- Jimmy finished the 23/24 club season strongly, posting a +30pt profit since the 1st of March
Football betting tips: Euro 2024
1pt Portugal highest scoring team at 7/1 (bet365, BetVictor)
1pt No Poland goalscorer at 20/1 (William Hill)
1pt Bruno Fernandes most assists at 12/1 (bet365)
0.5pt e.w. Andy Robertson most assists at 200/1 (bet365 1/4 1,2,3,4)
With the others in our team handed a column for Euro 2024, I can only assume that Sporting Life felt obliged to give me one as well which is shrewdly named Jimmy’s Punt.
What will it be about?
I'll be focusing on the bets that have really caught my eye throughout the tournament, from the short-priced selections to the outlandish long shots.
They will be based on absolutely anything, from a word at the pub to a hunch and, unfortunately for me, they’ll all be tracked to hold me accountable.
I’ve been asked to look at the Euro 2024 specials markets to kick things off - I'm not sure why they thought I would be well suited...
What are specials?
I have spent the last few days trawling through bookmakers Euro 2024 specials and in betting terms, I am no closer to knowing an exact definition.
What I can tell you is they are filled with weird and wonderful combinations of competition long punts.
They feature things like total goals, corners and cards at Euro 2024. A player to score a certain number with his head or from outside the box or commit a certain number of fouls across the tournament.
A team to win the competition combined with the Player of the Tournament or Golden Boot winner.
The issue is the sheer number of them. It's like they are designed to confuse you. And after all the digging, the majority of the odds available are terrible.
Half of the battle is cutting through all the sh*t and finding the value, but that's just what I've managed to do...
Goals
Total goals *since games increased to 51
- 2020 - 142 (2.78 pg)
- 2016 - 108 (2.12 pg)
Total goals odds
- William Hill - Over 135 at 5/6
- Sky Bet - Over 139.5 at 5/6
- bet365 - Over 140 at 7/4
- Betfair - 145 or more at 11/8
Sharp shooting Seleção
To finish as the Euros' top scoring team, 13 is usually the magic number.
Well, that has been the case for the last two tournaments. Italy (winners) and Spain (semi-final) shared the honour in 2020 and France (finalists) scored the most in 2016.
Spain scored the most goals (12) in both of their Euro 2008 and 2012 triumphs when playing a game less (6), and recent history shows us that a top scoring team must have a deep run in the tournament.
But, above all, they simply must be good at kicking it into the goal.
And with that in mind, PORTUGAL, the top scorers in qualification, have to be the bet to finish as the HIGHEST SCORING TEAM.
Roberto Martínez’s side netted 36 times en route to Germany - seven more than any other nation.
Spearheaded by Cristiano Ronaldo, Seleção have serious attacking depth with Bruno Fernandes, Bernardo Silva, Rafael Leao and Diogo Jota competing for spots.
The draw is favourable as well. Portugal are in Group F alongside Georgia, who are the lowest ranked nation (75th) in the competition, Turkey, and Czechia.
Assuming they top the group (they are 1/2 on to do so), Portugal will get a third placed side in the round of 16 and be on the opposite side of the draw to England, France and Belgium - assuming those three top their respective groups as well.
The quarters would see Portugal play a group runner-up too.
Eagles can't get off the ground
Since the first Euros in 1960, only four teams have failed to score at least one goal: Yugoslavia (1972), Turkey (1996), Denmark (2000) and Ukraine (2016).
At 20/1, backing POLAND to join that list and have NO GOALSCORER appeals.
Poland are 9/1 to finish as the lowest scoring side, but I'd rather take a punt on the bigger price mainly because of greed, and because this is Jimmy's Punt you are reading after all, where we go big.
The Eagles faced Czechia (ranked 36th) and Albania (66th) in qualification, netting three goals across four games.
I think the best insight into how they will play in Germany was the play-off final against Wales.
Poland did not have a single shot on target and the game was goalless after 120 minutes before Dan James missed a spot kick to send Michał Probierz’s side to the Euros.
In Group D alongside France, the Netherlands and Austria, I expect more tepid tactics from Poland this summer leaving an ageing Robert Lewandowski isolated in attack.
How to play the card bets?
Time to dig into my favourite form of betting - CARDS.
- bet365 - 182 or fewer yellows at 15/8
- William Hill - Over 187.5 yellows at 5/6
- Betfair - 205 or more yellows at 11/10
William Hill's competitive line would require around 3.7 cards per game throughout the tournament, and that looks a steep ask based on the 2020 edition. There were just 151 bookings in that tournament, though the five previous tournaments all covered the 188 line on offer.
Yellow cards per game (total)
- 2000 - 3.93 (122)
- 2004 - 5.03 (156)
- 2008- 3.90 (121)
- 2012 - 3.97 (123)
- 2016 - 4.02 (205)*
- 2020 - 2.96 (151)*
The last two tournaments (2016, 2020) have had 51 games, a 20-game increase on the previous tournaments.
After the dip in 2020, we could see a bounce back on the cards front due to UEFA's new initiative, touched on in greater detail in Tom Carnduff's Euros Notebook.
The only players allowed to approach referees at this tournament are the captains, anyone else goes near the man in the middle and they are at serious risk of being carded.
Who's getting booked then in Germany vs Scotland ? pic.twitter.com/7KavuAj7MJ
— Jimmy the Punt (@JimmyThePunt) June 3, 2024
Considering this, I think the total card markets might be best avoided and instead I am just going to target the whiniest, most insufferable players who crucially are not captains.
This will have to be exploited early on in the tournament as these new policies don’t usually get implemented for that long. For research purposes ahead of matchday one though, I've put together a list of all captains:
Team captains
- Albania - Berat Djimsiti
- Austria - Konrad Laimer
- Belgium - Kevin De Bruyne
- Croatia - Luka Modric
- Czechia - Tomas Soucek
- Denmark - Simon Kjær
- England - Harry Kane
- France - Kylian Mbappe
- Germany - Ilkay Gundogan
- Georgia - Guram Kashia
- Hungary - Dominik Szoboszlai
- Italy - Gigio Donnarumma
- Netherlands - Virgil van Dijk
- Poland - Robert Lewandowski
- Portugal - Cristiano Ronaldo
- Romania - Nicolae Stanciu
- Scotland - Andy Robertson
- Serbia - Dusan Tadic
- Slovenia - Jan Oblak
- Slovakia - Milan Škriniar
- Switzerland - Granit Xhaka
- Spain - Rodri
- Turkey - Hakan Çalhanoğlu
- Ukraine - Oleksandr Zinchenko/Taras Stepanenko/Andriy Yarmolenko
How may I assist you...
Let's take a dive into player tournament assists, a market that can prove pretty lucrative.
Four has been the magic number to win the top assists accolade across the last six tournaments (the historical records started to get suspicious after that).
- Euro 2020 - 4 - Steven Zuber
- Euro 2016 - 4 - Aaron Ramsey, Eden Hazard
- Euro 2012 - 3 - David Silva, Steven Gerrard, Mesut Ozil
- Euro 2008 - 3 - Cristiano Ronalo, Cesc Fabregas, Wesley Sneijder, Hamit Altıntop
- Euro 2004 - 3 - Arjen Robben, Karel Poborsky
- Euro 2000 - 4 - Ljubinko Drulovic
I didn’t notice any correlation between the top assister and the top goalscorer or scoring nation.
Although a lot of the usual suspects were towards the top end, this market threw up plenty of surprises which is great news if you like a longshot and with that in mind, backing ANDY ROBERTSON TO GET THE MOST ASSISTS at 200/1 appeals.
The left-back notched up three in six games in qualification which translates to an assists per 90 average of 0.55.
It is worth noting that of the 18 players to rank in the top two for assists across the last six Euros, only one player did not make it to the knockout stages - David Beckham in 2000 with three.
In Group A, alongside Germany, Switzerland and Hungary, Scotland are 9/1 to finish first which hinders this bet but at the price available, I think you take that with a pinch of salt.
From one end of the scale to another, BRUNO FERNANDES is one of the shortest priced players in the market to finish with the MOST ASSISTS. Even so, he has to be worth a a punt.
The maestro topped the assist charts in qualification (8) and only Denzel Dumfries could top his assists per 90 average of 0.86.
Crucially, Fernandes is playing in his preferred position for Portugal now which makes you wonder if it is any coincidence his nation scored the most goals in qualification (36).
So, you have a creative machine (as Kevin De Bruyne put it), playing in a goal-happy side. The 12/1 is looking good.
A deep run into the tournament would help this bet and fortunately Portugal also have a very favourable draw.
Again, they should avoid the likes of England and France until the latter stages if the highest ranked sides top their groups.
Odds correct at 1400 BST (05/06/24)
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