Hummels and Thomas Muller.

It is a big risk and the defence certainly looks weaker without the experience of Boateng and Hummels but Germany will always be a threat and Euro 2020 will be no different.

Another team who could have issues at the back is defending champions, Portugal. They have one of the tougher groups with Serbia and Ukraine providing testing opposition. While the Portuguese have plenty of young attacking players, the defence is still relying on Pepe and Jose Fonte who are 36 and 35 years old respectively.

Also featuring highly in the betting are Spain and Belgium. The latter finished third at the 2018 World Cup but time for the ‘golden generation’ is beginning to run out. They have a comfortable enough passage to the finals with Russia and Scotland the main opposition and if Belgium can keep everyone fit, they have a great chance of success.

The Spanish failed to impress at the 2018 World Cup and the current group of players does not come close to that which won the 2010 World Cup and 2012 European Championship double.

In terms of outsiders, the Dutch make an interesting prospect. They have failed to qualify for the last two major tournaments but with Vigil van Dijk, Matthijs De Ligt and Frenkie de Jong they have huge talent at their disposal.

Finally, one team which seems to have gone under the radar a little is Croatia. They finished runners-up at the 2018 World Cup yet are way down in the betting to win Euro 2020. They endured a poor Nations League campaign but have their World Cup squad intact and that’s a sign they could go far at the 2020 European Championship.