Is football coming home, or is it set to stay away like a moody teenager continuing to rage against those who made it?
With Euro 2024 set to kick off tomorrow (Friday, June 14), the Daily Star took to the one potentially real time machine we have to find out how Gareth Southgate’s England team will fare at the tournament – we turned to Football Manager 2024. Now, before you laugh, lets not forget that the database on this game is so accurate that several professional clubs, including some in the Premier League, use it for scouting transfers.
And we all remember Sky Sports News using it on Transfer Deadline Day one year. So with the Euro 2024 Real Groups database made by FM Scout’s Sadiq imported, we loaded up the game and “holidayed” right through to the end of the tournament to see how it pans out for the Three Lions.
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Don’t miss a single second of Euro 2024 news courtsey of the Daily Star.
And we’re sorry to report, lads, that football is staying away for a bit longer, although nobody could have predicted that it would do so in such appalling fashion.
England comfortably made it out of Group C, beating Slovenia 2-1, Denmark 3-1, and keeping a clean sheet against Serbia as they romped home with a 3-0 victory – the latter result is the most surprising considering the incredible firepower Serbia actually has at its disposal.
And while we can only assume the pubs of the UK are belting out a bit of Baddiel and Skinner . . . the optimism wouldn’t be lasting much longer. Because on June 30 at the Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in front of 45,962 fans, England crashed out in the second round of the tournament to the plucky Czech Republic.
Although we went 1-0 up thanks to a 60th minute Harry Kane goal, Adam Hlozek equalised in the 69th minute before West Ham’s Tomas Soucek belted the winner home in the last few minutes. England had 23 shots, nine of which were on target, racking up an xG of 2.51 to the Czech Republic’s 1.06. We should have won – but alas, the Three Lions failed to bring football home again.
And with that, England crashed out of the tournament and to make it all the more comical Southgate was sacked a few days later.
Overall, Portugal romped home to victory, beating favourites France 2-1 in the final thanks to goals from the evergreen Cristiano Ronaldo and Vitinha – Kylian Mbappe did get the reply for France, but a goalless second half proved to be the downfall for the French.
It wasn’t all bad news for Real Madrid’s new signing, as Mbappe picked up the golden boot with six goals, while he also had the most shots at 38. And Ronaldo, we can assume, headed off into the sunset to bathe in his Saudi millions with the Euro 2024 trophy firmly in his cabinet.
Let’s hope that the FM database is not quite as accurate as usual.
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