Next year’s European Football Championship is going to be quite unique according to the major soccer stats database, as we are having 12 different host countries. This time home countries didn’t receive direct qualification for logical reasons, as it would fill 50% of the groups. Twenty teams have secured their ticket for this big competition, while the remaining four are going to be determined in March and April 2020. Who is going to play against who? Which is the potential group of death and who besides Finland is going to make a big debut on the most popular football competition on European soil? With the help of the betting tips experts at a leading UK tipping site we have analized this football event closely. 

So, which teams have qualified so far and which ones are going to be seeded in pot number one? The system was a little bit different this time. EURO 2020 rankings were not determined by the usual way by looking at FIFA official list. Instead, organizers were looking at the efficiency and number of points collected during the qualifying period. The best results were achieved by Belgium (carried by phenomenal attacking trio of Eden Hazard, Romelu Lukaku, and Dries Mertens. They have won every single match in their qualifying group), Italy (Azzuri had an easy time in group against Bosnia & Herzegovina, Finland, Armenia, Greece and Liechtenstein. They are also going to be hosts of this tournament in Milano), England (yet another host country – The Three Lions were dominant against Czech Republic, Kosovo & others), Germany (tough group with Netherlands & Northern Ireland but managed to end up at top), Spain (won their bracket easily, and will also be hosts), and surprisingly, Ukraine. Ukraine making to pot #1 is going to cause a lot of troubles for some other strong teams from pot #2 which is made of France, Poland, Switzerland, Croatia, Netherlands and Russia. Now, imagine pairing England and France in the same group for example, plus getting the reigning European champions Portugal from pot 3! That would surely be the group of death with Wales coming as the last seed.

Besides Portugal, pot number three also has Turkey (finally made a return to the big scene), Denmark (host country), Austria, Sweden and Czech Republic. The only two teams known from the last pot are Wales and Finland. The remaining four are going to be determined by UEFA Nations League playoffs in a couple of months.

Every separate Nations League (A,B,C and D) is going to provide a participant. A grand total of 16 teams are going to compete for the remaining four spots. So let’s take a look at those four brackets and who are the potential favorites.

Path A

The action will be starting with a duel between Iceland and Romania. The other pairing is Bulgaria v Hungary. In our opinion Iceland should be the biggest favorite here. They had an amazing time in the last edition of EURO in France, knocking out England from the playoffs and causing many upsets. FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia didn’t go so well for them though. Still, Iceland won a lot of points in the group against Turkey and France. Romania and Bulgaria have been super-inconsitent in the last couple of years, so seeing them earn a ticket to EURO would be a surprise. Hungary were also in France in EURO 2016, and we all remember spectacular 3-3 game against Portugal.

Path B

Bosnia and Herzegovina will host Northern Ireland in this bracket, while the other semi-final is made of Slovakia and Republic of Ireland. Bosnians definitely have individual quality, but they have failed as a team in the last couple of months. Slovaks are too weak in the back, allowing Croatia to score seven goals in their two encounters. It is still unknown if Marek Hamsik is going to make an appearance here. Republic of Ireland was one point away from securing a ticket through groups, and they are our favorites to win the Path B.

Path C

Many experts are simply left without a proper answer to question why is Serbia performing so bad? This team has some amazing players like Dusan Tadic, Aleksandar Mitrovic, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Aleksandar Kolarov and many other, but they simply can’t beat any tier 1 team for years now. They were easily beaten by Ukraine and Portugal in the groups, and will face a rough opponent Norway in the semi-finals. One of these two teams will go to EURO in our opinion as Scotland and Israel are way behind in quality.

Path D

Now it is time for some smaller match ups and EURO debutants. None of the participants (Georgia, Belarus, North Macedonia or Kosovo) have ever played the final tournament, so we are surely going to see some big battles here. We are expecting all games to end with low number of goals and Georgia to claim the first position.