Your Unofficial UEFA Euro 2016 Underdog Rankings
By Will Clarke
Of course, we should have seen some of this coming.
After a 2012 Euro competition where the biggest surprise might have merely been Czech Republic winning their group with a negative goal differential, this year’s competition has been expanded by 8 teams. This obviously allowed more than just the usual suspects to compete against each other in the tourney, but going in nobody really predicted just how far from chalk we’d stray (even with no massive letdowns besides the absence of Netherlands).
More teams from Pot 2 were eliminated in the group stage than Pot 4, including the first team that struck out. Four teams making their debut in Euros qualified for the knockout round, and the lone casualty in Albania was just a point away. One of those four is guaranteed a spot in the quarterfinals, and on the weaker side of the bracket too.
Before we get to the single elimination portion of the tournament, then, and before the bell tower rings twelve times, let’s run through a quick power ranking of six underdogs and their chances at making noise beyond this point.
For clarification, I’m going to be ranking the teams mainly based on their respective chances of advancing as far as possible in the tournament (or even their potential at pulling a Greece ’04, unlikely as that is). Obviously their overall talent and performance weighs heavily into this. But, especially with the sheer dichotomy of the two ends of the bracket, some of these nations have a steeper hill to climb than others.
On that note, we’ll start with one of the most heartwarming stories, with the most Herculean task ahead:
6. Ireland
You have to figure that the fact that they’re here in the round of 16 was the result of massive karmic buildup. Their fans have been a much-needed bright spot amongst some of the hooliganism that plagued the early stages of the tournament, and it culminated in an impressive performance against an Italy side that was coasting into the knockout round having already locked up the group. Their last-second goal was a thing of beauty, and a deserved winner for a team that had seemingly fought hard but not hard enough up to this point (despite their misfortune against Sweden).
This is a sneaky good team, too. Robbie Brady has been a presence on the wings all tournament, while Norwich teammate Wes Hoolahan has pulled the strings on their attack as well as you’d expect from the so-called Wessi. It’s no surprise that in the climax of their Euros, it was those two that connected on a textbook goal off a cross.
Brady has actually arguably been the key component for the Irishmen, given his all-around game. Given his usual wing-back role (though he is versatile and has stepped into the midfield on occasion), that’s to be expected, but he still contributes on both ends of the pitch well. He obviously got his head on the goal that sent Ireland through, but with the 5th-most passes on the team and a team-high 1.7 crosses per game), he contributes well to the buildup as a whole (with 2 shots per game, he finishes off moves as well).
Analytics tell a story of a team that arguably deserves to be in this round too: their xGD is -1.3, which puts them exactly 16th out of the 24 group stage teams, but according to Alex Wylie, their danger zone passing/defending is actually above average. Still, they lack a true finisher, and with an xG of 1.7 that shows. Like most of the underdogs their defense is decent, but whether it can hold up against tougher competition is highly questionable (SEE: their 3–0 defeat to Belgium).
Furthermore, they have the honor of facing hosts and title favorites France, in one of the more lopsided matchups in this round. That’s a tough draw for any team, but especially for the lads in green, who are really just elated to be here. Paul Carr’s Soccer Power Index gives Ireland just a 10.1% chance of snatching victory from Les Bleus, with every other team having at least double that chance of advancing a round. Even if they pull off the upset of the century (and to be fair, revenge on the minds of the Irish shouldn’t be underestimated), the two options lying ahead of them in the next round are both unappealing: England (in what would at least be an incredibly fun match to talk about), or a better-performing and possibly equally as adorable Cinderella story with Iceland. The Irish have grit, and they have their trademark luck, but it would take a miracle for them to even slide by the French.
5. Slovakia
In a different world, where they got a kinder draw, Slovakia could be a few spots higher in this ranking.
They’re the top-ranked third-place team, and they have talent, mainly in the form of Vladimir Weiss and Tomas Hamsik. On the surface, there’s sleeper potential here: they lost late to Wales, handily defeated Russia, and held England to a draw.
Except, they never looked comfortable against the Welsh, and England racked up 29 shots on them. They have an xGA of 4.2, comfortably tied for second-worst out of teams still alive, and they’re only manufacturing 8.7 shots per game while allowing a horrid 18.3. It’s possible to be successful with those statistics, which I’ll talk about with Iceland, but Slovakia isn’t packing it in and focusing solely on playing lights-out defense like they are.
That third-place came in a weak group, too, and their win came against a Russian team handing out as many good performances as the French handed their fans arrests. On top of that, Slovakia’s placing sees them rewarded with a German side that hasn’t done much to disprove their status as one of the elite contenders for the title. This is a German team that lacks finishing, as it’s been a running theme for them to have a fantastic attack without a great striker, but with players like Muller and Ozil they still manufacture more than enough chances to score while allowing a ridiculous 1.0 xG and 4.7 shots per game.
Oh yeah, and should Slovakia come out on top (in, again, a stop-the-presses level upset), they get to face whoever survives the all-star bloodbath between Italy and Spain. Oof.
4. Northern Ireland
Absolutely one of the biggest surprise appearances in this round, the Green and White Army took care of business against a disappointing Ukraine to punch their ticket here, while holding Germany and Poland to 1–0 wins each. That’s honestly all they could ask for, and that’s what they got, in an ongoing effort to turn Scotland into the laughingstock of the UK in football.
On one hand, this isn’t a poor team. Their results are surprisingly solid thus far, and they have a good backline led by West Brom teammates Gareth McAuley and Jonny Evans anchoring the left. They have a hint of playmaking ability too, with Steven Davis and Oliver Norwood in their 5-man midfield.
On the other hand… this is a pretty poor team. Their xG was an abysmal 1.1, their xGA was an equally torrid 5.1, and they allow nearly 6 danger zone pass completions per game to boot (even more dangerous when combined with the 20+ shots they give up each game). The Northern Irish look consistently overrun, and got by to the round of 16 by the skin of their teeth.
What does all this net them in return? A Round of 16 matchup that’s arguably the second-easiest on this list, against Gareth Bale & Friends in Wales. Paul Carr gives them a (very kind) 48.6% chance of winning, and indeed, on the surface it’s a very winnable game against another surprise package. In reality, this is a pretty poor matchup for the Northern Irish. Wales’ out-and-out attacking style expects to really stick it to the Northern Irish, and just dealing with the dynamism of Bale and the workrate of Aaron Ramsey alone is going to run them ragged. This team is passable on defense and has gotten a huge effort from goalkeeper Michael McGovern, but they’re not quite at the level they should be to hold on here. In other words, this isn’t exactly an immovable object versus unstoppable force scenario. Wales-Northern Ireland feels like the kind of match where Wales will just keep prodding and poking until the levee finally breaks, ending in a 2–0 or 3–0 win.
On the bright side, a victory nets them one of the better possible matchups in the quarterfinals, facing either Hungary or Belgium.
3. Iceland
How can you not root at least a little bit for Iceland? They’re a small team, playing like a small team, but they’ve channeled that into a run to the knockout stage that actually has serious bite.
They’re the best team on this list defensively, despite a bit of a misstep against Austria, with a rubber-band style that they’ve nearly perfected by this point. Their physicality and closing down frustrates opponents for all 90 minutes, and it’s what held their opponents to merely two goals (plus an own goal) in a group where everything went topsy-turvy.
Iceland is interesting on offense, too: Gylfi Sigurdsson is clearly the string-puller on attack, and with good reason, but Iceland has four goals and four different goalscorers thus far. They basically have a queue lined up for who’s going to be their next hero, and there are definite flashes of offensive production. Crazy as it may seem, Iceland is one of only five teams to score in all three group stage matches.
Much has been made about how their dramatic goal to defeat Austria may have condemned them to a sure defeat, but at least in the short-term they absolutely benefited. I would face England over Croatia any day of the week in this tournament, and the matchup against the (perennially disappointing) Brits might be closer than you think. England has struggled with creating legitimate chances and especially finishing them off, and if there’s one thing Iceland is good at it’s keeping teams from getting more than a couple good chances a game. They allow 20.3 shots a game (albeit in a difficult group), but 59% of those are from outside the box (3rd best in Euros) and only 2% were inside the 6.
Look at the way they’ve played teams such as Portugal and Austria (overlooking Austria’s tactical mayhem in that game). Both favorites in those matches were scrapping for clear-cut chances, and both only came away with one goal each, one point total, and one Ronaldo quote that will live in infamy.
Still, Iceland likely faces France should they defeat England, which likely spells the end of the road for sure. But, if the unimaginable happens and we get an Ireland-Iceland quarterfinals? Well, the world will explode from the sheer adorableness, and Iceland would have to be licking their chops at that matchup.
2. Wales
Why does Northern Ireland have the second-easiest draw of these six teams? Because their opponent, Wales, has the easiest!
That’s not to say that Wales is up here purely because of that savory matchup, though, as this is a team that won their group for a reason (besides it being arguably the weakest).
Everyone is aware of the magic that Gareth Bale brings: nearly 6 shots a game (behind a certain Portuguese star. No, not Quaresma!), 4.3 dribbles a game, and 3 goals tells you that much. This is actually a surprisingly well-rounded team, though, talentwise. Their defense has held up decently under the backline of Chester, Williams, and Davies, with Chris Gunter and Neil Taylor pulling defensive duties at wing-back as well. Jesus Joe Allen is so good that the Welsh team holds weekly Joe Allen Appreciation Days, something that even a Liverpool fan like myself couldn’t even make up. The X-factor might just be Aaron Ramsey though, who’s established himself as the clear-cut second-best Welshman in the squad.
Ramsey has always been a high workrate player, as anyone who’s watched an Arsenal match can tell you. This box-to-box mentality fits Wales perfectly, given the inherent offensive focus of their 3–4–3, as Ramsey will pull back and make defensive contributions all over the pitch. He’s been deployed on either wing spot at the top of the 3–4–3, yet remarkably, he leads the team with 3.7 tackles per game. On the other end, he’s scored a goal and provided 2 assists, as well as 2.7 key passes a game, and with 1.7 dribbles a game he’s just so incredibly versatile that it’s almost as hard to imagine where they’d be without him as it would be to imagine a Bale-less Welsh side.
For all their attacking prowess, though, the other side of the ball is their weakness, with a 3.8 xGA and a heartbreaker against England encapsulating the case against Wales. In a match against, say, Croatia, or Belgium, it’s very tempting to say that they’ll score, but get overrun on defense and lose 2–1, 3–2, etc. They benefited from a group that included a toothless Russia, a mediocre Slovakia, and a shaky but gritty and talented English, so it’s hard to imagine that legitimate competition at this stage could show them the exit. But, of all these teams Wales is the most likely to reach the quarterfinals, and that alone puts them near the top of these rankings.
Win as they’re supposed to, and they face the winner of Hungary/Belgium in what should be a very fun match to watch. Speaking of…
1. Hungary
Hear me out, guys, and know that #1 and #2 are neck-and-neck for pole position.
Both teams surpassed expectations for sure, winning groups when much more hyped teams were expected to run away with the top spot, and both teams have put together a pretty effective attack thus far… and that’s about where the similarities end.
Wales’ group pales in comparison to the gauntlet Hungary made it through: defeating dark-horse contender Austria and sending them spiraling into the cellar of Group F, then grinding out a fortuitous draw against Iceland, before playing maybe the match of the tournament thus far against Portugal. (Naturally, this pattern continued into the round of 16 draws.) Wales is led by a transcendent talent and a few other Premier League starters, while Hungary has a handful of mid-table Bundesliga players as the height of their prestige.
This is a classic case of a team being more than the sum of its parts. They do have great talent, and players like Balázs Dzsudzsák and Ádám Szalai have emerged as legitimate weapons, but it’s all about the chemistry with this team. They aren’t playing like a team who’s in their first Euros since 1972, hanging tough with a bigger Cinderella story and two serious players in the competition. Not many teams in the tournament could not only continue kicking Portugal after they got back up again, but to be the aggressor and force the resilient Iberians to play for their tournament lives multiple times. It’s also unique to see a team line up in three different formations (4–1–4–1, 4–3–3, and 4–2–3–1) and see results in all three matches; this makes it interesting to consider what they’ll utilize against Belgium.
They do struggle at times in creating good chances; while they average a solid 11.7 shots per game, 71% of those are from outside the box entirely. However, they also get a very high percentage of their shots on target, which of course helps counteract that. Still, a big game from Dzsudzsák or spearhead Szalai is absolutely necessary for them to topple anyone else in the tournament. They showed decent potential on defense against Portugal too, despite the 21 shots, but as with many teams they need just that extra bit of tightening up back there.
Hungary is already battle-tested against two very different teams that advanced, plus a third that was expected to, which bodes very well for their matchup against a Belgium side that, as Patrick wrote, hasn’t been nearly up to par with expectations. Belgium’s defense has struggled with positioning at times, which plays into the excellent movement Hungary has shown (80% passing success confirms this), and assuming they’ll likely be adopting a slightly more counter-attacking style against the bigger squad, all it takes is one slip from their back-line and it’s 1–0. Belgium has a potent attack that just hasn’t been able to finish off chances, and given that Hungary survived Portugal’s similar onslaught with Ronaldo able to finish off their moves with a pair of goals, they should be well set up to blanket Lukaku and keep the trend going of preventing De Bruyne and Hazard from being able to connect with him.
And, if they manage to sucker-punch Belgium and slide by, they get either Northern Ireland (where Hungary would be clear favorites) or Wales (who would just about be a 50/50 matchup). For either Wales or Hungary, the winner there gets to face Switzerland, Poland, Portugal, or Croatia, and I’d only be truly scared of one of those teams.
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NOTE: This article was written before any Round of 16 matches, and as such does not reflect their results.
Originally published at challengerspodcast.com.
