EUROCASH #3: The only certainty in Group B is that at least one big-hitter will struggle
Three of the top 10 teams in the world rankings will contest this group - so which one does our model predict to miss the cut?
Group B at Euro 2024 is about as tricky as they come, containing three teams currently ranked inside the world’s top 10 - Spain, Italy and Croatia - and is only diluted in quality by the presence of Albania, ranked No.66 in the world.
Yet, ‘diluted’ is not quite right. Albania endured a woeful 2022, winning just one match from 11, but things changed dramatically when Sylvinho was hired as head coach in early January last year. The former Arsenal, Barcelona and Manchester City left-back had a transformational effect, and Albania went on to win Group E in qualifying, topping a section that also contained the Czech Republic and Poland (who both made it Euro 2024), and beating them both along the way.
Albania’s ranking of 66 means the average world ranking in Group B is 23. Only Group D, the ‘group of death’ featuring France, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland, is tougher by that metric, with an average world ranking of 16.
There is an argument that Group B has more jeopardy, containing as it does not just the upstart Albanians but the reigning champions (Italy), a European powerhouse that has won two of the past four Euros, and got to the semis last time (Spain), and a nation that reached the World Cup final, then the semis, in the last two editions of the world’s most important international tournament (Croatia).
At least one big-hitter is going to struggle, unable to finish in the top two places that guarantee a last-16 spot, instead taking their chances in the third-place lottery for advancement.
Spain (below) are the bookmakers’ favourites to win Group B, and that’s what the current FIFA world rankings suggest will happen. They are No.8 in the world, Italy are No.9 and Croatia are No.10.
Sporting Intelligence’s resident pundit for this preview series, Thomas Hitzlsperger, agrees - and we’ll hear from him below.
Spain to top the group is also the prediction from Sporting Intelligence’s financial model, based on the insurable values of the players involved in Euro 2024.
Between now and next Friday, I'm going to try to predict how the event will unfold, group by group, using that model. It's a refined - and hopefully improved - version of a model that has worked before, at two World Cups (in 2014 and 2018), and not been far off in a third.
I wrote about the rationale and methodology that underpins the model last Friday, in this piece. It’s free for anyone wanting to read it and will save me repeating all the detail every day in this series.
Before we get into the financial minutiae of the players’ insurable values, here’s a basic recap of the four nations contesting Group B.
Spain 🇪🇸
Coach: Luis de la Fuente, Spanish, 62.
Star man (in £ terms): Pedri.
Other star men: Most capped: Álvaro Morata (72). Most goals: Morata (34). Young guns (best players under 23): Pedri, Lamine Yamal, Nico Williams.
Previous Euros best: Winners: 1964, 2008, 2012. Runners-up: 1984
Squad notes: The squad has members playing club football in Spain (19 of them), England, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia.
A handful of players across the 24 squads are now playing at one of the four richest Saudi clubs, on wages that are astronomically higher than they would be paid, based on their talent, even at a major European club. Salaries are fundamentally a proxy for talent in Europe, but not in Saudi Arabia as the government, via the PIF, are paying huge premiums to attract players to give the Saudi Pro League more glamour.
Spain’s Aymeric Laporte is reportedly earning £21m tax free per year at Al Nassr. To earn that in England, for example, he would need to earn £38.2m before tax, or £735,000 per week, basic. With respect to Laporte, no club in England, or indeed Europe, would pay him that. So for him and seven others in a similar situation across all the squads at Euro 2024, the model uses a realistic talent-based salary for a player of their age, experience and honours. Without such adjustments, the model outputs would risk being unnaturally skewed for a few nations because of Saudi’s vanity spending.
The average age of the Spain squad is 27.5, with five players aged above 30 (none of them goalkeepers), and with Jesus Navas (38), Nacho (34) and Joselu (34) the oldest three.
Croatia 🇭🇷
Coach: Zlatko Dalić, Croatian, 57.
Star man (in £ terms): Joško Gvardiol.
Other star men: Most capped: Luka Modrić (174). Most goals: Ivan Perišić (33). Young guns (best players under 23): Gvardiol (by a distance), and Luka Sučić.
Previous Euros best: Quarter-finals: 1996, 2008.
Squad notes: The squad has members playing club football in Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, England, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia (Marcelo Brozović at Al Nassr is also a ‘write down’ player, like Laporte), Spain and Turkey. The average age of the Croatian squad is 28.4, with six players aged above 30, and Modric, who will be 39 in September, the oldest.
Italy 🇮🇹
Coach: Luciano Spalletti, Italian, 65.
Star man (in £ terms): Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Other star men: Most capped: Donnarumma (61). Most goals: Nicolò Barella (9). Young guns (best players under 23): Nobody outstanding, but watch out for 24-year-old Davide Frattesi of Internazionale.
Previous Euros best: Winners: 1968, 2021 (Euro 2020). Runners-up: 2000, 2012.
Squad notes: The squad has 23 members playing club football in Italy, plus two in England (Jorginho, Guglielmo Vicario) and one in France (Donnarumma). Their average age is just over 27, with three aged above 30, and only one aged under 23, the once-capped defender Riccardo Calafiori.
Albania 🇦🇱
Coach: Sylvinho, Brazilian, 50.
Star man (in £ terms): Armando Broja.
Other star men: Most capped: Elseid Hysaj (84). Most goals: Rey Manaj (8). Young guns (best players under 23): Mario Mitaj, Kristjan Asllani, Broja.
Previous Euros best: Group stage: 2016.
Squad notes: The squad has members playing club football in Croatia, the Czech Republic, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and the UAE. Their average age is just above 27, with five aged above 30, and veteran goalkeeper Etrit Berisha, at 35, the oldest.
Group B overview
Of the 20 most valuable players in Group B (by our metric), seven are Spanish, including four of the most valuable six; eight are Italian; three are Croatian, including the group’s most valuable player, and two are Albanian, at No.11 and No.19 on that list of 20, more about which shortly.
As you can see in the graphic below, Spain’s total collective squad value is higher than of any of the other three nations in the group, with a clear pecking order for the four teams, albeit two of them not miles apart.
The graphic also contains:
The total squad value for each nation
How our data ranks them
How the bookmakers reckon they will perform
Each nation’s world ranking
Thomas Hitzlsperger’s picks for group winner and runner-up
The value of each nation’s MVP by insurable value
There’s also a projected final table for the group, and beneath the graphic we’ll explore how a nation with a more expensive squad won’t necessarily field the higher value team in any given game.