Who Are The Dark Horses For The Upcoming 2024 European Championships?

With the European Championships around the corner, you can feel the excitement building throughout all the nations, with some of the biggest nations, like Spain and Germany getting worse over the last few years, newer nations could take the spot as some of the best teams in the world. Looking at the Euro 2024 odds, we see the same teams having no chance and the main teams having a big chance. 

For the last few years, the same teams have been favored by the bookies and football fans across the world with these teams usually being England and France. Although England are yet to get their hands on the trophy, it got me thinking about the 2004 Euros, where an underdog in Greece won the tournament to a massive shock around the world. While I was thinking about this, I thought about the potential of a shock and I think some strong teams could cause an upset. 

Turkey

I know some fans will be sitting there getting deja vu over Turkey being mentioned as underdogs and dark horses but you need to hear me out. Their squad is very talented. Most of the people who watched the last Euros said the exact same thing and unfortunately for the Turkish fans, they crashed and burned. This could be seen as both a positive and a negative, they could see it as a lesson and be more motivated or their players will go to the tournament scared and be filled with no confidence over the looming doom that could surround them. Hopefully, it isn't the latter and they will perform to the best of their ability and push themselves into the late stages of the tournament. 

Hungary

Hungary seems to be this year Turkey, with a lot of people looking at the way they play and the squad they have as an indication as to how they will do in the tournament. In the most recent tournament that Hungary played well in, they beat a strong England team home and away in the Nations League. A 1-0 win at home could be seen as a fluke but Hungary went to Wembley and beat the favorites for the Euros 4-0, this was a shock to not only me but to football in general as this new Hungary side announced themselves to the world.  

Denmark

If I were to pick the dark horse I most believed in, Denmark would be my choice. They were one of the best stories at the last Euros with the Danish international team reaching the Semi-Finals of the Euros only to be beaten by England who got beaten by Italy in the final. Denmark getting to this position in the tournament was something very few people predicted and was a fairytale story after the tragedy in Copenhagen with Christian Eriksen having a heart attack on the pitch. The mental resilience of the team to push on without one of their star men was enough to make the world root for them.

Group A and Its Challenges

We have already mentioned Hungary as a team that could do well in Group A but, I think the team that progresses out of this group will be the dark horse of the tournament. With Scotland, Germany, Hungary and Switzerland all being in the group, this is the toughest group of all of them. All four teams have the potential to get into the deep stages of the tournament and surprise everyone. Switzerland are a team that always seems to do well, they don't exactly overperform and they don't fail, they get to a good spot in the tournament and get knocked out. As much as the fans would want them to progress further and potentially win the whole thing, I think that they are all happy with the position they found themselves in.

Scotland is another team that has been surprising everyone in qualifications and friendlies. They are a team that has improved a lot over the years and feel like they are one good tournament away from being recognised as a dark horse and this year could be the tournament. If I had to pick a team to not get out of the group it would unfortunately be Scotland but anything could happen in football and we could be looking at a bigger upset than Greece.