By: Olivia Yu
This year’s highly anticipated Euro 2024 has officially kicked off with Germany and Scotland facing off in Munich on Friday, June 14. Before the competitions started, however, many have been quick to share their predictions on what may happen, including six of The Athletic’s writers.
The writers first each made the big prediction about which country will win the tournament. Four of them chose France, sharing similar sentiments of their strength and force as a team. However, one of them acknowledged the growing power of other promising teams. The other two writers settled on Portugal and Germany, pointing out the potential of star players belonging to each of these teams.
Next, the writers predicted which players would win the Golden Boot. Mbappe and Harry Kane were each picked in one-third of the predictions, with the other remaining two writers split between Gianluca Scamacca and Niclas Fullkrug.
The writers also predicted the overall best player in the tournament, with one selecting Mbappe, another selecting Kevin De Bruyne, another selecting Jude Bellingham, and three choosing Kroos. For best young player, the guesses were rather mixed, with Jamal Musiala, Florian Wirtz, Arda Guler, Kenan Yildiz, Benjamin Sesko, Lamine Yamal, and Xavi Simons being mentioned as possible candidates.
Further, The Athletic’s writers made more detailed predictions, such as “how many penalties will fail to find the back of the net — in normal time and shootouts?” and “who will ‘do an Enzo Fernandez’ and get a big transfer off the back of a tournament?”, each highlighting their personal thoughts, opinions, and experiences.
Most of the writers opted for having a specific team or player score or win the tournament for the thing they wanted to see happen, and a trouble-free tournament, less penalty shootouts, and more for the thing they did not want to see happen.
For predictions regarding “dark horses (unexpected winners),” the writers were in favor of Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, and Ukraine. When it came to “which player/team would be the biggest disappointment,” England, Portugal and Adam Wharton mostly were predicted by the writers.