Dan Tracey's EURO 2024 Predictions

With both England and France serving up poor performances in their final pre-tournament friendlies, their respective stocks will have taken a slight dip in the past few days. However, I still feel that Les Blues will have enough to win this tournament and with another embarrassment of riches for Didier Deschamps to call upon, it would be slightly embarrassing in France were not to win the Euros.

In the build up to this tournament, Croatia got the better of Portugal in Lisbon and although it was only a friendly, the outcome was enough to raise some eyebrows. As always, the question is whether Luka Modric has the legs to oversee everything in midfield but with the Croatian’s currently priced at 40/1, this goes some way to answering the question regarding the competition’s dark horse.

Although the temptation is to go in the direction of Harry Kane or Kylian Mbappe, I think the Golden Boot will be scooped up by a certain Portuguese icon. With Cristiano Ronaldo’s Group F exploits looking relatively easy, this should offer the 39-year-old the perfect opportunity to rack up the goals early on and scoop individual honours come the end of the tournament.

There is no doubt that Florian Wirtz has had an incredible season for Bayer Leverkusen and now he will be expected to show those talents on the international stage. The 21-year-old is reportedly being coveted by Liverpool and Real Madrid and a constant display of his creative talents will only increase any potential transfer fee and help Germany go far at this summer’s championships.

The winner of this award is usually connected to who wins the tournament outright and with France serving as my picks for glory in Germany, then it is incredibly difficult to look past Kylian Mbappe as the best of the lot. A move to Real Madrid has now been confirmed and what better way to show your worthiness of a move to Spain by showing everyone you are the best in European football.

While using similar logic to the player of the tournament, I am also going to link a previous tip to this award. If Florian Wirtz is the creative genius for Germany as hoped, then there will not be many if any better youngsters this summer. There is the obvious rival of Jude Bellingham but I worry about England’s top heavy set up and whether the Real Madrid star will be at his best for the Three Lions.