Euro 2024: Exciting, efficient Spain, unlucky Germany, turgid England and boring France

Sometimes it's the simplest numbers that can tell a story best. As the dust finally starts to settle on Euro 2024 (everywhere except England), here's what they tell us

Gareth Southgate’s resignation as England manager on Tuesday means the Euro 2024 post mortem continues, in England at least. 

But now a few days have elapsed since Spain deservedly won the Euros for a record fourth time, I’ve crunched some basic numbers to reach conclusions about how and why certain teams performed as they did.

When I say “basic” numbers, I mean basic: goals, attempts on goal, passes and pass completion per nation, and saves, all of which have been crunched in total and per game (PG) in the table below.

Sporting Intelligence has smart readers who appreciate deep dives and long reads but I know short and sweet can be good too.

So, short and sweet, the key takeouts:

1: 🇪🇸 Spain scored the most goals (15), and at a higher rate (2.1 PG) than any nation but Germany (who had 2.2 PG). They also had a higher number of attempts PG (17.6) than any nations bar Germany (18.8 PG) and Portugal (17.8 PG).

Spain’s pass numbers (584 PG) were bettered by several nations, including Portugal, Germany and England. But Spain’s pass accuracy (90.2%) was bettered only by Germany (91.2%) and it’s easy to deduce Spain’s passing was most effective.

2: 🇩🇪 Germany lost in the quarters to Spain, after extra time, but it’s far from ridiculous to suggest they were beaten by the only team at the tournament better than them, and they would have had a good chance of lifting the trophy had they beaten Spain, on the basis of their goals, passes, passing accuracy, and saves.

Generally, the fewer saves being made indicated fewer chances being given up to be saved. Only the well organised and impressive Switzerland (1.8 saves PG) and Austria (1.6 PG) had fewer than Germany (2.2).

3: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England’s goals PG of 1.1 was lower than the average of all the teams in the last 16 (which was 1.2 PG), and England’s attempts on goal (10.7 PG) were massively fewer than Germany (18.8 PG), Portugal (17.8 PG), Spain (17.6), France (16.3) and no fewer than nine other last-16 teams.

In other words only Georgia (7.8 attempts PG), Slovenia (8.8 PG) and Romania (9.3 PG) had fewer attempts PG than England of the 16 teams in the knockout stage.

And while only Portugal and Germany made more passes PG than England, respectively 729, 645 and 613, many of England’s passes were sideways and backwards. Defensive. Turgid. Safety first. Creating little. Riding their luck.

4: 🇫🇷 France were poor, and especially profligate. They had 16.3 attempts PG and yet “scored” a woeful four goals in six matches, and only one of them from open play by one of their own players. A penalty and two own goals accounted for the others. 🇵🇹 Portugal were also profligate. 

5: 🇬🇪 Georgia’s 29 saves at a whopping 7.3 per game was testament to the heroics of Giorgi Mamardashvili. Their low passes PG, pass success rate and attempts PG highlight how they maximised their counter-attacking approach.

Anyway, here are the numbers …

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