Ladbrokes' ten wacky predictions for Euro 2024

With Euro 2024 now just days away, Ladbrokes' shares ten of its wacky predictions for this summer's international football tournament.

England are the sole favourites for this summer's Euro 2024, with many expecting the Three Lions to go far, but with excitement building for the tournament we share some of our more outside-the-box predictions.

As noted, England are the favourites for this summer's tournament, but our writers at Ladbrokes are pegging the Three Lions to crash out before the tournament final, failing to reach the final two as they did during Euro 2021.

Unfortunately for England, they'll meet France in the semi-finals if both teams win their groups, which they're expected to do, and we expect Les Blues to simply be too much for Gareth Southgate's side, which would see them crash out before the final.

England fans will be hoping for more, but we aren't expecting the Three Lions to add the Euros in 2024 to the World Cup in 1966 as the only two major international tournaments they've won.

Admittedly, picking one of the best strikers in world football to win the Golden Boot isn't too much out an out-the-box prediction, but given that we aren't expecting England to reach the final, this could be worth mentioning.

Kane is coming off the back of a top season with Bayern Munich. Despite failing to win his first trophy, the ex-Tottenham man scored a staggering 44 goals in 43 games since joining the German giants, ending the campaign as one of Bayern's only real shining lights.

We're expecting him to lead the line for his country once again, and Southgate going into what could be his final tournament aiming to do what no other England national team manager has managed to do.

While we don't expect England to go all the way, Kane will be one of the standout players for his country, and we're expecting him to end up with the Golden Boot once all is said and done, which he's currently 9/2 to do.

We're expecting Kane to win the Golden Boot, with Kylian Mbappe being his most likely competition, but it's actually another Frenchman that we at Ladbrokes are tipping to win the Player of the Tournament.

Griezmann is coming off the back of an incredible season for Atletico Madrid once again, and just as he did for France in the 2022 World Cup, we're expecting the ex-Barcelona man to be one of the standout players for France.

He usually plays in a deeper midfield role for his country, allowing Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and others to shine further up the field, but it's usually on the international stage where Griezmann reminds fans that he's one of the world's best technicians, and we're expecting that to continue at Euro 2024.

A prediction that needs a bit of explaining, but one of the main talking points for England fans heading into Euro 2024 is with regards to the midfield, with pundits and fans conflicted on who should start in the middle of the park for the Three Lions in Germany.

Nailed on are Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice, but the front-runners for the final spot are Koibee Mainoo, Trent Alexander-Arnold or Phil Foden, if the latter doesn't start on the wing alongside Kane and Bukayo Saka.

Our prediction is that the person that starts in the third midfield role for England at Euro 2024 won't be the person who earns making that spot his own come the end of the tournament, with Ladbrokes predicting that Southgate tinkers with his line-up as the tournament progresses before finalising his preferred XI.

The gaffer has history with his too, opting to start Mason Mount in England's opening World Cup game against Iran in 2022, before deciding to go with Jordan Henderson for the games that followed before being knocked out of the tournament by France in the quarter-finals

As well as discussing the winners, fans love to predict which country is going to be a 'dark horse' heading into each major international tournament, and Ladbrokes predicts that Hungary will be that nation heading into Euro 2024.

With Liverpool's Dominik Szoboszlai being their star man, Hungary have developed an international side that have been hard to beat over the last few years, and with Switzerland, Germany and Scotland in their group, we're expecting them to reach the knockout stage.

In fact, we'll go one step further, as our prediction for Hungary this tournament is that they'll reach the quarter-finals, with their Euro 2024 journey ending at this stage. While disappointing, it'll still be a fantastic step for the country, showing that they aren't to be overlooked.

Italy won Euro 2020 in the summer of 2021, but the following year, failed to even make it to the 2022 World Cup, and we're expecting them to massively fail in their attempts to retain their title this summer.

In fact, with the plucky Croatia in their group, we're predicting that Italy won't even finish in the first two places, requiring other results to go their way if they want to make it through as one of the best third-placed teams.

Austria fans will have been disappointed when they were drawn with France and the Netherlands, as well as Poland in their Euro 2024 group, but we don't think it's all doom and gloom.

In fact, we're expecting Austria to throw up a surprise this summer, beating Netherlands to second place in the group phase before moving on to the knockout rounds.

Under Ralf Rangnick, Austria have been incredibly well-organised and impressive, and while they are without star man David Alaba, we still expect them to go far this tournament and make it out of the group, which would be quite the achievement.

We never want to write countries off before a ball has been kicked, but despite being impressive in qualifying, we aren't expecting either Scotland or Albania to pick up a single point during Euro 2024.

This isn't actually much to do with Scotland or Albania, but more to do with the teams they're going to come up against. Albania won't them fancy their chances at even drawing with Italy, Croatia or Spain in their group, while Scotland will be worried about failing to pick up any points against Hungary, Germany or Switzerland.

However, for the sake of both nations and in our quest to always back the underdog, we're hoping to be proved wrong with this one.

We spoke about how Hungary are our dark horses for Euro 2024, but for Euro 2020, that spot was filled for many fans by Turkey.

However, the Turks crashed out at the group stage and majorly disappointed during the last European Championships, but we're expecting an air of redemption from them this summer.

So much so that for our penultimate prediction, we're going with Turkey to make it to the knockout phase for this summer's tournament, finishing either first or second in a group with Czech, Portugal and Georgia.

Portugal will fancy their chances at winning the group, with Czech expected to provide the real competition for Turkey in the hunt for the second spot.

Havertz has proved a lot of fans wrong with his performances for Arsenal this season, showing that he's worth the £60m fee that the Gunners paid Chelsea to secure his services during the 2023 summer transfer window.

Euro 2024, we're predicting, is going to be about the ex-Bayer Leverkusen man providing the doubters wrong once again, and we're expecting him to finish the tournament having scored in all three group games.

Germany are expected to go far this summer, potentially even reaching the final, and we expect Kai to find the back of the net quite a few times if that's going to happen, hence our prediction.

Ladbrokes recently looked at the betting odds for each of the countries competing in Euro 2024, starting with England at 7/2 and working our way down to Albania, Georgia, Slovakia and Slovenia, who the bookies have priced all at 500/1.

View the latest football odds.

All odds and markets are correct as of the date of publication.