Jack Wright’s EURO 2024 Matchday 1
7/2 Fourfold

Italy began their victorious Euro 2020 campaign with a resounding 3-0 defeat of Turkey, and it is vital they get off to another winning start here given this group is completed by Spain and Croatia. A qualifying campaign that started with Roberto Mancini in charge ended under Luciano Spalletti. The man who led Napoli to Serie A glory last season has lost just one of his 10 games in charge of the Azzurri. Gianluca Scamacca will lead the line having scored 12 goals in his last 19 appearances for club and country. Albania are the second lowest ranked team in the competition and are CopyBet’s 1/4 favourites to be eliminated at the group stage.

Netherlands won three from three in the group stage of Euro 2020. With France in this section that may be a stretch this time around, but they will get off to a winning start against this poor Poland side. Ronald Koeman has one of the strongest defences in the tournament with exciting talent sprinkled throughout further forward. That will be too much for the Poles who finished third in qualifying behind Albania and Czech Republic and needed a penalty shoot-out to book their ticket to Germany. They last beat the Netherlands in 1979 and that is not going to change while still having to rely on a 35-year-old Robert Lewandowski for goals.

Belgium haven’t lost since November 2022 and are unbeaten in 14 games under “career coach” Domenico Tedesco. He is getting the best out of Romelu Lukaku who plundered a record 14 goals in qualifying at a rate of one every 39 minutes. Kevin De Bruyne is fit to provide the ammunition and the two elder statesmen are surrounded by younger legs.

Slovakia performed well in qualifying but fall short against the stronger nations illustrated by their only two defeats coming at the hands of Portugal. After also losing to Austria in March, Francesco Calzona will likely target games against Ukraine and Romania for a win which would probably see them progress.

Portugal had the most impressive qualification campaign of all the nations that will be competing at Euro 2024. Winning all 10 fixtures whilst scoring the most goals and boasting the meanest defence keeping clean sheets in nine of those fixtures. Cristiano Ronaldo proved he is still one of the most feared strikers on the planet scoring 10 goals with Bruno Fernandes providing more assists than any other player. Roberto Martinez led Belgium to a third placed finish in the 2018 World Cup and can take his new adopted nation deep into a tournament they won in 2016. That starts with a win over the Czech Republic a side they beat by scorelines of 2-0 and 4-0 in the 2022 Nations League.