Match round two of Euro 2024 saw a number of teams define their fate at the tournament, for better or worse.
While the likes of Poland and Hungary look down and out after two defeats on the spin, tournament top dogs like Portugal and Spain have booked their places in the knockout rounds thanks to taking six points from six.
As part of our 24 for 24 series, we’ve re-ranked the best teams at Euro 2024 after match round two.
Yes, England were pretty bloody awful against Denmark.
Yes, the Trent Alexander-Arnold midfield experiment has been a bit of a disaster.
And yes, not having any wide players who can run in behind when Harry Kane drops deep has been an issues.
But, amazingly, England have four points on the board and are 99.9% certain to be in the knockout rounds. So, you know, it’s not all bad.
The team that completely outplayed England in match round two, Denmark were fairly damn impressive in their 1-1 this past week.
As well as scoring a wonderful goal, Denmark retained possession well throughout against one of the perceived favourite to win the whole tournament. Impressive stuff.
Speaking of teams who retain possession well, here’s Austria.
Ralf Rangnick’s side have played like a well-oiled machine in both their games thus far, and deservedly got their first points on the board with a 3-1 win over Poland in Berlin.
Whisper it, but they look like the tournament dark horses.
Considering the Netherlands lost both their star midfielders – Frenkie de Jong and Teun Koopmeiners – to injuries on the eve of Euro 2024, they’ve been pretty damn good thus far.
After a hard fought win over Poland, the Dutch earned an equally hard fought draw with tournament favourites France and, truthfully, probably should’ve won the game had Anthony Taylor not wrongly ruled out Xavi Simons’ goal.
France weren’t particularly eye-catching in their 0-0 draw with the Netherlands on Friday night, but considering they were without Kylian Mbappe that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
With Mbappe looking set come back into the lineup for the final group game, expect Les Bleus’ performance level to vastly improve very soon.
What do you know? Roberto Martinez opted to play a normal 4-3-3 against Turkey, after his tactical mess of a 3-5-2 didn’t work in match round one, and Portugal were bloody brilliant.
Who’d have thought it?
Well…everyone.
The tactical switch has made Portugal one of the favourites to win the whole tournament now.
While they weren’t able to bang in another five goals against Hungary, host nation Germany were still pretty damn impressive in their 2-0 win.
Julian Nagelsmann’s system is getting the best out of his star players right now, and you can’t ask for much more than that.
Spain were a bit good against Italy, weren’t they?
Thanks to the dynamic Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal out wide, and the masterful performances of Fabian Ruiz and Rodri in the middle of the park, Spain utterly dominated Italy from first minute to last.
It was a minor miracle that Spain didn’t win 5-0.
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