Sorry to drop the ball on my movie buff leaders like this, but in my defense: this is a movie&TV blog, and the 2021 UEFA European Championship is a series of events broadcast on television, so you can think of it as a high-stakes once-every-four-years reality TV series. Hey, I don't make the rules. Offending you was never my goal. (All five puns were intended).
Anyways, the Euro 2021 competition begins tomorrow, so I have listed my ranking of the ten likeliest teams to win the whole thing. Because this is based on likeliness and not personal hopes, I will give a special shout-out to the team I most want to win - my native Finland, who are in the tournament for the very first time! Here's hoping that the Huuhkajat have a great tournament.
Here are my honorable mentions: Austria, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey.
10. Italy
For a team that has one of the brightest histories in the world of football, Italy isn't exactly at its strongest at the moment - they famously failed to qualify for the previous World Cup, held in 2018. Still, a lot can change in three years. While Italy's squad still doesn't look like a humongous favorite to win the tournament, they definitely have a fair shot of making it far - veterans like Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci are still headlining their defense (possibly for the last time), while the fresh and extremely promising Gianluigi Donnarumma is looking to keep up the tradition of Italian goalkeepers named Gianluigi.
Further up the field, they've got midfielders like Marco Verratti and Jorginho, who have had fantastic seasons in Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea FC, respectively. The team's star man, striker Ciro Immobile, is undoubtedly the biggest hope that the Italian fans are hanging on to - if he delivers, the team could be in for a tournament that redeems their qualification debacle of 2018.
9. Croatia
I mean, they made it to the final of the World Cup three years ago, so you know there's potential in the Croatia team. I'm still only ranking them ninth, as their journey to the final was seen as a huge underdog story and those often don't get repeated the next time around. Still, the team they're sending to the 2021 Euros is largely as impressive as the team they sent to Russia in 2018, so who's to say that they won't pull off another class performance?
It's hard to take an objective look at this team, captained by one of my all-time favorite players, Luka Modric. But, personal feelings aside, Modric's performance with Real Madrid this season shows that he's still got it at the age of 35. Backed by old partners-in-crime Dejan Lovren and Domagoj Vida in the defence, and playing the ball up to seasoned forwards such as Hoffenheim's Andrej Kramaric and Inter's Ivan Perisic, midfield engine Modric certainly isn't in this fight alone.
8. Spain
While Spain was undoubtedly one of the greatest sides ever seen in international football between 2008 and 2012, that era seems to be largely over - the legends of that era have largely retired from playing entirely (Xavi, Casillas, Torres), or at the very least retired from their international team while still maintaining their professional careers (Iniesta, Silva, Fabregas). Even Sergio Ramos, who is still going strong and has acted as the international team's captain for years, was bizarrely left out the country's 24-man squad for the tournament.
Naturally, the goal of manager Luis Enrique has been to replace the former legends with a fresh new generation. And while some of the newer Spain internationals definitely have vast talent and potential, I don't see the current squad as quite competent enough to win these Euros, while they certainly have a good chance of making it quite far. If Liverpool's Thiago Alcantara and Barcelona's Pedri bring their A-game to the midfield and coach Enrique finds a good balance between playing slightly-past-their-prime legends and fresh-faced youngsters, La Roja will certainly be one of the tougher sides to beat.
7. Denmark
I know, I know. On paper, putting a country like Denmark ahead of footballing giants like Italy and Spain might seem ludicrous. But when looking at the players each country has at hand right now, the form they've been in, and what they seem capable of as a team, I'm standing my ground on this one. Kasper Schmeichel, son of legendary Peter Schmeichel (hero of the 1992 Euros, which remains Denmark's only European Championship victory), was arguably the Premier League's best goalkeeper in the 2020/21 season - like father, like son?
And Schmeichel is far from being the only Dane to have been on the form of their life in the past season. Andreas Christensen was an instrumental part of the solid defense line that earned Chelsea their Champions League trophy, Pierre-Emil Hojberg was one of the best players in an otherwise struggling Tottenham side throughout the season, Christian Eriksen helped Inter end Juventus's 9-year streak as Italian champions, and Yussuf Poulsen's goalscoring has been a big part of RB Leipzig's tremendous rise over the past few years. Denmark may not be one of the traditional football giants, but when you look at a surprising amount of top teams in current European football, there's a Danish face among their top tier players. I can only imagine the scenes once they all come together to try their best at a repeat of the country's 1992 cinderella story.
6. Netherlands
My first draft of this list had the Netherlands at fourth place. Once I learned that Virgil van Dijk will miss the Euros due to injury, the team went down to sixth - that's how big of an impact there is when you lose the world's best center-back. Just look at the season his club Liverpool just had - sure, there were plenty of other problems, but largely the same squad managed by same manager did so much worse than in the preceding seasons, with Van Dijk's absence generally seen as the largest individual reason for this decline.
Still, even without their main man, Netherlands has a strong defense - I haven't personally seen any Serie A games from the 2020/21 season, but according to all statistics and analyses I've seen, Inter's Stefan de Vrij and Juventus's Matthijs de Ligt have been among the very best defenders in the Italian league this year. With class players like Gini Wijnaldum and Frenkie de Jong rocking the midfield, not to mention Lyon's star-man Memphis Depay up front, the Dutch team seems to have a fair shot even without Big Virg in the mix.
5. England
Definitely the toughest one to place on the list. There are so many variables - my subjective feelings and emotional investment towards my favorite international team (excluding my home countries), the year-after-year contrast of England always having one of the most promising teams yet never quite living up to the promise and winning major trophies, and manager Gareth Southgate's history of questionable squad decisions. On paper, England has roughly the best or second-best list of players in Europe. But they're England. The team is cursed. I've seen too much to believe that they'd actually win the tournament, no matter how much I'd hope for it to happen.
They still make my top five, because my God, what a squad it is. Manchester City's John Stones and Kyle Walker, along with Manchester United's Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw, rocking the back line. World class youngsters such as Chelsea's Mason Mount, West Ham's Declan Rice and Manchester City's Phil Foden dominating the midfield. The seasoned expertise of team captain Harry Kane, supported by an array of talented wingers from Rashford to Grealish, frightening the defense of any team they face. Here's hoping the Three Lions prove my cynicism wrong.
4. Germany
Whereas Spain is drifting quite far from the side that won them two consecutive European Championships and a World Cup in between them, Germany has less weight-of-time on their side - only seven years have passed from their 2014 World Cup triumph. Many of the heroes from that tournament all still going strong - team captain Manuel Neuer is arguably still the best goalkeeper in the world, Mats Hummels remains an elite-level defender, and big-game-hero Thomas Müller continues to commit wonders in Bayern Munich.
As for those legends of the 2014 triumph who aren't in the squad anymore, Joachim Löw (who I'm pretty sure has been Germany's head coach since the dawn of time) sure has done his best to replace them with equally impressive young talent. Midfield maestros Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka have been a major part of Bayern Munich's glory in recent years, while center-back Antonio Rudiger and forwards Kai Havertz & Timo Werner were all important pieces to the puzzle of how Chelsea FC worked their way to a thoroughly unforeseen Champions League victory. I'll be surprised if this side doesn't reach the semi-finals at the very least.
3. Belgium
"Maybe this will finally be Belgium's year" is a phrase heard in our family before every World Cup and European Championship, with a bit more hope and realism than the similar phrase carries with England. We're sympathetic to the Belgian team, due to our close family friends from Belgium and because the country has a selection of awesome players in their lines. The entire 2010's seemed like a golden age for the team, as their squad became more and more filled with world-class talent, yet they still haven't clinched an ultimate victory in either tournament. But this upward momentum might still be going on, as their bronze medal from the 2018 World Cup and their mixture of well-experienced football greats and promising young talent (keep your eye on Leicester City's Youri Tielemans in the tournament) may indicate.
Many of the players who started to lift Belgium towards greatness throughout the previous decade are still in their prime - Manchester City's midfield maestro Kevin De Bruyne, Real Madrid's ace goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and Inter's recently-Italian-league-title-winning MVP Romelu Lukaku come to mind. A big variable in the country's chances to succeed is Eden Hazard, who was at the top of the world for a few years, but has been on upsetting form ever since he transferred to Real Madrid in 2019. If Hazard manages to tap into the talent he's capable of at his best, we're looking at an elite-tier dribbler who might do wonders for the team's tournament-winning chances - a real hazard to the opposing defenders, as it were.
2. France
The reigning world champions actually seem to have more going on for them than they did in the 2018 World Cup. Back then, world-class striker Karim Benzema was still banned from the international team, but now, he's back. Back then, Kylian Mbappe was an 18-year-old wonder kid just making his way into common knowledge, but now, he's a household name due to remaining one of the world's best players ever since then.
Other than that, things are largely the same for France as they were in 2018 - if it ain't broke, why fix it? Didier Deschamps seems to be the perfect coach for the team, the momentum seems positive as for once there doesn't appear to be a huge corruption scandal involving the team (a part of me almost misses this tradition), and the squad is stacked with names like Paul Pogba, Hugo Lloris and Antoine Griezmann - not to mention actual superhero N'Golo Kanté, who was somehow the best defender, best midfielder and best forward of Chelsea's victorious Champions League campaign, due to his unparalleled talent to cover every inch of the pitch during crucial games. I have France at second place on my list, but don't take that to mean that I'll be one bit surprised if they end up winning the tournament.
1. Portugal
Lord, I hope I'm wrong about this one. Nothing against the country, nothing against the fans, but definitely something against the team unless they've radically changed their way of playing from the 2016 Euros. It was appalling to see a team with such poor sportsmanship ravage their way through the tournament, whether it was a masterclass in diving and unnecessarily whining to referees when fouls didn't occur, or doing absolutely everything in their power to waste time and not play a second of actual f**king football whenever they were ahead.
That being said, I'm definitely betting that Portugal will win this tournament - at least their squad has changed a lot from 2016 and includes a lot of players who seem like good sports in their professional careers, so here's hoping that if they win, they do it properly this time.
Why do I see them as the likeliest winners, you ask? Well, in addition to the fact that they are reigning European Champions and this was achieved under the same manager and with many of the same players, there's the fact that the current squad is absolutely insane. They've got Wolverhampton's Rui Patricio as a solid goalkeeper, and he might not have a whole lot of work to do in the tournament if the line of defenders live up to their potential - there's Premier League Player of the Year Ruben Dias, also-instrumental-to-Manchester-City's-Premier-League-Win right-back Joao Cancelo, and 38-year-old veteran Pepe joining his national team for one last ride.
Moving on to midfield, Bruno Fernandes more or less carried Manchester United to 2nd place in the Premier League this past season, proving to be one of the best midfielders in the current world. And Bruno's unique situation-creating will really come into its own when the players he's passing the ball to include the likes of Atletico Madrid's star-man Joao Felix, Liverpool's brilliant signing Diogo Jota, and of course, the main reason for why Portugal will win this tournament - Cristiano Ronaldo. For better or for worse, the 36-year-old living legend remains one of the very best in the world even when slightly past his peak. These will probably be his last Euros, adding to his motivation to give his everything.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I fulfil a friend's request by posting a list of my Top 10 Guilty Pleasure Movies.
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