Euro 2028 Preview & Betting Guide

Euro 2028 Preview

The Euro 2028 tournament which will be the eighteenth edition of the European Championships will take place from the 9th of June through to the final on the 9th of July and during that month of action, the OLBG football tipsters will have every single match covered over on the Euro 2028 Predictions page.

The 2028 tournament will be co-hosted by the UK (England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) and the Republic of Ireland. The games in England will be split across six stadiums, Wembley, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, City of Manchester Stadium, Everton Stadium, St James' Park and Villa Park.

The other four countries will host at a single stadium each, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Hampden Park in Glasgow, Casement Park in Belfast and the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

Twenty-four teams make up six groups of four with each team playing three matches in the group, the top two will automatically advance to the knock-out stages as will the four best third-placed teams to make up the 'Round of 16', the first knock-out round.

How Euro 2024 Was Won...

Euro 2028 Resources

There is so much information and statistics within the Euro 2028 blogs to give you everything you need to prepare for the tournament.

In addition, we of course will have Euro 2028 betting tips for every single game from the group stages through to the final from our expert football tipsters.

As well as the individual matches, you will also be able to find the Euro 2028 winner prediction from our tipsters.

Also, make sure you bookmark the Best Football Tipsters page to see what the profitable football tipsters are backing each day.

Which teams are playing in Euro 2028?

Who is the favourite to win the Euros?

Once the bookmakers price up the tournament, you would expect the two finalists to head the market, Spain as the reigning champions and England as the beaten finalists who will have home advantage. 

How many teams will Euro 2028 have?

There will be a total of twenty-four countries competing in the Euro 2028, the final decision on hosting nations qualifying is still ongoing as you can only have two and we have five hosting nations.

Euro 2028 Venues

Where is Euro 2028 hosted?

As already highlighted, the matches will be split across ten stadiums with the majority of those in England.

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Euro 2028 Top Goalscorers

Cristiano Ronaldo holds the record for most goals scored in final tournaments with 14, his best performance came in 2020 when he scored five which was the most tied with Patrik Schick, however, he drew a blank in 2024 and would be hard pushed to make the 2028 tournament.

CR9 also holds the record for most goals in qualifying with 41 and most overall goals which stands at 55 whilst Romelu Lukaku holds the record of 14 (2024) for most goals scored in a single qualifying campaign.

The most goals scored at a single tournament goes to the legend that is Michel Platini who during the 1984 tournament, found the back of the net 9 times and no one has got near to that record, Antoine Griezmann's 6 goals in 2016 the next best.

Top Goalscorers at the last ten European Championships

• 1988: Marco van Basten (5 goals)
• 1992: Four Players (3 goals)
• 1996: Alan Shearer (5 goals)
• 2000: Two Players (5 goals)
• 2004: Milan Baroš (5 goals)
• 2008: David Villa (4 goals)
• 2012: Six Players (3 goals)
• 2016: Antoine Griezmann (6 goals)
• 2020: Two Players (5 goals)
• 2024: Six Players (3 goals)

Tournament hat-tricks are fairly rare as you would expect given the number of goals it takes to be the top scorer, still, there has been a total of eight over the years.

Six of those eight hat-tricks have come during group matches and have come from Klaus Allofs (1980), Michel Platini (1984 Twice), Marco van Basten (1988), Sérgio Conceição (2000) & David Villa (2008).

The two which came in the knock-out stage were from Dieter Müller who scored his in the semi-finals of the 1976 tournament, two of those goals came in extra-time of West Germany's 4-2 win over Yugoslavia, he was just 22 when scoring this hat-trick making him the youngest hat-trick scorer at the European Championships.

The other was also with Yugoslavia as the opponent, it came in 2000 when the Netherlands beat them 6-1 and three of those goals came from Patrick Kluivert.

UEFA European Championship Past Winners

Spain's win in 2024 moved them on to four wins and the outright most successful nation at the European Championships having previously been tied for three wins with Germany.

Spain's other successes came with wins in 1964, 2008 & 2012 whilst Germany's wins came in 1972, 1980 & 1996 so it has been a while since their late success.

There are only two other countries who have multiple wins, Italy won it in both 1968 & 2020 while France won it in 1984 & 2000.

The last ten winners of the European Championships:

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Best Performing Countries at the Euros

Let us have a look at which countries produce the best per-game average, for this we use the standard 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a defeat.

For knock-out games which need extra time, we award those 3 or 0 points if won in ET whilst for games which go to penalties each team is awarded 1 point.

Top Five Performing Euro Countries

1.  Spain (1.87 PPG)
2.  Germany (1.79 PPG)
3.  Italy (1.73 PPG)
4.  Netherlands (1.73 PPG)
5.  France (1.71 PPG)

Reigning champions Spain come out at the top of the pile with 28 wins from 53 games and only 10 defeats, averaging 1.87 points per game using the suggested points system.

You have to drop to sub-1.80 to find the next nation which is Germany with an average of 1.79 ppg, which comes from 30 wins from 58 games and 14 defeats.

If you are looking for England, then they are well down on the list in the 9th spot with an average of 1.56 ppg with 18 wins from 45 games and they only average 1.31 goals scored per game.

The Fate of Defending Champions

There are four years between tournaments which in terms of football is a very long time, players come and go over the years and teams can be very different four years later so just how do defending champions do?

The simple answer to that is, not great! Of the sixteen previous winners of this tournament, only one of those returned four years later to successfully defend their title!

That was Spain who won it in 2012 and then followed up in 2016, however, when going for a third they failed to make it past the round of 16.

• 3x Did not qualify for the next tournament
• 4x Did not make it out of the groups
• 3x Got knocked out in the round of 16
• 1x Made it to the Quarter-Finals
• 1x Made it to the Semi-Finals (1x 3rd place)
• 2x Beaten finalists
• 1x Successfully defended their title

The runners-up have a better record of producing winners with two runners-up going on to win the tournament four years later, West Germany (1980 > 1984) and Germany (1996 > 2000).

This goes to show what Spain will be up against at the 2028 tournament when they attempt to defend their title!