EURO 24 | European football expert Andy Brassell’s exclusive preview of the tournament

UEFA EURO 24 kicks-off on Friday with hosts Germany taking on Scotland at Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena (8pm UK).

We have four players in Germany – Radu Dragusin (Romania), Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (in England’s group with Denmark), Micky van de Ven (Netherlands) and goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario (Italy).

Here, European football expert Andy Brassell, well known for his work on talkSPORT, Sky Sports, The Guardian and The Football Ramble podcast – and a regular contributor here at Spurs for almost 10 years – gives us his thoughts on the tournament…

Andy: “The interesting thing for me is that I think England and France are still the favourites, but it doesn’t feel to me like there is an overwhelming favourite in this tournament. It’s a little bit like last season’s Champions League with France as the Manchester City figure, the team who, with a fair wind, should win it, but are not absolutely guaranteed to. People got a little freaked out when France named their squad for the Olympics, thinking, ‘wow, they really have got 60 players to choose from’, because you look at the strength of that with Jean-Philippe Mateta, Michael Olise (both Palace), Castello Lukeba (RB Leipzig), all those players, and the depth is unbelievable. Having said that, I think France have a lot of similar problems to England, particularly defensively, in that one of Didier Deschamps’ key defenders, Dayot Upamecano, has come off a tough season with Bayern Munich, then Lucas Hernandez (PSG) is injured, and Mike Maignan (Milan), one of the best goalkeepers in the world, in my opinion, is coming back from injury concerns. Then, at the other end of the pitch, Kylian Mbappe, he’s not played a lot since announcing (on 12 May) he was leaving PSG for Real Madrid, he’s been quite on and off in Ligue 1. Maybe he’ll be a little rusty, as he didn’t have a great influence in the semi-finals of the Champions League against Borussia Dortmund (PSG lost both legs 1-0), and the same in the Coupe de France Final. Look, either way, on sheer weight of talent, France and England are the two favourites, with France having the slight edge. If you look at the players England have left out – Rashford, Grealish, Maddison – they are still amazing players being left out, and that’s a big thing.”

Andy: “In the bracket just underneath France and England, I’d have Portugal, again, on weight of talent. Roberto Martinez has done a good job there. They are no longer massively reliant on Cristiano Ronaldo (Al Nassr), although he’s obviously still very nice to have in the squad! It’s Bruno Fernandes’ team now, and he’s better for it being his team. He needs to be the guy who is conducting the orchestra. They have some interesting young players who can make an impact, like Francisco Conceicao (Porto), brilliant in their recent friendly against Finland, he’ll be an interesting punch off the bench for them, and they do have the experience of Pepe (Porto) and Ronaldo in the changing room.”

Andy: “I’m not completely sold on some of the other big names in the tournament. Germany, for example, to me, they are too much of a work in progress. Spain, similarly, I just think they’ve got less talent than in recent years. Belgium are also in a transitional period, and some of their biggest players like Kevin de Bruyne (City) and Romelu Lukaku (Roma) have had fitness concerns. It feels like it’s a moment for some of their younger players to come to the fore, but that might not be enough to take them to the title. The Netherlands… the way they are different to how they normally are, and many of the teams we’ve mentioned so far, is that they have a good defence! They are maybe lacking that stone-cold goalscorer, maybe they are looking at Memphis Depay (Atletico Madrid), but he’s had fitness issues, but they do have Xavi Simons (RB Leipzig), who people are overlooking – he was the best player in the Bundesliga in the first half of the season, unbelievable.”

Andy: “Another quick look at Germany, as I said, I think they are too much of a work in progress, but they have a really good coach in Julian Naglesmann and the option of doing, and maybe what he’s edging towards… if you remember when Portugal were in 2004, they lost their first game against Greece, so Luiz Felipe Scolari basically planted the spine of Porto, who had just won the Champions League, into his team. So, straight away, Carvalho, Deco, Maniche, came in, and it made a massive difference. Nagelsmann can do that with Bayer Leverkusen, he can bring in Jonathan Tah, Robert Andrich, the destroyer, Florian Wirtz, who has been good for Germany of late, the creator. If you have a fully functioning bit of a really successful team, it does a lot of the work for you as an international manager, doesn’t it? People look at Germany and think Bayern Munich haven’t been at their best, well, that might be true, but Bayer Leverkusen are, and Nagelsmann always picks in-form players, so if you think there are a cluster of Bayer Leverkusen players, a cluster of Stuttgart players – both teams have 40 more points this time around than the season before. Stuttgart finished second after going through the relegation play-offs in 2022/23, but people are talking less about them as Bayer Leverkusen have taken the headlines. It’s remarkable, really. Deniz Undav did really for Stuttgart on loan from Brighton last season, he’s just come into the team, so there is a bit of freshness there as well.”

Andy: “If we’re talking dark horses, I would say Ukraine. They have a very doable group, Belgium, Slovakia and Romania – Ukraine should be getting out of that group. It’s amazing, really, with what’s going on. They were within a whisker of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, now they’ve qualified for this tournament, and they have such a big squad at the moment. Think of the biggest players of the recent past like Andriy Yarmolenko (Dynamo Kiev), Ruslan Malinovskyi (Genoa), they can’t get into the team now! You have the choice of two great goalkeepers Anatoliy Trubin (Benfica) and Andriy Lunin (Real Madrid), Heorhiy Sudakov (Shakhtar Donetsk) in midfield, he’s the one, to be honest, he had a great Champions League campaign, Man of the Match when they beat Barcelona, he’s only 21, Mykhaylo Mudryk’s (Chelsea) best mate, really judicious on the ball, knows when to pass it, when to hold onto it, great vision and then, up front, they have the top scorer in La Liga, Artem Dovbyk (Girona, 24 goals in 2023/24), quite an achievement when you look at the players he’s gone past to do that, including Jude Bellingham, of course.”

Andy: “The other ‘under the radar’ players I would mention include Portugal’s Francisco Conceicao (Porto) who is only 21, went back to Porto after things didn’t really work out at Ajax, and he’s had a really good season, left footed, low centre of gravity, a Messi/Marcus Edwards (Sporting) type. I know you can’t compare players to Messi, but in terms of what he’s trying to do… he has that low centre of gravity, left footed coming off the right, change of place, creates chances, good a getting players to commit, so he wins free-kicks as well. He will likely come off the bench for Portugal, but I feel he can make a real impact. Another player I would point out… everyone watching Georgia will be looking at Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Napoli). I also like Georges Mikautadze (Metz), who is their centre forward. He left Metz for Ajax, couldn’t get into the team, went back to Metz and scored a tonne of goals (13 in 20 in Ligue 1), a really good effort. He comes from good football stock, through the Lyon academy with the likes of Rayan Cherki, Maxence Caqueret, players like that. He will plough somewhat of a lone furrow for Georgia, but, having said that, he’ll have Kvaratskhelia working close to him, creating, drawing defenders and Mikautadze isn’t massive, but makes really intelligent runs, is quick, and scores from all angles.”

Andy’s latest book, We Play On, is available now…