⚽UEFA EURO 2020 Discussion Thread | Winner: ITALY!

[buwaytress]

Hope I haven't duplicated a thread but tried to look back til January and couldn't find anything. We did have the debut of Nations League a few months ago and that was somewhat like a friendly atmosphere so I'll pretend that didn't happen.

Matchday 1 of 10 starts today, 55 national teams in 10 groups of 5 and 6 teams play for the rights to progress to the EURO 2020 24-team finals. The full fixtures from official UEFA website are here, downloadable pdf is here.

Not as exciting for me as World Cup, but this is the first time we see Kosovo participate, and the first time there is no automatic host qualifier, so everything is up for grabs. Enjoy, gentlemen!

Image courtesy Marca.com

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====== Update 17 March 2020 =====
Sorry guys, I did not update this yet but of course qualifiers finished and we were meant to resume the finals... but we all know what happened as almost the entire Euro participants have had to pause league plays and go into semi- or full-lockdown mode.

It now appears that EURO 2020 will now be EURO 2021. (thank you tomahawk for the tag that made me see it)

Several links, but I'll share the Reuters news that broke 50 mins ago: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-soccer-euro-exclus/exclusive-euro-2020-championship-postponed-over-coronavirus-norwegian-and-swedish-fas-idUKKBN21423M

These were teams due to compete in the Playoffs:


And the Playoff finals:


====Update 29 March 2021 ====
The finals are now confirmed for June 11th, with full details of venue and teams here: https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/competitions/EURO/02/64/21/93/2642193_DOWNLOAD.pdf

== Update June 2021 ==
Venue and teams can be downloaded as above, but here's the group summary:

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[tokeweed]

Cool.  Would be nice to get detailed updates on this.  I find it more exciting the the World Cup tbqh. 

[Bitinity]

Oh there is another similar topic here I put my prediction about the group stage qualification. I think it is better to talk with the other OP, so there will be only one thread discussing about this Euro Qualification Matches. Since you made this thread earlier, so I think this thread should be the only one for this discussion.

My prediction that I posted in the other thread:

Group A: England & Czech Rep
Group B: Portugal & Serbia
Group C: Germany & Netherlands
Group D: Denmark & Swiss
Group E: Croatia & Wales
Group F: Spain & Sweden
Group G: Poland & Austria
Group H: France & Iceland/Turkey
Group I: Belgium & Russia
Group J: Italy & Bosnia/Greece

[leea-1334]

I am not even from the European region but I always follow EURO and Copa America, and if anyone follows the big football leagues there is always a lot of meaning behind the European competitions anyway.

Somehow the quality of the games are also quite high, but of course the display of skills are much less than the physical since they do not get the South American samba or the African character of games.

Traditionally I enjoyed the games of Yugoslavia in the old days, the German team is too technical for me to enjoy and yes,,, I remember they beat Brazil badly a few years back. I feel it is the time for Italy again to regain their glory in Europe, so they should go and win the last Group I.

How come Groups have 5 or 6 teams? Are some teams supposed to play more games in the groups with 6 teams?

[DeathAngel]

buwaytress, your thread was created at 1:20 GMT
Lucius created a similar thread at 1:30 GMT - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5123145.0

I guess it’s only fair that your thread is the one that all Euro 2020 qualifiers discussion is kept in

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Cool
Good to see the thread.
Kazakhstan vs Scotland just kicked off.

I am going for Scotland in this match.

[TopTort777]

Cool
Good to see the thread.
Kazakhstan vs Scotland just kicked off.

I am going for Scotland in this match.

This would be an easy win for Scotland. Never seen or heard that Kazakhstan play football. I know they have a hockey team, which played once in Division A, but was dropped down to Division B.

As for football, they are new to me. I think 0-2 or 0-3 will be the result.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Shit just happened. Scotland is down 2 - 0 LOL

The match has just started and not even 25 minutes. Are we going to see a high scoring match? I am not sure in this stage if Scotland is going to win.

[Pab]

Shit just happened. Scotland is down 2 - 0 LOL

The match has just started and not even 25 minutes. Are we going to see a high scoring match? I am not sure in this stage if Scotland is going to win.

What.it looks like betting on football is not easy
Best game will be Monday Netherlands -Germany
my bet Netherlands to win
Netherlands has very good team now backed by Ajax players.Germany has slow start in qualification often and Germany is in small crisis still

[MakeMoneyBtc]

Shit just happened. Scotland is down 2 - 0 LOL

The match has just started and not even 25 minutes. Are we going to see a high scoring match? I am not sure in this stage if Scotland is going to win.

This was definitely an unexpected surprise, especially because this is the first match of the day. I think the battle in Group I for second place will be between Russia and Scotland because Belgium is definitely the favorite to win the group. Looks like Scotland is going to lose the first match, and probably the same thing will happen to Russia since they are playing against Belgium.

[tomahawk9]

Not as exciting for me as World Cup, but this is the first time we see Kosovo participate

Oh great, yet another team that will lose 6-0 or 8-0 every single game 

Feel free to list your group winners, outrights (I can't find any as of yet so will appreciate any early providers)... my own personal pick for 21 March is a x6.7 parlay on:
Scotland-Kazakhstan
Austria-Poland

Not actually betting on this, I got a parlay with a friendly going on, I'll see how teams play first and familiarise before this goes.

Kazakhstan are winning 3-0. How did this happen? Did Scotland play with the youth academy? LOL

A lot of games today, the most "exciting" math is probably Belgium vs Russia. If I had some bankroll for today's games, I would go with a parlay: Belgium, Poland, Netherlands, and Croatia, all to win. Btw, thanks for making this thread @buwaytress, completely forgot that the euro qualifiers were starting today 

[slocker]

Nice matches today will try to take some picks.

Austria - Poland, over 2 goals
Belgium - Russia, Belgium to win the match
Croatia - Azerbaijan, Croatia to win with 2 goals difference

[Trofo]

I have a feeling this will be very boring qualifications. It has never been easier to qualify for EURO. I don't see a way for any of the favorites to slip and don't make it. Best 2 from every group are going forward. Then add to that there is even more spot opened trough League of Nations. Basically if you are top 20 ranked EU team you have an easy group and if you fail to claim top 2 places you have additional bonus tournament.

That probably means a bit more surprising results then usual. Maybe there will be a chance to bet on some long odds and claim nice winnings.

[LTU_btc]

First matchday and we already have big surprise in Kazakhstan - Scotland game. Maybe it's not sensation that Scotland lost, but 3:0 score is big. But from what I saw it's fair result, Kazkhstan were better today. In group with Belgium and Russia their chances to reach Euro 2020 isn't big I think.
Qualification tournaments isn't most interesting event to watch. Probably big teams like England, Spain, Belgium and etc will easily reach Euro 2020, maybe some of them will do that without even wasting points. When number of participants were increased from 16 to 24 it become much easier to qualify. But quality of tournament haven't dropped by adding more teams. Now I think in groups A, D, F and H 3-4 teams can fight for spots in Euro 2020, in other groups situation is more clear.

Oh great, yet another team that will lose 6-0 or 8-0 every single game 

We can't compare Kosovo with teams like Andorra or San Marino. In World Cup qualifiers they lost most of games by just 1-2 goals and they also won their Nations League group easily.
Interesting HT scores:
Austria 0:0 Poland
Croatia 1:1 Azerbaijan
Belgium 2:1 Russia.

[Harlot]

With an easy group being handed out to Italy, I think this is the right time to see them bounce back from disappointing none appearance in the World Cup. If they want to set things right they should make noise in their group early on as I don't think they can make any excuses anymore for such a long absence in the world stage. Any losses by the teams in their group would simply be an embarrassing thing to see for the fans.

[Harkorede]

Interesting HT scores:
Austria 0:0 Poland
Croatia 1:1 Azerbaijan
Belgium 2:1 Russia.

I had a hunch Austria vs Poland will be a very low scoring fixture, and I think I'm going to be right. There might not be more than a goal in this fixture, even though both teams have managed to have to shots on goal each in the first half, Poland have slightly been the better side at halftime.

[bakasabo]

So far the results are:

Group Stage: 

Northern Ireland  2 - 0 Estonia
Netherlands 4 - 0 Belarus
Slovakia 2 - 0 Hungary
Croatia 2 - 1 Azerbaijan
Macedonia 3 - 1 Latvia
Israel 1 - 1 Slovenia
Austria 0 - 1 Poland
Belgium 3 - 1 Russia
Cyprus 5 - 0 San Marino
Kazakhstan 3 - 0 Scotland

Source: Eurosport

[tomahawk9]

Oh great, yet another team that will lose 6-0 or 8-0 every single game  

We can't compare Kosovo with teams like Andorra or San Marino. In World Cup qualifiers they lost most of games by just 1-2 goals and they also won their Nations League group easily.

Kosovo won their group because they were playing against Azerbaijan, Faroe Islands, and Malta, some of the weakest teams in UEFA. And remember that they were in the lowest division of the nations league, with the likes of Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, etc.

I would go with a parlay: Belgium, Poland, Netherlands, and Croatia, all to win.

Looks like I would've made some good profits today, guess I'll try my luck in the upcoming games.

[LTU_btc]

Kosovo won their group because they were playing against Azerbaijan, Faroe Islands, and Malta, some of the weakest teams in UEFA. And remember that they were in the lowest division of the nations league, with the likes of Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, etc.

I'm not saying that they are powerful team which will fight for spot in Euro 2020, but it's not bad mediacore team, for example today they played 2:2 draw against Denmark in friendly game.

I had a hunch Austria vs Poland will be a very low scoring fixture, and I think I'm going to be right.

Well, I had BTTS on this game . But at least I made nice profit from other matches.
Some more games on Friday. England vs Czech Republic and Portugal vs Ukraine looks most interesting, Ronaldo is back to national team for the first time after World Cup.

[slaman29]

Thanks for the thread OP. It's really strange for this tournament I don't hear much hype. I even didn't know they were games last night.

I'm not really knowledgeable in European games but I'm actually surprised to see Kazakhstan playing and amazing result against Scotland. I thought they were part of Asia? How come they will play in EURO? Maybe somebody can tell me the history of this.