Soccer Expert Details His Favorite Euros Prediction & Best Bet
Markus Gilliar/Getty. Pictured: Toni Kroos.
Germany bowed out in the round of 16 to England at the previous Euros and then did not make it out of the group stage at the World Cup after famously losing 2-1 to Japan.
Things have changed this time around though, because they now have an elite manager at the helm as opposed to Joachim Löw or Hansi Flick. Julian Nagelsmann has proven himself, even at a young age, to be a tactical mastermind and he’s now starting to turn Germany into a dominant force tactically.
Here is why I see value on Germany ahead of the Euros this summer.
Germany Under Nagelsmann
To start, Nagelsmann has always been a build out of the back, possession-dominant type of manager and he does it successfully by interchanging between a 2-3-5, 3-2-5 and 3-1-6 build up structure depending on the type of team they are facing out of possession. He’s always put a premium on dominating and overloading the middle of the pitch and with the personnel he has in the midfield it’s fascinating to see how teams will actually slow Germany down.
Playing out of a 4-2-3-1, he will most likely play a midfield three of Florian Wirtz (Leverkusen), Jamal Musiala (Bayern Munich) and Leroy Sane (Bayern Munich). What those three have the ability to do is move around and play different positions on the pitch to find space in between the lines or out wide. All three are not only great passes and chance creators, but also tremendous ball carriers, so if they want to provide width to stretch the opposing defensive block, they can get into a lot of 1 v 1 situations.
The problem that has existed for Germany for a long time is they haven’t had a consistent striker up top. With Nagelsmann at the helm, he’s probably going to play Havertz up top, which gives Germany another deep lying playmaker in build up and if you’ve watched Arsenal at all, you’ve seen not only how comfortable Havertz is in this role, but how well he plays in it as well.
Under Low and Flick, Germany were way too aggressive with their high line and constantly kept getting beat in behind in transition moments. One thing Naglesmann did when he took over from Hansi Flick at Bayern Munich was to fix that defensive transition problem. Bayern went from a team that was allowing close to 1.20 npxG per 90 minutes to 0.87 under Nagelsmann.
With the German National Team he also brought Toni Kroos out of international retirement, which will be a massive help in the Euros.
Nagelsmann is an elite manager and his attention to detail is second to none. One example is their recent friendly against France. From the kickoff, Germany baited France forward with Kroos’ movement to create a 4 v 4 situation and ended up scoring off of it just seven seconds into the game.
2) Toni Kroos makes a corresponding movement *the other way* back to his own goal to drag the French midfield forwards, who assume he is going to play the ball backwards to one of his defensive teammates pic.twitter.com/adjlWLzJ4j
— Jon Mackenzie (@Jon_Mackenzie) March 25, 2024
Germany are in an interesting position heading into this Euros, as they did not take part in the qualifying process since they are the host nation, so they have only been playing friendlies since the 2022 World Cup. It’s hard to take any friendly seriously or trust any of the data from it, so if we take Germany’s underlying data under Flick during World Cup Qualifying and at the World Cup, they are miles better than everyone else in this competition, as they put up a +2.50 xGD per 90 minutes and only two teams created over one expected goal against them. Now, to be fair, their World Cup Qualifying group was incredibly easy, but the one elite European team they played during that stretch was Spain and they outplayed them in a 1-1 draw, winning the xG battle 1.20 to 0.57.
The Path
Because Germany are the host nation, their path in this tournament, if everything plays out how it’s projected to, is really favorable. They are in a group with Scotland, Hungary, and Switzerland, which is a group they absolutely should win (-250 to win Group A at bet365). If they do, and both England and France win their respective groups, they would be on the opposite side of the bracket of those two teams, which is massive because those are the only two teams in this tournament that have more talent than them.
Germany would get a third place team in the round of 16. That's likely Spain in the quarterfinals or at worst Portugal or Netherlands in the quarterfinals, and then whoever makes the final from the opposite side of the bracket.
If we are being honest, there isn’t a better tactical manager in this tournament than Nagelsmann and he has all of the pieces and has already implemented a lot of his in possession tactics that made him so successful and Bayern and RB Leipzig.
We’ve seen already how big home field advantage in these types of international tournaments can be with the Ivory Coast winning AFCON and Qatar winning the Asian Cup on home soil earlier this year.
Because of the failures in recent tournaments, I believe the price on Germany has been suppressed too much. Taking into account home field advantage, the manager and the path to the final, they should be the same price as both France and England to win the Euros.
Pick: Germany to win the Euros (+650 via FanDuel)
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