>Easily tops his group
>Saves up his team strength by playing as little football as possible
>Dodges all other strong team till the final
Is Southgate the best coach in the tournament?
I do think some of it is deliberate. The next four games have very small gaps between them and freshness is going to be important for whoever wins it. Next few rounds are about who uses their squad most effectively, I don’t think you’ll be able to pick the same 11 in each for games and win it
If it was deliberate, why would he play basically the same team in all the group games? If it was about conserving energy then he had so many other options.
I'd like to think it's 4D chess but a lot of the squad are actually just unfit from injury or exhausted from the length of the last 2 seasons with a WC to boot. Quite a few of them looked like they were going to drop dead at the final whistle after the Denmark game.
He’s spoken time after time about just getting out of groups at major tournaments. I don’t think playing shit has been the strategy but conserving energy has 100% been part of the plan for the past few tournaments
Andy Robertson looked absolutely knackered for scotland so did calum mcgregor.
You have a point.
But still not good enough, if they're not fit for the fight don't f***ing take someone else's tournament place.
Remove the question mark, sir! It is certain. On top of this 4d chess he confused his whole team by playing a goober like Trent ahead of actual midfielders. Then he complained that he can’t find a replacement for Calvin Philips. What a motivator. Amazing man manager!
Add to this that betting companies skew bets based on total wagers placed so far as well so england fans will be betting on england as fans often bet on their own club. I’d like to see how england are placed from other countries betting companies.
They're placed the same. This a myth that reddit absolutely loves but just isn't true. This is from the first Danish bookmaker I found:
Denmark 80.00
England 5.00
Spain 5.50
Germany 6.50
France 7.00
Portugal 8.00
Netherlands 13.00
Italy 16.00
Spot on. Many bookmakers eg. Bet365 are active internationally so there isn’t much of an English bias. Also the amount of money staked in the outright win market is so huge that the odds reflect the true probabilities closely and it would take an absurd about of money to significantly move the market.
That’s too logical and observant for Reddit or any football forum. You get the upvote because you’re right, but you should really consider playing dumb in the future, so you blend in.
It depends on the bookies and how they balance but essentially yes, the more people that bet the more bookies lower odds.
Why anyone in England would bet on us right now is beyond me though.
Tbh I expect England to woop Slovakia. I feel England are overdue a good performance and I feel everyone is as usual getting far to carried away with performances forgetting England still topped the group, haven't lost a game and barely conceded any goals. I get it they haven't played great but they are still in a decent position on the easy side of the draw as well
But we've also gotta keep Iceland in mind from 2016. Teams are much better these days, even the smaller countries with less prominent club teams and players.
I wouldn't put any stock into us smashing Slovakia.
>even the smaller countries with less prominent club teams and players.
this is the first tournament where I've found myself watching some of the "smaller" teams and consistently being surprised at how many players names I recognise
Ilicic came on in our game against Slovenia, and I had a brief moment of realisation that I was sure I knew the guy from years prior. Had to look him up, and sure enough, he'd played for clubs that I remembered him being at (Atalanta and Fiorentina). They've obviously got more recognisable names too like Oblak and Sesko, and the same goes for many other countries.
I don't even watch football as much as I used to, but a lot of these players are actually household names in European football now, or at least very well known.
Funny you mention that as it's the exact team that prompted this. Others too ofc but them and to a lesser extent Georgia got me thinking.
Even ten years ago these teams would be full of nobodies, the game has improved dramatically across the whole continent
Even the smaller countries, apart from scotland were still absolutely as shite as we have ever been lol. Must be a head fuck playing for England though. The amount of managers when England play is unreal. I'm stood just 20 minutes ago in a playground in Scotland and one of the parents is giving his England line up. Like it's weird how opinionated everyone becomes on England and how suddenly everyone is an expert all of a sudden. I get it they have under performed but the reaction is in no way helping the players perform better in fact I'd say its putting more pressure on them in already overly pressured situation. I've said it many times before but often the English football teams biggest enemies are the English media and there fans.
You're spot on there, pretty much. Fans are mostly a bit more realistic with expectations, but there are some loud idiots who think we're the best in the world, despite the majority of the last 58 years suggesting otherwise.
With the squad we have, we should perform better, but that's just the way it goes. We fail time and time again, even with golden generations, and it is absolutely the pressure as you said. The media is full of pricks who salivate at the idea of the slightest thing going wrong, and then blowing it up to be the biggest news story. Hate it.
With Scotland, I was actually surprised at how poorly you did this time. I didn't expect a result against Germany, but nor did I expect it to be that bad. The players seemingly never recovered mentally from that. God knows what you're doing with Clarke as manager.
The Scottish national team were cursed way back in 1920 by then fifa secretary cornelis hirschmann.
Why? Because we quit fifa and setup a rival organisation called ifab with the other home nations lol.
We got the curse though because we caused the fallout. And we were the best side in the world at that time.
So hirschmann cursed us never to go farther than the groupstage of any fifa run tournament.
Im currently figuring out a way to travel to Mozambique to discuss lifting the curse with a witch doctor.
Lol.
I think part of it is that unlike a lot of top countries, almost all our squad play in their home league so every England fan feels more confident to judge which players should be starting. The French team for example is spread across a bunch of leagues and so no one can claim to have watched all of them play all season long. I do still think you're right about it being a major problem to clarify.
Different team. That 2016 team was a shambles and the stories that have come out since prove it. You expect us to get past them because this manager always has before.
Also... Betting odds don't represent what outcome is most likely, they represent what odds are the bookies willing to accept bets at to ensure that they always win regardless of outcome.
This usually matches up pretty well, but you do often get situations where the lowest odds show only the most popular team, not necessarily the best.
But surely in this day and age where English bookies take a load of bets on England winning, they would just do a deal with french bookies who are exposed to a high amount of french people betting on France?
(Or Scottish bookies who have bets on England to lose)
They aren’t favourites they just have the best odds. Now the tournament has started the odds are predominantly made up of whose bet on them the most. Most people have made a bet on England as so their odds have gotten better. Nothing to do with quality anymore
Sure but the customers' betting predictions are driving the prices/odds. If people didn't bet on England winning, they would have to increase the payback to drive volume, while reducing payback on other teams to close the gap risk.
English people also bet on England simply because it’s a normal thing for casual bettors to do, back the team you support. That action doesn’t necessarily correlate to the idea that all English bets are assuming they will win the tournament.
It’s no different to Danish fans who would have bet on their team to win despite realising that it’s unlikely. Casual punters just do it for a little bit of excitement, regardless of whether they think their team is actually the best in the competition. We’re a betting nation, where most of the large bookies are based. Ofcourse our odds will be low simply because they’re at high risk for an England win.
The customers’ betting predictions are not connected to the actual football quality or results. The “favourite” is not the statistically more likely winner.
Yea this is the difference between "favourite" as in most like to win, and "bookie's favourite" which is best odds and alters based on bets.
Having said that according to super computer odds of progressing England are still the favourites to win.
Sadly this part seems to always be overlooked. People look at bookies odds and think England fans and English bookies are *all* arrogant enough to think they’ll win every tournament. Truth is we just have more casual gamblers than most countries, so people will throw £20 on England in hope of a return, not an expectation of one.
Loads of people who don't like football will have chucked 20 quid on so they actually care about it when they're forced to watch with their mates at the pub I bet
And England, as a English speaking country, is by far the most popular team in the English speaking world.
Meaning a lot of England Fans all around the world tend to skew the odds...
Easier draw and the talent is still there. Out of many of the teams performing badly they have one of the best chances to put it together with some easier games on the way
I have serious doubts against Switzerland. They eventually stopped us from qualifying in the WC because of a single penalty that Jorginho had to score.
I don’t bet but don’t Belguim and Italy look tempting at those odds? Italy and Austria have been the two sides who when they’ve needed a goal they’ve gone about it and scored.
Yeah I know. But those are wild odds for a de bruyne driven team that’s still full of quality. They were only a little bit off in much of their play, theyre due a game where it clicks. I don’t think they have it in them to click for 3/4 games in a row though. Italy have a fairer chance of making it than those odds suggest too.
Keep in mind Belgium are on the tough side of the draw. If they win they would probably be underdogs in every game up to the final. I can't see a world where they make the semi tbh
You’re overlooking two things:
Firstly, the draw. Prior to the draw confirmation England had dropped to 4th favourites. The fact that the top 3 must all now meet one-another makes each of their individual chances of winning significantly harder, thus the odds go up to attract new punters. England will be odds on favourites to win all of their ties up until their final, so according to the house they should make the final. Part of this is also the fact that we have a very high number of casual bettors that will back England for any tournament, no matter what. The sums the bookies will lose if England win will likely be far greater than any other nation winning, so they have to lower our odds to decrease the risk to themselves. Unfortunately this makes us look like “favourites” even if we’re not the strongest team.
The second thing you’re overlooking is that this includes the price for being a Runner Up, if you back it EW. Again, whilst England may not necessarily be the strongest, they’re deemed to have a much better chance of at least reaching the final than the 3 heavier favourites, because 2 of them **must** be knocked out before then. As more of those favourites get knocked out, 1 of them will eventually be a lower price than England again. The punters aren’t sure which one of the 3 is most likely to be a finalist so they’re all priced above England *for now*.
We do people not understand how bookies work?
You're looking on a uk based bookmaker here. If england were priced a realistic value, then if they ever did win, then every bookie would go out of business
I heard someone from paddy power saying that as so many people from England bet on England to win every tournament, that even with lower odds of 4/1, it would cost them a fortune.
They can't afford to price england at like 10/1 etc
No matter how good or bad england are, they will always be priced as "one of the favourites" in every tournament for this reason alone
https://www.zebet.fr/en/competition/36147-euro_2024
England are favourites in France too.
In today's international market, if skybet shortened the odds on England to reduce risk, paddy power could just offer realistic odds and do a trade with non English bookies to reduce thr risk
they're still undefeated, the expected strongest competitors are all on the other side of the bracket, and odds are set by the betting volume behind them - i imagine there are more english fans in relative and absolute terms betting than in other countries, where sports betting is illegal or at least less prevalent.
It's a long distance race, not the 100 meter dash.
At the end of the day, the winner needs to outscore the loser, and England's still the safest bet in doing that.
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It's about the weight of money that is on the English side already the bookies need to balance all possible outcomes and these are English bookies so there will be more money on England because punters will back their own team, if you look at odds in other countries they won't be favourites.
It's the same with bookies in other countries.
https://www.enligne.parionssport.fdj.fr/paris-football/international/euro-2024
Bookies trade liabilities with each other to cover their bets. You can assume they do it internationally.
I mean, it’s pretty basic - they’d look at every game in the next round, and assign those win percentages, then look at all the possible quarter finals and estimate win percentages, and then do the same for the semis and final. Then they work out the overall percentage of times that each team wins and base the odds on that.
Then they look at how much money is bet at those original prices and shorten the odds if more people are making the bet and lengthen the odds of nobody is betting.
England are favourites in most international bookies too, it’s not really about ripping off the consumer at this point, it’s about managing risk. The chances of England reaching the final is currently lower than any of the 3 actual favourites who must all play one-another first. England simply reaching the final is a problem for the bookies because there will be considerable sums at risk even on the EW value, so they don’t want to incentivise any more bets for that market, thus the low price.
People making the mistake of correlating bookies favourites to genuine favourites.
Because some Actuary somewhere has decided that's the best way to minimise risk to the booky.
At this point the odds are almost entirely a function of how much money has flowed towards each of the teams.
Could be savvy gamblers, could also be pure sentiment. Either way, all that price really tells you is there is now a lot of money backing England and Spain to win and the bookies would rather you back someone else.
That's it. Stop getting hung up on it.
Edit: 16/1 on Italy looks like a steal. If i didn't think gambling was a cancer designed to funnel money from the poor, vulnerable, desperate and poorly educated to their exploiters I'd lump on.
Easier bracket and their defense has allowed the lowest number of xGoals of all teams, less than 1.5. They could cheese themselves into the final by forcing 0:0 penalties or lucking a 1:0 against Italy and Austria, then beat Spain, Germany, France or Portugal in penalties.
I’m taking Italy at 16/1. People keep doubting that team, and the Italians are well-known for being successful in tournaments and the kind of football they’re playing (more defensive, lower scoring, doing what they have to do to advance, being tenacious and resilient). They’ll end up winning the whole tournament, after a hard-fought game, on penalty kicks. Mark my words.
It’s altered by betting patterns. A lot of people bet on England regardless because it’s their national team and you are looking at Sky Bet which focuses on British football.
We've avoided the side of the draw with Portugal, Spain, Germany and France. The bookies are assuming we pull our act together which if we did we probably should make the final at least
Because it's tournament football. England could play piss poor but their material overpowers the small teams and they might win the PSO in the final this time. Their defence is rock solid imo.
The bracket does matter too. England has comparatively easy opponents to get into the final which raises the chance to win the whole thing. For example my two favorites are spain and germany but they meet in the quarter finals already…
To keep it very simple, bookies base their odds on statistical analysis, **not** on the popularity of a team. That's why Man City are favourites to win the Prem next season, rather than Utd.
Bookies make their money from something called the over-round. This is where they find the true odds of an event, and then lower the odds slightly to make a profit.
For example, flipping a coin is 50/50, heads or tails. The true odds for a coin landing on heads is 1/1 or 2.0 if you put £10 on that bet every day for 1000 days you are likely to walk away with £10 at the end.
What a bookie would do is price that coin toss at 1.95, meaning that for every flip, your bet has a value of -0.05. After 1000 days of betting £10 at 1.95 odds you would have lost (on average) £500. The bookies over-round here is £0.05 per £1 bet.
If 1000 people placed that bet at the same time each day, for 1000 days, the bookie would make £500,000. If they wanted to make more money, they could either, lower the odds further 1.94 or 1.93 but this may annoy their customers, and they'd attract fewer bets.
Another option would be to increase the odds to 1.96 or even 1.99 which would increase their customers, but reduces the profit per £1 bet. If they can get 3000 people to bet rather than 1000 people, then it would be worth it.
As you can see though, provided that the price is lower than the statistical probability (true odds), the bookie will always win. So if 100,000 England fans are betting on England to win, a bookie might try to attract them by offering slightly higher prices, or they may look to lock-in more profit by reducing the odds further.
But they aren't making England favourites to earn more money.
This is why this is the first tournament where England have ever been favourites.
With football, England are down as favourites because the data still points to England being favourites. It has nothing to do with "English bookies". For a start, Paddy Power are not English, but check international betting exchanges such as Smarkets, Betfair, Betdaq etc and you will see that England are favourites with all of them.
**Does this mean that England are likely to win the tournament? No**
They are just slightly more likely than anyone else.
England's chances of winning according to the bookies are 20% (4/1 odds) and their odds of winning (true odds) according to the exchanges (5.3 odds) are 18.52%
That means that England have an 81.48% chance of NOT winning the tournament.
Spain (5.8 odds according to the exchanges) have a 16.95% chance of winning the tournament, and a 83.05% chance of NOT winning the tournament.
*Interestingly, in the brief period after England's final match but before the final group matches were played, England were not the favourites. France, Spain, and Germany all briefly overtook them. But after the final group matches the draw considerably favoured England and England became favourites again. Check out Smarkets' outright market for the Euros where you can see the price history for each team.*
Italy and Netherlands feel like crazy value here. The chance that one of them is in the final seems very high given their side of the bracket and how England is playing.
I know Netherlands stumbled in the group but still way too much quality in the lineup for those odds.
There is a silver lining in England's performance. They are the team with the best defence, allowed the least amount of xGoals. If they face a team who has their shit together, this alone won't be enough, but all the teams who do are on the other bracket.
Because they have a squad full of star quality players who haven't played their best so far but will undoubtably get it together in the round of 16. Im not even english but watching the England team win and then their fans still shout slurs and abuse at the squad because the team didn't score 3-4-5 goals. Clearly you guys have never played a competative soccer match. Even this post saying "How are England still favourites" ....How can they not be, in my unprofessional opinion, England will win it this year.
odds start based on form but are then adjusted based on the bets placed, the more people that bet, the odds go down.
Britain has the highest gambling revenues.
They always rate higher in the favourites list
They'll be playing against Slovakia in the next round. Arguably the weakest team of the last 16. England are the heavy favorites.
In QF, they will play against either Italy or Switzerland. Both are good teams; but neither of them are realistic contenders. So England will still be the clear favorites there.
SF will be against whoever survives in that Netherlands, Turkey, Austria, Romania bracket. Not saying England can crush any of them easily; but you couldn't hope for an easier opponent in Euro 2024 Semi Finals. England, regardless of the matchup will still be favorites to win.
So, until the finals, England will be the favorites to win each matchup, due to a much easier bracket. While the other contenders will have to face each other all the way to the Final.
Because contrary to belief, England have a BDO favorite, topped the group, had good defensive form and have a easy road to the final.
Regardless of how ugly they look via eye test and how bad southgate is, nothing has changed for them since game 1. We knew they would like ugly, and play bad football. We knew they would grind out games. We knew playing Kane/Foden/Bellingham would be an eye sore.
The only thing that has changed is there bracket got even easier.
I was wondering if tournament football is actually shite and you have to appear shite because it's grimly effective but looks awful and boring but the result matters more than the football.
Its because they are named England.
So betting companies sees England getting possibly Italy, Switz, Netherlands, Austria on their way to the finale and thinks thats an easy path to the finale for them.
Also probably alot of England fans betting on England for the same reason.
When in reality, England has been way worse than all those teams and you should say wow those teams are lucky to meet a bad England over the favourites like Spain, Germany, France and Portugal.
So yeah its a mentality thing rather than a reality thing where just being one of the 5 big teams automatically puts you as a favourite no matter how bad you do it.
You can see the exact same thing with Belgium. Their chances is as high as Switz.
Except Switz just need to beat an Italy and England whos been mediocre while Belgium needs to beat 3 of the biggest favourites whos played well so far.
To put it simply, Belgium has way to low odds also and only gets it because the stupid fifa ranking keeps them as one of the best european teams, when they are not.
The only thing i can think of is that we still have the most talent on paper, we did still win our group and also we are the only side still in it that hasn't given everything we've got, Germany, Spain and France are realistically the only other big sides in it, that doesn't mean sides like Austria, Holland, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy etc shouldn't be taken seriously.
England definitely hasn't played anywhere near our best football, whereas Germany and Spain have kind of shown their best qualities already, that makes England slightly more dangerous knowing that we have coasted our way into a great draw to get to the final and we still have 2/3 gears to go up through. No matter how our performances have been up to now, we will always be a threat because of our talent pool of players.
Because they're on the easy bracket of the knockout stage. If they do start playing well and gaining chemistry they can cruise to the final. But IMO they wont beat Slovakia.
They shouldn’t be favourites to win though. They might be favourites to reach the final, as they have an easier path than the other favourites such Spain, Germany and Portugal.
Because:
1. Group stage performances don't mean much
2. England have a relatively simple run to the final
3. England's defence looks very tight
4. England have attacking options which is amongst the strongest - it might not be clicking now, but it only takes one moment of magic from Kane/Bellingham/Foden/Saka/Palmer to win a game if you're keeping clean sheets
5. England's managers and established players have experience of going deep in tournaments
Their side of the bracket is significantly easier than the other side— their toughest possible matches will be Italy and the Netherlands, compared to the other side which has the likes of France, Germany and Spain.
England, especially under Southgate, also have a tendency to perform better in the knockouts. Slovakia won’t be a challenge for them, Italy are playing with their worst squad and chemistry in recent years, and the Netherlands squad is also underperforming significantly. If this is anything to go by, England are the favourites to make the final on their side of the bracket. All that leads to now is a 50/50 chance in the final that they win.
Because the 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th favourites are all on the same side of the draw.
>Easily tops his group >Saves up his team strength by playing as little football as possible >Dodges all other strong team till the final Is Southgate the best coach in the tournament?
How fucking incredible would it be if it was all a ruse lol.
Imagine ye obliterate Slovakia.....Southgate does a lap of the pitch cupping his hands to his ears, the magic of football
You know this tournament has an England hammering someone m
I'm hoping it will be Germany in the final, but realistically we scrape a win against Slovakia and then get annihilated by Italy in the next round.
Annihilated? Italy aren’t a very good team, if they annihilate us I will genuinely burn my passport
You're lucky we won't beat Slovakia or I'd hold you to that
If Italy beat us by 3 goals i’ll reply with a link to the video 😔😭
Should i hold you to it?
Italy are going home lol
Yeah, and we'll get trashed by this Switzerland team
Then gets pumped 4-0 by Austria in the next game.
Then gets battered 1-0 by Italy in the quarterfinals
I do think some of it is deliberate. The next four games have very small gaps between them and freshness is going to be important for whoever wins it. Next few rounds are about who uses their squad most effectively, I don’t think you’ll be able to pick the same 11 in each for games and win it
If it was deliberate, why would he play basically the same team in all the group games? If it was about conserving energy then he had so many other options.
And why would knackered-looking Kane and Bellingham play the full 90 against Slovenia?
To unleash Watkins
I love this idea
Plot twist. Southgate's favoured starting 11 in fact consists of Toney, Watkins, Gordon, Palmer, Wharton, Sam Johnstone. Only Guehi keeps his place.
I'd like to think it's 4D chess but a lot of the squad are actually just unfit from injury or exhausted from the length of the last 2 seasons with a WC to boot. Quite a few of them looked like they were going to drop dead at the final whistle after the Denmark game.
He’s spoken time after time about just getting out of groups at major tournaments. I don’t think playing shit has been the strategy but conserving energy has 100% been part of the plan for the past few tournaments
Andy Robertson looked absolutely knackered for scotland so did calum mcgregor. You have a point. But still not good enough, if they're not fit for the fight don't f***ing take someone else's tournament place.
I've been thinking the same with lewis hamilton for the last 2 years
Not a ruse. Football isn’t entertainment its sport. Just need to win
Passes the trophy to Pickford, who passes it to stones, to Walker, back to Pickford and it keeps recycling between them and they miss the flight home
I'm hoping this is the case, but something tells me what we've seen so far is the best we're going to get.
Southgates greatest power is his luck of the draw.
Only if England win, otherwise he’ll be out of a job quicker than Liz Truss
Together with Koeman, pretty much ye.
Remove the question mark, sir! It is certain. On top of this 4d chess he confused his whole team by playing a goober like Trent ahead of actual midfielders. Then he complained that he can’t find a replacement for Calvin Philips. What a motivator. Amazing man manager!
Bro, it‘s 4d Chess, believe me bro, bro 😢
It's not nice to give them hope like that :)
This. They're all going to knock each other out bar one.
Divide and Conquer. The English way.
Well... That and try to take control of the spices and tea. If Kane comes out reeking of Star Anise we'll know it's about to step up a gear.
Add to this that betting companies skew bets based on total wagers placed so far as well so england fans will be betting on england as fans often bet on their own club. I’d like to see how england are placed from other countries betting companies.
They're placed the same. This a myth that reddit absolutely loves but just isn't true. This is from the first Danish bookmaker I found: Denmark 80.00 England 5.00 Spain 5.50 Germany 6.50 France 7.00 Portugal 8.00 Netherlands 13.00 Italy 16.00
Spot on. Many bookmakers eg. Bet365 are active internationally so there isn’t much of an English bias. Also the amount of money staked in the outright win market is so huge that the odds reflect the true probabilities closely and it would take an absurd about of money to significantly move the market.
If it were true you could make easy money by taking advantage of market arbitrage. Thats proof enough that it isn’t.
This very much part of the answer. Odds are influenced by more than just the bookies assessment of the quality of the team.
Not on a market like this. The exchanges are what to look at
That’s too logical and observant for Reddit or any football forum. You get the upvote because you’re right, but you should really consider playing dumb in the future, so you blend in.
yep. only two of those can even reach the semis (by definition)
Tory insiders OP
"-dad, why we are so poor? -because your dad always believed in England"
To unlock goals add more St Georges crosses to your flag.
And add players with names unpronounceable for foreign commentators.
But they are winning.
DEUS VULT!
Thats why Georgia is owning ?
People need to understand complex statistical analysis goes into betting odds, not a fans "England are so boring" opinion.
And simple numbers. The more people that bet on a certain outcome, the lower the odds become for that outcome
It depends on the bookies and how they balance but essentially yes, the more people that bet the more bookies lower odds. Why anyone in England would bet on us right now is beyond me though.
Tbh I expect England to woop Slovakia. I feel England are overdue a good performance and I feel everyone is as usual getting far to carried away with performances forgetting England still topped the group, haven't lost a game and barely conceded any goals. I get it they haven't played great but they are still in a decent position on the easy side of the draw as well
But we've also gotta keep Iceland in mind from 2016. Teams are much better these days, even the smaller countries with less prominent club teams and players. I wouldn't put any stock into us smashing Slovakia.
>even the smaller countries with less prominent club teams and players. this is the first tournament where I've found myself watching some of the "smaller" teams and consistently being surprised at how many players names I recognise
Ilicic came on in our game against Slovenia, and I had a brief moment of realisation that I was sure I knew the guy from years prior. Had to look him up, and sure enough, he'd played for clubs that I remembered him being at (Atalanta and Fiorentina). They've obviously got more recognisable names too like Oblak and Sesko, and the same goes for many other countries. I don't even watch football as much as I used to, but a lot of these players are actually household names in European football now, or at least very well known.
Funny you mention that as it's the exact team that prompted this. Others too ofc but them and to a lesser extent Georgia got me thinking. Even ten years ago these teams would be full of nobodies, the game has improved dramatically across the whole continent
Even the smaller countries, apart from scotland were still absolutely as shite as we have ever been lol. Must be a head fuck playing for England though. The amount of managers when England play is unreal. I'm stood just 20 minutes ago in a playground in Scotland and one of the parents is giving his England line up. Like it's weird how opinionated everyone becomes on England and how suddenly everyone is an expert all of a sudden. I get it they have under performed but the reaction is in no way helping the players perform better in fact I'd say its putting more pressure on them in already overly pressured situation. I've said it many times before but often the English football teams biggest enemies are the English media and there fans.
You're spot on there, pretty much. Fans are mostly a bit more realistic with expectations, but there are some loud idiots who think we're the best in the world, despite the majority of the last 58 years suggesting otherwise. With the squad we have, we should perform better, but that's just the way it goes. We fail time and time again, even with golden generations, and it is absolutely the pressure as you said. The media is full of pricks who salivate at the idea of the slightest thing going wrong, and then blowing it up to be the biggest news story. Hate it. With Scotland, I was actually surprised at how poorly you did this time. I didn't expect a result against Germany, but nor did I expect it to be that bad. The players seemingly never recovered mentally from that. God knows what you're doing with Clarke as manager.
The Scottish national team were cursed way back in 1920 by then fifa secretary cornelis hirschmann. Why? Because we quit fifa and setup a rival organisation called ifab with the other home nations lol. We got the curse though because we caused the fallout. And we were the best side in the world at that time. So hirschmann cursed us never to go farther than the groupstage of any fifa run tournament. Im currently figuring out a way to travel to Mozambique to discuss lifting the curse with a witch doctor. Lol.
I think part of it is that unlike a lot of top countries, almost all our squad play in their home league so every England fan feels more confident to judge which players should be starting. The French team for example is spread across a bunch of leagues and so no one can claim to have watched all of them play all season long. I do still think you're right about it being a major problem to clarify.
Different team. That 2016 team was a shambles and the stories that have come out since prove it. You expect us to get past them because this manager always has before.
Also... Betting odds don't represent what outcome is most likely, they represent what odds are the bookies willing to accept bets at to ensure that they always win regardless of outcome. This usually matches up pretty well, but you do often get situations where the lowest odds show only the most popular team, not necessarily the best.
But surely in this day and age where English bookies take a load of bets on England winning, they would just do a deal with french bookies who are exposed to a high amount of french people betting on France? (Or Scottish bookies who have bets on England to lose)
You'll be shocked to find how many of these organisations are global, particularly the online ones....
They aren’t favourites they just have the best odds. Now the tournament has started the odds are predominantly made up of whose bet on them the most. Most people have made a bet on England as so their odds have gotten better. Nothing to do with quality anymore
Yes, gambling odds aren't a prediction, they're a price.
Sure but the customers' betting predictions are driving the prices/odds. If people didn't bet on England winning, they would have to increase the payback to drive volume, while reducing payback on other teams to close the gap risk.
English people also bet on England simply because it’s a normal thing for casual bettors to do, back the team you support. That action doesn’t necessarily correlate to the idea that all English bets are assuming they will win the tournament. It’s no different to Danish fans who would have bet on their team to win despite realising that it’s unlikely. Casual punters just do it for a little bit of excitement, regardless of whether they think their team is actually the best in the competition. We’re a betting nation, where most of the large bookies are based. Ofcourse our odds will be low simply because they’re at high risk for an England win.
The customers’ betting predictions are not connected to the actual football quality or results. The “favourite” is not the statistically more likely winner.
Yea this is the difference between "favourite" as in most like to win, and "bookie's favourite" which is best odds and alters based on bets. Having said that according to super computer odds of progressing England are still the favourites to win.
Sadly this part seems to always be overlooked. People look at bookies odds and think England fans and English bookies are *all* arrogant enough to think they’ll win every tournament. Truth is we just have more casual gamblers than most countries, so people will throw £20 on England in hope of a return, not an expectation of one.
Loads of people who don't like football will have chucked 20 quid on so they actually care about it when they're forced to watch with their mates at the pub I bet
And England, as a English speaking country, is by far the most popular team in the English speaking world. Meaning a lot of England Fans all around the world tend to skew the odds...
Do English speaking countries support England? I’d argue it’s usually the opposite… (maybe some African countries who support some EPL players)
Yes, the Scots and the Irish are big England fans, for instance :)
Easier draw and the talent is still there. Out of many of the teams performing badly they have one of the best chances to put it together with some easier games on the way
I think Italy have great odds considering they need to get through England to get to the final. The rest of the teams they are superior.
I have serious doubts against Switzerland. They eventually stopped us from qualifying in the WC because of a single penalty that Jorginho had to score.
The path to the final is easier for England than 2nd to the 8th
I don’t bet but don’t Belguim and Italy look tempting at those odds? Italy and Austria have been the two sides who when they’ve needed a goal they’ve gone about it and scored.
Betting on Belgium is a suckers move. They've bottled their golden generation and never gotten close to performing well in international tournaments
I'd say bronze medal in a world cup is close to performing well tbh haha
Yeah I know. But those are wild odds for a de bruyne driven team that’s still full of quality. They were only a little bit off in much of their play, theyre due a game where it clicks. I don’t think they have it in them to click for 3/4 games in a row though. Italy have a fairer chance of making it than those odds suggest too.
Keep in mind Belgium are on the tough side of the draw. If they win they would probably be underdogs in every game up to the final. I can't see a world where they make the semi tbh
...because mathematic probability models don't care about your feelings or opinions.
Best team in it by far, best defensive record, you’re all out to get us but can’t hack that we’re going to win this at a canter.
You’re overlooking two things: Firstly, the draw. Prior to the draw confirmation England had dropped to 4th favourites. The fact that the top 3 must all now meet one-another makes each of their individual chances of winning significantly harder, thus the odds go up to attract new punters. England will be odds on favourites to win all of their ties up until their final, so according to the house they should make the final. Part of this is also the fact that we have a very high number of casual bettors that will back England for any tournament, no matter what. The sums the bookies will lose if England win will likely be far greater than any other nation winning, so they have to lower our odds to decrease the risk to themselves. Unfortunately this makes us look like “favourites” even if we’re not the strongest team. The second thing you’re overlooking is that this includes the price for being a Runner Up, if you back it EW. Again, whilst England may not necessarily be the strongest, they’re deemed to have a much better chance of at least reaching the final than the 3 heavier favourites, because 2 of them **must** be knocked out before then. As more of those favourites get knocked out, 1 of them will eventually be a lower price than England again. The punters aren’t sure which one of the 3 is most likely to be a finalist so they’re all priced above England *for now*.
We do people not understand how bookies work? You're looking on a uk based bookmaker here. If england were priced a realistic value, then if they ever did win, then every bookie would go out of business I heard someone from paddy power saying that as so many people from England bet on England to win every tournament, that even with lower odds of 4/1, it would cost them a fortune. They can't afford to price england at like 10/1 etc No matter how good or bad england are, they will always be priced as "one of the favourites" in every tournament for this reason alone
England are favourites on French and international bookmakers too
Betting markets are global, not local.
I was saying it in response to people saying odds are only low on UK sites cause of England fans betting on them. England's odds are low for everyone
https://www.zebet.fr/en/competition/36147-euro_2024 England are favourites in France too. In today's international market, if skybet shortened the odds on England to reduce risk, paddy power could just offer realistic odds and do a trade with non English bookies to reduce thr risk
They won't lay off outrights. Just not enough volume with the tiny betting limits. Skybet and PaddyPower are also the same company.
they're still undefeated, the expected strongest competitors are all on the other side of the bracket, and odds are set by the betting volume behind them - i imagine there are more english fans in relative and absolute terms betting than in other countries, where sports betting is illegal or at least less prevalent.
Because the 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th favourites are all on the same side of the draw.
As boring as they are they have a good defense. You don't have to be exciting to watch to win a tournament you just have to not let in goals.
It's a long distance race, not the 100 meter dash. At the end of the day, the winner needs to outscore the loser, and England's still the safest bet in doing that.
Thinking about putting my wages on Spain next week
It's very simple statistics. Have you looked at the schedule?
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Bookies will always protect themselves, as people will always think that this is the year it'll finally happen
It's about the weight of money that is on the English side already the bookies need to balance all possible outcomes and these are English bookies so there will be more money on England because punters will back their own team, if you look at odds in other countries they won't be favourites.
It's the same with bookies in other countries. https://www.enligne.parionssport.fdj.fr/paris-football/international/euro-2024 Bookies trade liabilities with each other to cover their bets. You can assume they do it internationally.
Choice is more important than diligence
Italy looking like a solid bet lol
Easy side of the draw. I see them getting to semis and then anything can happen.
I would need to see how these odds were calculated. Spain appears to be the strongest team so far!!!
I mean, it’s pretty basic - they’d look at every game in the next round, and assign those win percentages, then look at all the possible quarter finals and estimate win percentages, and then do the same for the semis and final. Then they work out the overall percentage of times that each team wins and base the odds on that. Then they look at how much money is bet at those original prices and shorten the odds if more people are making the bet and lengthen the odds of nobody is betting.
The bookies are hedging against the amount of bets on England by making the odds shorter.
They have an easier path
Cos the rest are on the opposite side of the draw
spain getting out in ro16 arent they
Because English bookies want to rip you off.
England are favourites in most international bookies too, it’s not really about ripping off the consumer at this point, it’s about managing risk. The chances of England reaching the final is currently lower than any of the 3 actual favourites who must all play one-another first. England simply reaching the final is a problem for the bookies because there will be considerable sums at risk even on the EW value, so they don’t want to incentivise any more bets for that market, thus the low price. People making the mistake of correlating bookies favourites to genuine favourites.
Because some Actuary somewhere has decided that's the best way to minimise risk to the booky. At this point the odds are almost entirely a function of how much money has flowed towards each of the teams. Could be savvy gamblers, could also be pure sentiment. Either way, all that price really tells you is there is now a lot of money backing England and Spain to win and the bookies would rather you back someone else. That's it. Stop getting hung up on it. Edit: 16/1 on Italy looks like a steal. If i didn't think gambling was a cancer designed to funnel money from the poor, vulnerable, desperate and poorly educated to their exploiters I'd lump on.
How France got there without scoring a goal
Easier bracket and their defense has allowed the lowest number of xGoals of all teams, less than 1.5. They could cheese themselves into the final by forcing 0:0 penalties or lucking a 1:0 against Italy and Austria, then beat Spain, Germany, France or Portugal in penalties.
I’m taking Italy at 16/1. People keep doubting that team, and the Italians are well-known for being successful in tournaments and the kind of football they’re playing (more defensive, lower scoring, doing what they have to do to advance, being tenacious and resilient). They’ll end up winning the whole tournament, after a hard-fought game, on penalty kicks. Mark my words.
It’s altered by betting patterns. A lot of people bet on England regardless because it’s their national team and you are looking at Sky Bet which focuses on British football.
Lowest xGA and they’re on the ‘easier’ side of the draw
Because bookies are always looking for the next sucker.
We've avoided the side of the draw with Portugal, Spain, Germany and France. The bookies are assuming we pull our act together which if we did we probably should make the final at least
Because it's tournament football. England could play piss poor but their material overpowers the small teams and they might win the PSO in the final this time. Their defence is rock solid imo.
The bracket does matter too. England has comparatively easy opponents to get into the final which raises the chance to win the whole thing. For example my two favorites are spain and germany but they meet in the quarter finals already…
People don’t seem to understand that gambling odds have no correlation to how good the team is. It’s determined by which team is being bet on.
The composition is so good.
Games gone. Edit : and probably loads of over optimistic England fans that have given the bookies at lot of money/placed bets suppressing the odds.
England team so funny
Anyone fancy Spain to go all the way?
Austria the dark horses
Because of the draw.
A lot of drunks will put their money on England and gambling companies are there to make money.
Because we're addicted to gambling
Please somebody eliminate England.
>A manager that continues to get it all wrong I feel people forget how lacklustre our group stage was last euros.
To keep it very simple, bookies base their odds on statistical analysis, **not** on the popularity of a team. That's why Man City are favourites to win the Prem next season, rather than Utd. Bookies make their money from something called the over-round. This is where they find the true odds of an event, and then lower the odds slightly to make a profit. For example, flipping a coin is 50/50, heads or tails. The true odds for a coin landing on heads is 1/1 or 2.0 if you put £10 on that bet every day for 1000 days you are likely to walk away with £10 at the end. What a bookie would do is price that coin toss at 1.95, meaning that for every flip, your bet has a value of -0.05. After 1000 days of betting £10 at 1.95 odds you would have lost (on average) £500. The bookies over-round here is £0.05 per £1 bet. If 1000 people placed that bet at the same time each day, for 1000 days, the bookie would make £500,000. If they wanted to make more money, they could either, lower the odds further 1.94 or 1.93 but this may annoy their customers, and they'd attract fewer bets. Another option would be to increase the odds to 1.96 or even 1.99 which would increase their customers, but reduces the profit per £1 bet. If they can get 3000 people to bet rather than 1000 people, then it would be worth it. As you can see though, provided that the price is lower than the statistical probability (true odds), the bookie will always win. So if 100,000 England fans are betting on England to win, a bookie might try to attract them by offering slightly higher prices, or they may look to lock-in more profit by reducing the odds further. But they aren't making England favourites to earn more money. This is why this is the first tournament where England have ever been favourites. With football, England are down as favourites because the data still points to England being favourites. It has nothing to do with "English bookies". For a start, Paddy Power are not English, but check international betting exchanges such as Smarkets, Betfair, Betdaq etc and you will see that England are favourites with all of them. **Does this mean that England are likely to win the tournament? No** They are just slightly more likely than anyone else. England's chances of winning according to the bookies are 20% (4/1 odds) and their odds of winning (true odds) according to the exchanges (5.3 odds) are 18.52% That means that England have an 81.48% chance of NOT winning the tournament. Spain (5.8 odds according to the exchanges) have a 16.95% chance of winning the tournament, and a 83.05% chance of NOT winning the tournament. *Interestingly, in the brief period after England's final match but before the final group matches were played, England were not the favourites. France, Spain, and Germany all briefly overtook them. But after the final group matches the draw considerably favoured England and England became favourites again. Check out Smarkets' outright market for the Euros where you can see the price history for each team.*
They will win by boring all the other teams to death, literally
Austria at 16/1 is a decent bet to make.
It’s based on betting People are still betting on England to win Hence favourites🙂
Easy draw once again
We've got the easiest path to the final. Once again. Yet watch us fuck it again by playing Southgate terrorist football
Because it's coming Home 🏴
England have the lowest odds in all fotballchampionships because all english are betting om England driving the odds down.
Italy and Netherlands feel like crazy value here. The chance that one of them is in the final seems very high given their side of the bracket and how England is playing. I know Netherlands stumbled in the group but still way too much quality in the lineup for those odds.
There is a silver lining in England's performance. They are the team with the best defence, allowed the least amount of xGoals. If they face a team who has their shit together, this alone won't be enough, but all the teams who do are on the other bracket.
That same question has been asked for the last FIFTY-EIGHT YEARS
Coz it’ll look funnier when they get knocked out
Idk
Cause more money was bet on them
Because they have a squad full of star quality players who haven't played their best so far but will undoubtably get it together in the round of 16. Im not even english but watching the England team win and then their fans still shout slurs and abuse at the squad because the team didn't score 3-4-5 goals. Clearly you guys have never played a competative soccer match. Even this post saying "How are England still favourites" ....How can they not be, in my unprofessional opinion, England will win it this year.
Maybe the bookies (and Southgate) are applying Lombardi theory. "Offence wins games, defence wins championships."
Because the bookies are British.
Who’s got what bets on then??
odds start based on form but are then adjusted based on the bets placed, the more people that bet, the odds go down. Britain has the highest gambling revenues. They always rate higher in the favourites list
Hype for the ducks to bet.
They are favs mainly because that is Skybet based in the UK and is usually a liability thing more than a England are actually good thing?
I don't think England is playing to their very best - surely with some luck and hard-work we can win it?
They'll be playing against Slovakia in the next round. Arguably the weakest team of the last 16. England are the heavy favorites. In QF, they will play against either Italy or Switzerland. Both are good teams; but neither of them are realistic contenders. So England will still be the clear favorites there. SF will be against whoever survives in that Netherlands, Turkey, Austria, Romania bracket. Not saying England can crush any of them easily; but you couldn't hope for an easier opponent in Euro 2024 Semi Finals. England, regardless of the matchup will still be favorites to win. So, until the finals, England will be the favorites to win each matchup, due to a much easier bracket. While the other contenders will have to face each other all the way to the Final.
Because contrary to belief, England have a BDO favorite, topped the group, had good defensive form and have a easy road to the final. Regardless of how ugly they look via eye test and how bad southgate is, nothing has changed for them since game 1. We knew they would like ugly, and play bad football. We knew they would grind out games. We knew playing Kane/Foden/Bellingham would be an eye sore. The only thing that has changed is there bracket got even easier.
Where is Georgia
I don't know but is it related to the question "why do you never see a poor bookmaker?"
The major teams besides England aren't in their bracket
Because they always are is biased towards them. They’re so overrated I’d put them at 16/1 the same as Italy
I was wondering if tournament football is actually shite and you have to appear shite because it's grimly effective but looks awful and boring but the result matters more than the football.
Its because they are named England. So betting companies sees England getting possibly Italy, Switz, Netherlands, Austria on their way to the finale and thinks thats an easy path to the finale for them. Also probably alot of England fans betting on England for the same reason. When in reality, England has been way worse than all those teams and you should say wow those teams are lucky to meet a bad England over the favourites like Spain, Germany, France and Portugal. So yeah its a mentality thing rather than a reality thing where just being one of the 5 big teams automatically puts you as a favourite no matter how bad you do it. You can see the exact same thing with Belgium. Their chances is as high as Switz. Except Switz just need to beat an Italy and England whos been mediocre while Belgium needs to beat 3 of the biggest favourites whos played well so far. To put it simply, Belgium has way to low odds also and only gets it because the stupid fifa ranking keeps them as one of the best european teams, when they are not.
A very favourable draw
The route to the final is laid out nicely for England.
Day 7087 of telling people that bookies favourites are based on betting patterns and not on a complete critical analysis
I wouldn’t be surprised if Slovakia beats England.
The only thing i can think of is that we still have the most talent on paper, we did still win our group and also we are the only side still in it that hasn't given everything we've got, Germany, Spain and France are realistically the only other big sides in it, that doesn't mean sides like Austria, Holland, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy etc shouldn't be taken seriously. England definitely hasn't played anywhere near our best football, whereas Germany and Spain have kind of shown their best qualities already, that makes England slightly more dangerous knowing that we have coasted our way into a great draw to get to the final and we still have 2/3 gears to go up through. No matter how our performances have been up to now, we will always be a threat because of our talent pool of players.
Because they're on the easy bracket of the knockout stage. If they do start playing well and gaining chemistry they can cruise to the final. But IMO they wont beat Slovakia.
Every competitor that isn’t called Spain also sucks in their own way.
Because the bettings firms are mostly from the Uk and because English fans are delusional ? Maybe ?
Because the FOX commentators are British therefore they’re biased.
I would bet on Austria winning over England at this point
They’re not. :D
On paper have the best team along with France and we are in a weak side of the bracket!
Because they're perhaps the most over hyped team in sports history. Their players are great but Southgate is horrid
They by far played the worst 3 games out of all games. It was a nightmare to watch. I had to flip the channel.
Because England is a huge betting market and you’re on a British site, so it will be skewed toward people betting on England. That shortens the odds.
They got lucky landing on the Easier Half of the KO Bracket. They are avoiding Spain, Germany, Portugal, France, Belgium.
West Germany won the 1990 World Cup by playing anti-football. You get no points for style.
They shouldn’t be favourites to win though. They might be favourites to reach the final, as they have an easier path than the other favourites such Spain, Germany and Portugal.
Bait odds to bet on them and lose your money
Because they got the easier side of the bracket
Because: 1. Group stage performances don't mean much 2. England have a relatively simple run to the final 3. England's defence looks very tight 4. England have attacking options which is amongst the strongest - it might not be clicking now, but it only takes one moment of magic from Kane/Bellingham/Foden/Saka/Palmer to win a game if you're keeping clean sheets 5. England's managers and established players have experience of going deep in tournaments
We never were and never will be with southcunt as our manager
It's betting delusional people have put more money on England winning.
Can’t wait for it to just be the team coming home again
Easy bracket + solid defence
Look at the draw. 4/5 favourites are in one half and the other is in a half of its own
Because odds makers use common sense and experience when coming up with the odds rather than just going by the rhetoric posted on Reddit.
Their side of the bracket is significantly easier than the other side— their toughest possible matches will be Italy and the Netherlands, compared to the other side which has the likes of France, Germany and Spain. England, especially under Southgate, also have a tendency to perform better in the knockouts. Slovakia won’t be a challenge for them, Italy are playing with their worst squad and chemistry in recent years, and the Netherlands squad is also underperforming significantly. If this is anything to go by, England are the favourites to make the final on their side of the bracket. All that leads to now is a 50/50 chance in the final that they win.
Have you seen that side of the bracket?
England is a shit
It’s literally just banter