European Championship Prediction Group F

09/06/21 4936

The sixth and final group of the 2021 European Championship is without doubt the strongest. Group F features Portugal, France, Germany, and Hungary.

There are two host nations in this group and Germany will play all three of their fixtures at the Allianz Arena, Munich while Hungary will play Portugal and France at the Puskás Aréna, Budapest. So, Germany have the advantage in terms of home soil but this is going to be an extremely tough group to predict.

Portugal enter the tournament as the defending champions having defeated France in the 2016 final. They finished second in their qualifying group behind Ukraine, which was a shock and their only defeat in the group was against the top team.

However, the Portuguese were also held at home by Ukraine and Serbia. Portugal are currently top of their 2022 World Cup qualifying group and have progressed from the group stage in each of their last 7 European Championship campaigns, reaching the semi-final or better on five occasions.

They will be confident of making the knockout stages once more, despite the quality of the teams in this group.

Germany will be hoping playing at home will give them a significant advantage in this difficult group. They qualified for the tournament by winning qualifying Group C, ahead of Netherlands.

Germany have what looks like an easy 2022 World Cup qualifying group on paper but they recently suffered a shock defeat at home by North Macedonia.

Germany have reached at least the semi-final in each of the last three European Championships but you must go back to 1996 to find the last time they won the competition.

Having been eliminated at the group stage in the 2018 World Cup, the pressure is on for Germany to avoid a similar outcome in this competition.

France come into the European Championship as the world champions and will want to follow in the footsteps of Spain by holding both the World Cup and European Championship at the same time. The French qualified for this tournament by winning Group H, only 1 point ahead of Turkey.

The French were held at home by Turkey and suffered defeat in the away fixture, so they are not unbeatable, despite boasting a fantastic squad of players.

Indeed, France started their 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign by being held to a draw at home by Ukraine and recording less than comfortable victories in Kazakhstan and Bosnia.

However, there is so much quality in the French squad that it would be a shock if they did not finish inside the top two places in this group.

Hungary have been given little chance of progressing from this group and the loss of their talented young midfielder, Dominik Szoboszlai, will be a big blow.

Hungary reached the Round of 16 at the 2016 European Championship but were beaten 4-0 by Germany and won only one of their 4 matches in the competition.

Hungary have made a good start to their 2022 World Cup qualifying group but this is a massive step up having beaten San Marino and Andorra.

Prediction:

1.France

2.Portugal

3.Germany

4.Hungary