Who are your dark horses?

[titchuk]

Not necessarily to win the whole thing, but to do better than everyone expected, surprise one or two bigger teams, reach the semi finals or valiantly knocked out in the quarters and have Premier League teams queuing up to splash cash on their ageing midfielder, when inevitably there's a reason he spent all his career in midtable Bundesliga.

For me it's Hungary and Austria, both good qualifying records. Tricky groups but think they could do decently.

[GunmaN1905]

Idk how many teams can even be classified as dark horses.

There are good teams you expect to do well:
France, Portugal, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Netherlands, Belgium.

In this tier, I think Netherlands is a bit underrated and probably seen as the worst of the bunch, but they've been playing some solid football.
Belgium is slowly going out of contention as their stars get older and they don't have enough quality to replace them.
Croatia is still hanging on and playing well.
Italy has looked supbar as of late.
Portugal and England will disappoint due to their inept coaches.
Germany is random with all the changes happening, but they're the hosts.
France is the best team.

There are middle of the pack teams that either have the quality or results that give them hope of for a deep run:
Switzerland, Denmark, Serbia, Austria, Ukraine, Hungary, Turkey, Scotland, Poland, Czechia.

Switzerland will do their usual thing of punishing an underperforming favorite.
Denmark also has a punch in them.
Austria is the definition of traditional dark horse, been playing really well under Rangnick.
Maybe Scotland and Ukraine can upset someone, others not so much.
Serbia should be a team that's even close to favorites tier, but they're just a travelling circus.
Poland is so bad as of late that they should be put a tier down.

And then there are teams that most people think are just happy to qualify:
Albania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Georgia.

Not much to say, I'd say Albania is the best team here, but they're in an impossible group.

 

[Rob1981]

Hungary and Serbia for me.

I hope Serbia don't give England a bloody nose in the first game, but I could definitely see them beating Denmark and finishing second in that group.  Particularly if England and Denmark play out a draw on Matchday 2 because they both have three points on the board already.  Then Serbia should go into their final game against Denmark with second place in their own hands.

Can't believe I'm doing permutations already

And Hungary are the classic example of an international team that are greater than the sum of the parts.  You go right back to the summer of 2022 when they got that big win against England in the Nations League.  You had Hungary putting their strongest XI out in all those games and trying to get a top seeding for the Euros qualifying, where all their opponents were rotating players and trying debutants out.  Wasn't just England that dropped points against Hungary, they got a win and a draw against Germany as well.  And two years on they are still benefitting from that: ended up in Pot 2 for the draw due to a good qualifying record... now they are looking at a relatively easy route to the R16.

Beyond that, Romania qualified quite well.  So I can see them getting through, but that is more about their group being weak and less about them actually looking like a team that can go on a surprise run to the quarters or beyond.

Maybe Turkey as well, although they have lost a couple of big players to injuries in the build up.

Edited June 11 by Rob1981

[m_fenton]

Scotland to surprise everyone and win a match.

[WillHoward42]

Slovenia

[TalkSport]

2 hours ago, Rob1981 said:

I hope Serbia don't give England a bloody nose in the first game, but I could definitely see them beating Denmark and finishing second in that group.  Particularly if England and Denmark play out a draw on Matchday 2 because they both have three points on the board already.  Then Serbia should go into their final game against Denmark with second place in their own hands.

Serbia I've been expecting them to do well since 2010 WC  Been a disappointment at each WC and this is the first Euros they've qualified  

Don't expect them to do much now, so this will be the time they make a run to SF.

[mrw072]

Spain to win the competition. I haven't heard many people talking about them but they seem to be gelling as a team and playing well, from what I can see.

Croatia have been together a long time now. So I think may reach the last 4 again.

As an outsider. Maybe Serbia as a few others are saying. When I got involved in Gizzy's draft, I was surprised at their squad and think they may do ok if they can get out of the group.

[GunmaN1905]

As @Constantine will confirm, Serbia has plenty of individual quality, enough to play knockout phase of every tournament.

But I wrote they're travelling circus with a reason. Think of the worst tournaments for England when it comes to team cohesion, atmosphere and coaching...then make it even worse and that's the permanent state of Serbian FA.

[TheWednesday]

I fancy Turkey and Ukraine to surprise a few.

I've also read recently how much Albania have improved under Sylvinho so could be worth a watch.

[TM]

I think I said Turkey would be a dark horse in Euro 2020 and that turned into a damp squib

Hungary to win Group A, very unlucky in the 2020 tournament with the group of death but I reckon they'll fall to Spain in the QF who I predicted as one of the finalists.  Probably similar to Turkey now I've said it but Albania's qualifying run was impressive and I feel they might shock but like Hungary in 2020, they have the group of death in 2024 so 0pts incoming

[Rob1981]

1 hour ago, pearcey_90 said:

Serbia I've been expecting them to do well since 2010 WC  Been a disappointment at each WC

Banging my usual drum here about the best international teams having lots of players already used to playing with each other... and Serbia seem to have a lot of players in that sweet spot where they are coming in with 40-50 caps or more, but at the same time they aren't all the wrong side of 31/32 and going past their peak.

They've got a core of 9-10 players that will all be going into their third tournament together, plus a few more that weren't around for WC2018 but went to WC2022.  Only about six of their 23 outfield players that haven't been to a tournament before.

And they weren't a million miles off it at the last two WCs.  Even though they went out in the groups they were scoring goals and picked up a couple of results... and had to play Brazil both times.

[Constantine]

1 hour ago, GunmaN1905 said:

As @Constantine will confirm, Serbia has plenty of individual quality, enough to play knockout phase of every tournament.

But I wrote they're travelling circus with a reason. Think of the worst tournaments for England when it comes to team cohesion, atmosphere and coaching...then make it even worse and that's the permanent state of Serbian FA.

Yeah... Can't really argue with that...

But even that aside, we have some huge on the pitch problems. Our squad is unbalanced. We have no proper fullbacks. Aside from Kostic but he's both way too attacking while being useless in defense. So to try and remedy that, our manager tried pretty much every formation and system imaginable, basically throwing everything at the wall, hoping something will stick and we'll become more stable at the back. So far, that hasn't happened. We're still awful defensively and everyone semi capable will cut through us like a knife through butter. Mitrovic was our main output going forward but playing in Saudi Arabia took its toll. He just isn't the same player. Mitro became sluggish, slower than usual (and he was a turtle before), his movement is all wrong. Vlahovic is a decent option but he needs a proper partner. Mitro had something going on with Tadic but Vlahovic just feels like the odd one out. Doesn't play that well with anyone, doesn't really connect with his squad mates. It's weird.

So basically, our defense is terrible. Our attack got worse. And I have no hope for us, except for maybe just a point against Slovenia.

[Crispypaul]

5 hours ago, m_fenton said:

Scotland to surprise everyone and win a match.

Scoring more than a single goal might be a good start 

Saying that in 30 years of international tournaments they have scored a grand total of 5 goals with a collective goal difference of -11 so maybe not

[m_fenton]

14 minutes ago, Crispypaul said:

Scoring more than a single goal might be a good start 

Saying that in 30 years of international tournaments they have scored a grand total of 5 goals with a collective goal difference of -11 so maybe not

Beat England 0-0 a few years ago though so you never know.

[Bunkerossian]

Scotland is my pick. I'm really impressed by Steve Clarke as a tactician. Unassuming manager, but gets the basics right often.

[merry_miller]

Not dark horses as such but no matter how bad Italy are playing whenever they qualify they always seem to get in gear for the tournament so I suspect they'll probably make the final four.

[Rikulec]

Austria and Ukraine for me. On the other hand, I have a feeling that the Netherlands are going to flop badly.

[The Amazing Dale Watkins]

Austria. They've really impressed me, and I think they'll make it out of their (tough) group. They haven't lost in 7 games, beating Germany and destroying Turkey. I can totally see them making it to the quarter-finals.