The Underdogs
Italy
Since winning the
2006 World Cup, the Azuri have had an indifferent time at major international competitions. They were eliminated at the quarter-final stage of Euro 2008 and failed to get out of their group for two consecutive World Cups in 2010 and 2014, the first time that has happened to them for almost 60 years. However, they did reach the final of Euro 2012, only beaten by then World Champions Spain. Their squad is considerably weaker than it once was, but, like Germany, you can never rule the Italians out.
Belgium
In recent years Belgium have perhaps been the victim of their players’ own individual success at club level. Or, as most Belgium fans will tell you, the victim of their manager’ s selections. While some of Belgium’ s biggest names have failed to perform on the big stage, manager Marc Wilmots has neglected potential key players in the past, encapsulated by his decision to leave Radja Nainggolan out of their 2014 World Cup squad. His reluctance to give players opportunities based on club form has damaged Belgium’ s hopes since their fresh talent pool’ s rise to prominence in the last few years. The nation’ s chances of success at this upcoming tournament rely on Wilmots changing his ways and putting faith in some of Europe’ s top performers this season, including Romelu Lukaku, Michy Batshuayi, Kevin De Bruyne and Moussa Dembélé.
England
Everybody knows
England’ s international competitions record has been verging on embarrassing in recent years, especially given that the nation is home to the world’ s most lucrative league. As usual, there’ s an air of optimism among England fans. Some might say they’ ve not learnt their lesson from every other year, when high levels of optimism have been met with supreme levels of disappointment come England’ s eventual elimination. The Euro 2016 squad is likely to contain a lot of new faces compared to the squad that went to the 2014 World Cup, with the likes of Dele Alli, Eric Dier, Jamie Vardy, Danny Drinkwater and Harry Kane all having sensational seasons with their club sides. This new-look England side is bound to give fans renewed hope, but there are still big questions as to whether they’ ll be able to cope in the European spotlight.
Group A Group B Group C
Group D Group E Group F 9