Euro 2024 Power Rankings: England seal top-two spot but Spain remain favourites

Dave Tickner
The Euro 2024 power rankings
The Euro 2024 power rankings

We’re down to the last knockings at Euro 2024 now which means some important and in most cases final adjustments to our Very Scientific ranking of all 24 teams, and Spain now have more reason to dream than anyone having dumped out the hosts.

Sure, this is arbitrary but we’re making a rare genuine tilt for objectivity here. The 24th team is the one that went out after two games. Twenty-third is the team that went out after 100 minutes of their third game. And so forth. See? Objective. Fair. Plucked only in part direct from our fetid anus.

Keep checking back throughout the tournament as we shuttle teams up and down in response to the ongoing action and to correct our humiliating, embarrassing mistakes. Arrows indicate which teams have been on the move and in which direction since the last update.

 

24) Poland 🟰
Poland and major tournaments, name a more underwhelming combination. We’ll wait. It’s genuinely almost impressive to get knocked out after two games in a format with a whopping great safety net, but Poland have managed it. Just forever and always a complete waste of a tournament place.

 

23) Scotland 🟰
Oh, Scotland. Oh, mates. Twelve major tournaments, twelve group stage exits. The despairing “You couldn’t make it up” on the BBC commentary after a 100th-minute goal for Hungary confirmed Scotland’s exit may well be the most inaccurate single line of commentary in sports history. It’s very easy to make it up. Although we suppose it is also very unnecessary to actually do so. It is the history of the Scotland.

 

22) Czechia 🟰
A narrow late defeat to Portugal was frustrating but need not have been terminal. Only drawing with Georgia was far more costly, and their early exit was confirmed by defeat to Turkey. Given the group they were in and the quality they possess, Czechia have to go down as one of the tournament’s biggest disappointments.

 

21) Serbia 🟰
Turns out they were doomed from the moment they lost to England, with losing a game – to England or anyone else – proving something nobody else was going to bother with in Group C thank you very much.

 

20) Albania 🟰
Absolutely didn’t disgrace themselves in the Group of Death, taking a deserved point against Croatia in between narrow defeats to Italy and Spain.

 

19) Ukraine 🟰
Sympathy abounds for a team finishing bottom of their group with four points, but that crushing game-one defeat against Romania always had potential to be costly and they didn’t do enough against Belgium in a game they had to win against a team short on confidence.

 

18) Croatia 🟰
Conceding a heartbreaking 98th-minute equaliser against Italy and then waiting 24 hours to see your hopes finally extinguished by England failing to beat Slovenia 3-0 is a horrible way to go, and who knows how many of their remaining legends will still be around for another crack at the World Cup in two years’ time. They looked a very old side this summer.

17) Hungary 🟰
Very lucky to finish third in Group A, very unlucky to miss out on a qualification spot at the very last thanks to Georgia’s historic win over Portugal. But in truth, Hungary have been a disappointment at these finals. ‘Best of the sides eliminated in the group stage’ is not a title they would have wanted to take home from Germany.

 

16) Italy 🟰
Scraped into the knockouts in wildly unconvincing fashion after a narrow win over Albania, defeat to Spain and a last-gasp draw against Croatia and their tournament pedigree did nothing for them in an incredibly limp defeat to Switzerland in the last 16 to put the willies up England.

 

15) Slovakia 🟰
Got the draw they needed against Romania to secure third place in Group E and with it a well-deserved place in the last 16. And they were within a minute of reaching the quarter-finals before England jammied their way through.

 

14) Georgia 🟰
Beating Portugal to snatch the final last-16 spot is one of the moments of the tournament from a side making their first appearance at a major. Scoring first against Spain was up there too, but this time the favourites mustered a mighty response.

 

13) Denmark 🟰
Could have won all of their group games, didn’t win any, still came second in the group anyway, before coming up against the Germans who had toenails and body silhouettes in their favour and everyone blamed Michael Oliver.

READ MORE: Farewell Clive Tyldesley, ITV’s effortless and criminally underrated poet

 

12) Slovenia 🟰
No movement because we expected a bit of a cruise for Portugal. It was anything but thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo’s extraordinary ego and Slovenia’s oustanding defence. Benjamin Sesko will be thinking about that extra-time chance for a long, long time.

 

11) Belgium 🟰
Failing to find a winner against Ukraine proved predictably costly against an uninspiring but ominous France team who squeezed through to the quarter-finals in what will more than likely be Kevin De Bruyne’s last dance.

 

10) Romania 🟰
Landed on the right side of the draw but never really managed to lay a glove on the Netherlands during their round-of-16 defeat.

 

9) Austria 🟰
Brilliant 3-2 winners over the Netherlands and then got an unexpected helping hand from France and Poland to end up top of Group D having gone into the final game not even entirely mathematically certain of a place in the last 16.

They were fancied v Turkey but an early goal left them chasing the game for nearly 90 minutes. And that was exhausting and ultimately fruitless.

 

MORE ON EURO 2024 FROM F365
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8) Portugal 🟰
Cristiano Ronaldo produced the most arrogant display in football history, but Roberto Martinez hasn’t got any bottle, started him again against France and Portugal lost on penalties having played 120 minutes with ten men.

 

7) Germany 🟰
The hosts were top having cruised through the group in impressive style before dismissing Denmark, and it looked as though there could be only one winner in the quarter-final after a Niclas Fullkrug-inspired turnaround led to Florian Wirtz’s late equaliser in normal time. But Mikel Merino broke hearts as Spain ushered in an era of Barcelona-steered dominance.

 

6) Switzerland 🟰
Hugely impressive in their group and they were right to show absolutely no fear against Italy, who they brushed aside with alarming ease ahead of a quarter-final clash with another underperforming European giant. These lads were our officially endorsed Dark Horses but they eventually succumbed to England despite Breel Embolo giving them the lead in their quarter-final. A valiant effort.

 

5) Turkey 🟰
Second place in a group containing Portugal is very acceptable for a team who had so many scars from their miserable campaign three years ago when so many tipped them as dark horses. And impressive as Austria have been, there’s no denying Turkey would have been pleasantly surprised to find that second place in Group F saw them facing up to Ralf Rangnick’s side rather than France or the Netherlands.

They’re three years late, but they’ve justified that dark horse status in the end. And they were phenomenal v Austria but Ronald Koeman’s wall of orange proved too much for them in the quarters.

 

4) Netherlands ⬇️
Landed on their feet after finishing third in Group D, with victory over Romania followed by a shattered and depleted Turkey. Arguably, therefore, even luckier than England. They really weren’t convincing in the early stages of the tournament where they had to come from behind to beat a very ordinary Poland and lost deservedly to Austria. But Koeman’s side have improved in the knockout stages but then became the first and thus far only team in this whole tournament to be conspicuously outplayed by England.

 

3) France ⬆️
Finally scored a goal from open play nine minutes into their sixth match, before promptly conceding two absolute beauties. Maybe that’s why they hadn’t bothered with any of that fancy dan frippery previously. Played better against Spain, but that only adds to the frustration of a tournament in which France only really showed any great signs of life just as hope was being extinguished. It’s another solid enough tournament showing but the brutal assessment has to be that France have been almost exclusively and bafflingly less than the considerable sum of their parts over the last month.

At least they’ve looked absolutely magnificent going about their business.

 

2) England ⬆️
Quite bad against Serbia, properly, abysmally sh*t against Denmark, and maybe just a tiny bit better than that against Slovenia? Somehow, though, this all added up to a group-topping five-point haul and a cushy spot in the easier half of the draw. Not that England made it look so, limping past Slovakia by scoring with their only two shots on target, in the fourth minute of second half stoppage time and first minute of extra-time. Then making it through to the semi-finals by beating the Swiss in spite of their manager, captain and best player.

But the semi-final against the Netherlands was much, much better – especially in the first half – and it’s hard to argue with a team that has delivered a brilliant late goal in every knockout round.

 

1) Spain 🟰
Three wins out of three in what looked on paper a tough group prepared them to concede for the first time in the tournament against Georgia, going 1-0 down after 18 minutes. But the response in an eventual 4-1 victory was fairly good, before they showed grit and determination in victory over arguaby their greatest rival for the trophy and then did so again on the back of a Lamine Yamal madness. Little-known fact: Lamine Yamal is only 16 years old. Strong case to be made now, completion of Sunday formalities notwithstanding, that this effort from Spain is the most dominant we’ve seen from anyone at a major tournament since, well, Spain..