The first round of group stage matches concluded yesterday evening. Let’s have a look at how this affected the probabilities for success for each team.
Obviously, a win from the first game improves the qualifying chances drastically, since the four teams that finish third in their groups will also advance to the knockout stages.
In the previous edition of the tournament three points with a decent goal difference was enough to qualify and this can be seen in the probabilities for each of the teams that won their opening match.
Group A - Cold Turkey
Italy winning Turkey comfortably and Switzerland and Wales drawing means that Italy is relatively safe due to their goal difference, but the other qualification spot(s) are still very open. Turkey has a must-win game against Wales next if they want to qualify directly without waiting for the results from other groups.
Qualification probabilities:
Group B - High-flying Eagle-Owls (Come on Finland)
Again, the (strong goal-difference) hammering of Russia put Belgium in an excellent spot to qualify. Finland, the only team with a 100% record in major football tournaments, has almost doubled their qualification chances, but the group is not yet done and dusted.
As with Turkey, Russia and Denmark are both needing a win to be able to compete for the top-2 places.
Qualification probabilities:
Group C - Is Black the new Orange?
The Dutch were able to win the game in the end against Ukraine, the second-ranked team in the group, which puts them in great shape for qualification.
Ukraine is still more likely to qualify than not, as they are playing the two lowest-ranking teams in the group in their remaining games. Losing to Austria was a huge blow for North Macedonia, but they are not out of the picture yet.
Qualification probabilities:
Group D - Yes sir, Scotland can (still) boogie?
Qualification probabilities:
Group E - A group rounder than the ball
Slovakia pulling an upset while Spain and Sweden draw, means that this group has now become the one with the widest range of outcomes and therefore also among the most likely ones to have three teams to qualify.
Qualification probabilities:
Group F - Are the Germans biting off more than they can chew?
After a fairly convincing performance from France against Germany and Portugal finally managing to beat Hungary the winners are in very good shape to go through. Germany are still in the hunt but require a result against Portugal.
