Euro 2024 fact checked: Is it all doom and gloom for England?

It’s been a busy few weeks for the Full Fact team, so we thought we’d take a break from fact checking the general election to take a look at the other hotly contested event of the summer: Euro 2024.

We’re fact checkers, not sports pundits, so rather than giving you our view on how England should line up against Slovakia or where it all went wrong for Scotland, we’ve focused on what some of the stats can tell us about the tournament. 

Is it really all doom and gloom for England?

An all too familiar sense of doom and gloom seems to surround England’s Euros campaign at the moment. But if you look at the numbers, they paint a mixed picture. 

On the one hand, England have qualified top of their group, and, according to Opta at the time of writing, are still considered second favourites to walk away with the trophy (most likely helped by the fact they’ve landed on the opposite side of the draw to big hitters including Germany, Spain, Portugal and France). England haven’t lost a game (unlike Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands) and have conceded the second fewest goals so far (one, alongside Belgium and France, and behind Spain, who are yet to concede any.)

England have also dominated the ball, ranking third in possession (59.7% on average across three games), pass attempts and passing accuracy. But unlike Germany and Portugal, whose possession stats are better, England’s possession hasn’t led to many chances. 

In the three games played so far, they’ve taken an unimpressive 23 shots, and converted only 8.7% of them. (Their next opponents, Slovakia, have registered 28 shots with a conversion rate of 10.7%). England currently sit alongside seven other teams (including Scotland) on just two goals scored. (Only Serbia have fewer, with one.)

England’s goalless draw against Slovenia on Tuesday brought a welcome end to proceedings in Group C. It has the questionable honour of being the joint-worst group in Euros tournament history, at least in terms of goals scored, with just seven in six matches. That’s less than half the average number of goals seen in the other groups. According to The Athletic, only Group C of Euro 2016 matched England’s group this year for goal-scoring mediocrity.

That being said, England are far from the only team to have struggled to meet expectations. The world’s second highest ranked men’s team, France, came second in their group, despite being given a 57.9% chance of topping it, and have only scored two goals themselves. And several teams favoured to make it through to the knockouts, including Croatia (67.8% chance of progressing) and Ukraine (69.4% chance), are instead on the way home.

How does Euro 2024 compare to previous tournaments so far?

This is only the third UEFA European Football Championship to be held in the current 24-team format, so when it comes to comparing the group stages to similar iterations of the tournament in the past, there’s not too much to go on. 

Euro 2024 has seen more goals in the group stages than Euro 2016 (81 compared to 69), but fewer than in Euro 2020 (94).

And while it might feel like there’s been more action in the final minutes of games this year than we’ve seen previously, a quick look at the figures puts that in perspective. This year’s group stages have seen a couple more goals scored after 80 minutes than in 2021 (15, compared to 13), but Euro 2016 saw more (19).

There have been fewer penalties awarded so far this tournament than in the previous tournament’s group stage (nine, versus 12 in 2021), though more than in 2016—perhaps unsurprisingly given that tournament was the last to be held before the introduction of VAR. And there have been seven own goals scored in this tournament’s group stages, compared to eight in 2021 and just two in 2016.