Euro 2024 Group E Predictions: Belgium Most Chances, Ukraine, Slovakia And Romania Fight For Each Other

The Belgian golden generation is predicted to walk easily. (photo: x @BelRedDevils)

Group E at Euro 2024 features Belgium as the main seed, while Slovakia, Romania, and Ukraine will compete fiercely to qualify for the next round. Opta's supercomputer prediction analysis for Group E Euro 2024 reveals an interesting picture of each team's chances.

The last time Belgium appeared in a big tournament, they were eliminated in the 2022 World Cup group stage. With a more profitable draw this time, they have to be sure to avoid the same mistakes.

Domenico Tedesco is the latest coach assigned to maximize the potential of the talented but often disappointing Belgian national team. This will be the first tournament of former RB Leipzig coach as coach, and when he leads the group's opener against Slovakia, he will be the youngest Belgian coach in a major tournament (38 years).

Tedesco's first target was to get Belgium out of the group stage, something Roberto Mart Marijuz failed to achieve in Qatar 18 months ago.

Luckily for Tedesco, he got a fairly profitable draw. Group E is the only group at Euro 2024 that contains two countries that are outside the top 40 of the FIFA men's team. Therefore, Belgium has a very healthy 90.0% chance of qualifying for the last 16 and 53.1% likely to win the group.

Belgium advanced smoothly in qualifying, topping their group with 20 points, winning six and drawing two of their eight matches. The campaign extended their unbeaten record in qualifying (both the World Cup and Euro) to 40 matches (W35 D5), since their 1-0 defeat to Wales in 2015.

Romelu Lukaku is the top scorer in qualifying Euro 2024, scoring 14 goals in eight games, and he is Belgium's top scorer in major tournaments. If he scores twice in Germany, he will be in the top three top scorers in European Cup history.

This will be Ukraine's fourth consecutive appearance at the European Championships, with the best results previously taking place at Euro 2020 when they are knocked out in the quarter-finals by England. Opta's supercomputer gave them a 26.0% chance to reach that stage again, although Serhiy Rebrov's team is the second favorite in Group E. Ukraine has a 69.4% chance of qualifying for the knockout round and beating Belgium to top the group 21.0% of time.

Ukraine qualified for Euro 2024 through a play-off after almost failing to qualify automatically in a difficult group that contains England and Italy. They came from behind to win both of their 2-1 play-off matches. Including the match, Ukraine trailed six of their 10 matches in qualifying but managed to win four times, the most from any country in the whole process.

Opta's supercomputer has difficulty distinguishing between Romania (57.4%) and Slovakia (51.1%) in its projections.

The 2000 Romanians were the last team to qualify from the group stage, and this generation of players had a 57.4% chance of imitating them, although they were helped by the possibility of qualifying for the best third place.

Romania did not lose a single game during qualifying and most of their success was built on a tough defense that conceded only five times in 10 games. With an average conceded of 0.50 goals per game, only Portugal (0.20) and France (0.38) had better defensive figures. At the heart of the defense were two mid-backs Dr

In their 16 European Cup games, Romania have only won one win (D5 L10), beating England 3-2 at Euro 2000. Their opening match against Ukraine will give them a great opportunity not only to improve the record but also to make a big step towards qualifying.

Slovakia (51.1%) has a difficult prospect to play against Belgium in the first game. The defeat in that match will be very detrimental to them, and Francesco Calzona's side are the most likely to finish at the bottom of Group E (38.2%).

They won seven games in their Euro 2024 qualifiers their highest number of wins in one qualifying group for a major tournament but were not tested too much beyond the two defeats to Portugal. The rest of the group, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg are all far outside the top 70 of the men's team in the world. Their opponents in Group E are a big improvement over that.