Let’s talk about the fight for “the last car of the train”.
In almost every Euro 2024 qualifying group there is a strong favorite (somewhere there are two at once). But even so, there are outsiders who still have a chance to jump into the last carriage – to take second place and qualify for the final tournament.
In group A – a combat triangle
The Spanish national team has enough reserve of skills to overcome such a group in class. 3 teams remain in the fight for second place. The result of their confrontation will be determined by individual players – an absolute leader for each team.
It will be Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s turn, a young setter who moved to Napoli and who immediately won over the local public, within the Georgian national team. The level of resistance in Serie A is much higher than in RPL and even more than in the Georgia championship. But Khvicha gets away with it. The problem will be that the way the team plays is limited to player selection, which is far worse than the Italian Grand Prix. It all boils down to Quaradon’s individual skill.
In a similar situation, the Norwegian team and Erling Haaland. True, the position and qualities of the elite forward of Manchester City are somewhat more favorable to the fact that he will still be able to lead the national team to second place. Erling reads game moments well: his functionality is not limited to saturating someone else’s free kick. And at the same time, he absolutely dominates in martial arts.
Another trump card of the Norwegians: in addition to Holland, they have Martin Odegaard, who leads the match at Arsenal. Intelligent positioning, timely saturation of the zones: he does a great job off the ball and at the same time helps to promote him (although Norway’s path to selection started with a defeat anyway).
The Scots don’t have an absolute top performer (Robertson is having a hard time with Liverpool), but there are players who are a little more sensitive. In defense, in addition to Andrew, Kieran Tierney is able to train: the footballer plays for Arsenal in London, even if he does not train much. Also at the disposal of the national team is Scott McTominay, the defensive midfielder looked good Manchester Unitedeven if he is now sitting on the bench.
Competitive group D
There is no absolute favorite in it – at least, the Croatian national team is difficult to attribute to this due to its style of play. In general, it became clear in the first round that Wales is also capable of imposing the competition at the bronze medals world Cup-2022.
And besides these two teams, there are also teams from Turkey and Armenia. The former have gathered quite a strong lineup and, it seems, the new talent of Arda Güler’s generation is growing. Like Sergey Pinyaev, the midfielder was called up to the national team at the age of 18. Already now it is estimated at 11 million euros.
Eduard Spertsyan speaks in favor of the latter. The pupil of “Krasnodar” can follow in Khvichi’s footsteps, but so far he is at a different stage in his career: he has just established himself in the status of leader of the southerners.
Sweden or Austria are second only to Belgium
Even taking into account that the Red Devils had a terrible atmosphere at the recent World Cup. The first match of the Belgians under the leadership of Domenico Tedesco took place against Sweden, one of the direct competitors. And the confrontation ended with a confident victory for Belgium: a hat-trick helped Romel Lukaku.
Estonia and Azerbaijan have not been able to impose a serious rivalry, so the final distribution of places will be determined in personal meetings between the Belgians, Swedes and another team – Austria. They have Real Madrid’s most experienced defender David Alaba, Marcel Sabitzer, who is trying to gain a foothold in Manchester United’s base, and a handful of young talent: Alexander Prass, Patrick Wimmer and, of course, Nicholas Seiwald.
Hungary/Montenegro
Perhaps for the first time the Serbian national team can be considered the favorites of their group. The “White Eagles” are growing excellent performers in the center of the field, there is a promising young central defender Strahinja Pavlovich – all this is supported by more experienced Dusan Tadic and Sergei Milinkovic-Savic. In attack – strong Mitrovic and Vlahovic. The Serbs have not had such a selection of players for a long time.
And the composition of the group favors the fight for the first place: of all the teams, only Hungarians and Montenegrins can compete with Dragan Stojkovic’s wards.
In the Hungarian national team, Dominik Soboslai is gradually entering the world level: the 22-year-old midfielder has established himself at the base of Leipzig and now has 4 goals and 8 assists in 23 Bundesliga matches.
The Montenegrins, on the other hand, started with a victory over the Bulgarians, but could not oppose anything to Serbia.
Kazakhstan is a problem for Denmark
The Danes have a very good segment in international tournaments. They regularly participate in final tournaments and periodically enter to make noise in the playoffs. In the last continental championship, they went through Wales and the Czech Republic, reaching the semifinals – there they were stopped by England. Before this on world Cup-2018 Denmark qualified in 1/8 – no luck to get into the Croatian national team, the future finalist.
The current group is in favor of a quiet qualification for Euro 2024. Even if there are dark horses here. One of the first to achieve such a status was the national team of Kazakhstan: the team in a duel with the Danes sensationally recovered from 0:2 and eventually won the victory. Although it is worth noting that the selection of players does not allow Kazakhs to be considered a real threat to the “Scarlet Guard”. Yes, and for the second line he will have to compete with Finland and Slovenia. Teemu Pukki, the Owl’s top scorer, is still in the ranks. And Benjamin Seshko is growing among the Slovenians: the Salzburger is charming in the Austrian championship and promotion will certainly follow.
