Euros sweet spot

GM football fans. Route One here, and we’re covering Euro’s 16-team sweet spot, the teams with the best academy recruitment, and much more. First time reading? Sign up here.

All feedback read at [email protected].

Head Start

Euros 16-team sweet spot

The Euros’ early group-stage games had lots of goals, but that quickly dipped off.

Why? Well, because the expanded tournament - 24 team structure introduced at Euro 2016 - encourages teams to start strong and then, well, not try so hard.

Teams realise that avoiding defeat three times was likely enough to clinch a best third-placed spot for the knock-out round… 

… and the wide safety net means it’s best to deploy cagey tactics and not look for the win.

And that was a case in point at this year’s Euros.

In fact, the first set of games in the group stages saw the most goals per game in the competition’s opening Matchday for 20 years… 

… but, by the third game, it was the lowest goals per game in the same period…

There were exceptions to the rule - any game featuring Austria or Turkey was exciting - but most Groups were a yawn-fest by Matchday 3, like Group C which…

• … was the joint-lowest scoring group in Euros history with only 7 goals.

• … featured only 1 win across 6 games.

• … made history with the first goalless Matchday (3) ever.

(Side note: None of the 81 goals scored in the group stages were from direct free-kicks. If that doesn’t scream boring… I don’t know what does).

The solution is… to go back to the 16-team Euros that was introduced in 1996. It’s the perfect sweet spot. It had a good amount of games (especially compared to the 8-team set-up before it) and teams felt jeopardy from start to finish.

But, for money reasons, that won’t happen.

Route One take: The next best option for expanded tournaments is to award knockout spots based on points rather than group finishing positions. It ensures that lots of teams have a crack at the whip, but that the pressure is on teams to win at all times…

… and we’re interested to see how the expanded format works for the Champions League format this year.

Plus…

Brazilian midfielder Douglas Luiz joins Juventus from Aston Villa for £42.4 million (More)

Michael Oliver was told to delay restarting the second half with Germany and Denmark because German Special forces had to remove a masked man from the stadium roof (More / translated from German)

Reading withdraw from Women’s Championship and moves to fifth tier (More)

Euros Stats Zone

RD 16 results so far…

Saturday: Switzerland 2 - Italy | Germany 2 - 0 Denmark

Sunday: England 2 - 1 Slovakia (Highlights) | Spain 4 - 1 Georgia (Highlights)

RD 16: England 2 - 1 Slovakia

→ Jude Bellingham’s equaliser at 94:34 was England’s first shot on target against Slovakia. It was also their latest-ever goal scored in normal time at a major tournament.

→ Slovakia’s 13 shots produced an expected goals total of 2.09, which is a higher xG than England conceded from 26 shots in the group stages (1.15).

→ Harry Kane’s goal to put England 2-1 ahead was the fastest-ever goal scored in extra time at the Euros (50 seconds).

RD 16: France vs Belgium (Today at 17:00)

→ France have won all of their previous matches against Belgium at major international tournaments, scoring 13 goals and conceding just three.

→ Only Serbia had a poorer shot conversion record than France and Belgium (both 4.2%) in the group stage.

→ Belgium are France’s most frequently played opponent (76 matches), having faced them nearly twice as often as any other team. 

RD 16: Portugal vs Slovenia (Today at 20:00)

→ This is Slovenia’s first-ever match in the knockout stages at a major tournament.

→ Cristiano Ronaldo hasn’t scored in any of his last seven appearances for Portugal at major international tournaments, his longest such drought.

→ Portugal have lost three of their last four knockout games at major international tournaments.

The Euros brackets can be found here and Copa America group stage results here.

Premier League

Academy players are more valuable than ever

Premier League owners have two ways of using academy players to meet profit and sustainability rules (PSR) deadlines…

• Option 1: They can sell their best prospects as they count as pure profit.

• Option 2: Don’t sell them… and successfully transition them into their first-team squad…

… helping their club avoid spending 100s of millions on transfer fees - and ultimately helping to meet PSR rules.

Owners are resorting to option 1 (which is effectively a loophole) rather than option 2. For example, to meet yesterday’s PSR deadline, Newcastle scrambled to sell Elliot Anderson for £35 million to Nottingham Forest.

Why are owners using option 1 over option 2?

Well, most Premier League clubs are bad at transitioning academy players into their first team, making option 2 difficult.

A report published by Football Benchmark tracked successful academy transitions between 2018 and 2023 among the top 32 clubs. It’s an effective metric for assessing the effectiveness of clubs’ academies. 

Surprisingly, Liverpool are the only Premier League club in the top ten with seven talent transitions during that period.

Even when it comes to selling academy talent, only three Premier League clubs - Chelsea, Tottenham, and Manchester City - make it into the top 10 between 2014-2023…

… but it’s SL Benfica (POR) and AFC Ajax (NED) that lead the line on both accounts with 12 successful direct transitions over the past five seasons, as well as generating the most revenue (€516 million and €376 million, respectively) from their academy players over the past 10 years. 

So… it’s about time that some Premier League clubs stop using academy players as an accounting tool, and more as a genuine footballing asset.

Off The Pitch

🇫🇷 France's far-right makes big gains in first round of parliamentary election (More)

😬 The search for missing British teenager Jay Slater in Tenerife has been called off by police (More)

🎨 Banksy launches inflatable migrant boat artwork during Idles’ Glastonbury set (More)

🇺🇸 A sinkhole swallows an Illinois football pitch (More)

🚫 Etsy is set to ban the sale of explicit content and items (More)

🏟️ Which Taylor Swift song shook the Wembley ground the most? (More)

🏏 India beat South Africa to win the T20 World Cup (More)

Around The Football World

🇪🇸 Barcelona announced the exits of João Félix and João Cancelo but have since retracted the press release and social media posts confirming their departures. But Marcos Alonso’s exit has been announced officially and the 33-year-old is expected to join Atletico Madrid (More)

🇧🇪 Belgium’s football association apologised on Saturday for a video on their social media outlets in which Amadou Onana said he will kick Kylian Mbappé when the two sides meet today (More)

🇧🇷 Brazil’s Vinicius Junior criticises the way players are treated by Copa America’s organisers CONMEBOL and says that the competition is “always tricky due to the pitches” (More)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Mary Earps says that her former club Manchester United is about to undergo a period of transition and that it does not “align with the timing of where I’m at in my career” (More)

🇫🇷 Paul Pogba has been invited to attend France’s last-16 tie against Belgium today as an official guest of the French Football Federation (More)

Extra Time

Some England fans left the stadium a little too early yesterday…

… while Gary Neville and Ian Wright celebrated their hearts out.

Roy Keane’s savage response to Jill Scott is one to remember.

Leeds United’s leaked kit looks a lot like RB Leipzig’s.

When Paul Merson asked out Kylie Minogue.

Jordi Alba scores a rocket from long-range for Inter Miami.

Podcast: Why the handball rule is sh*t.

Game Face On

Question: Who became the oldest player to ever score at the UEFA European Championship finals last week?

Scroll below for the answer.

On Today

FOOTBALL

Euro: France vs Belgium (17:00 BST)

Euro: Portugal vs Slovenia (20:00 BST)

Copa America: USA vs Uruguay (02:00 BST)

Copa America: Bolivia vs Panama (02:00 BST)

TENNIS

Wimbledon Gentlemen’s and Ladies Singles 1st Round (11:00 BST)

*EST -5. PST -8. CET +1. CST +8. JST +9.

Answer

Luka Modric (38 years and 289 days)

Hottest Take of the Day

Today’s Hottest Take of the Day is from Sammy K: Pep's players are some of the best in the world, in his system which is one of the best in the world. But only within that system. Look at Gvardiol, Foden, De Bruyne and Haaland on an international level. Extremely disappointing.

Submit another Hot Take of the Day here.