Four days to go. In just four days time, major-tournament football is back in the form of the European Championships.
On Friday, June 14th, the footballing world will turn its gaze to Munich and the Allianz Arena, where Germany will take on Scotland in the opening game of Euro 2024.
Before things kick off in Munich, we’ve still got some time to do some exploring of betting angles.
We’ve already looked at the top-scorer market in a few different articles, but there’s time for more yet. Here, we’re going to look at whether domestic form is relevant from a top-scorer point of view.
Is domestic form relevant at the Euros?
As mentioned in my top scorer tips article, there are a couple of players I really like at the prices, but I was looking to see if I could add anyone else, and I suddenly wondered whether there’s a correlation between strong domestic form leading into the Euros and winning the golden boot.
I wanted to know if players typically top-score at the European Championships off the back of performing well for their club team in the season immediately before the tournament.
Having done some digging, it’s probably fair to say that typically speaking, Euro top scorers come into the tournament off the back of a hot season domestically.
As you’ll see below, very few Golden Boot winners in recent times have struggled to score goals at club level in the season leading up to the tournament.
Previous top scorers at the Euros and their domestic form
Before we look at the candidates for top scorer ahead of Euro 2024, let’s take a look at some previous top scorers, looking also how they performed domestically in the season leading up to the tournament where they won the Golden Boot.
As the table above shows, virtually all of the top scorers at the Euros in each of the last renewals of this wonderful competition enjoyed fruitful league campaigns before flying off to represent their country.
In fact, the only exception since Euro 1996 is Fernando Torres, who won the Golden Boot at Euro 2012 after what can only be described as a modest season in a Chelsea shirt, scoring just six league goals, averaging 0.28 goals per game, which is comfortably the lowest of any of the last seven Euro top scorers.
Three of the last seven Golden Boot winners entered the European Championships having scored more than 20 league goals in the season directly before, while five of the last seven went into the competition off the back of a scoring average (in the league) of at least 0.65 goals per game.
Recent form of likely top scorers at Euro 2024
Now we know what sort of league profile a typical Euro top scorer brings with them into the tournament, let’s take a look at some of the best performers ahead of Euro 2024.
The table below shows the 12 most likely players according to the top scorer betting market, plus a few notable others currently priced greater than 33/1, showing the league that they played in, the goals they scored, the goals scored per 90 minutes, plus their expected goals (xG) per 90 minutes.
*No access to Saudi Pro League xG data.
As we can see from the above table, there are plenty of players heading to Euro 2024 off the back of fine domestic campaigns.
As is to be expected the first three in the betting all performed sensationally from a goals scored point of view last season
Adding one to the mix
In my previous top scorer tips article, I shouted up both Foden and Havertz, the latter having since moved from 33/1 to 28/1 in the betting, and I remain happy with those picks at the odds taken.
Am I saying that Foden and Havertz are the two most likely top scorers at this tournament? Certainly not, but everything about that pair from a goal-scoring point of view is more appealing than the odds taken suggest. In other words, the odds look a little generous.
Despite being happy with both Foden and Havertz, I’m going to add one more player to make my attack on this market three-pronged, and that player is Lois Openda, who is currently available at odds of 40/1 with bet365.
Outside of Mbappe, Kane and Ronaldo, Openda is the most eye-catching player in the table above and he certainly has a similar profile as previous top scorers in terms of previous season goal scoring.
In previous versions of this Belgian team, Romelu Lukaku has been all too relied upon up top, but I’m not sure that’ll be the case this time around, such is the threat that Openda offers.
What’s more, even if Lukaku does start as the central striker, Openda is likely to start somewhere in the forward set-up, which for me is enough. If he gets sufficient game time, I think he’ll cause teams lots of problems and ultimately get goals, while his pace and ability to get in behind also makes him a fantastic option off the bench.
Most importantly, looking at the numbers above, 40/1 just looks a little on the large side as far as I’m concerned.
Sure, the Red Devils have plenty of offensive quality, and it may be that the RB Leipzig forward doesn’t feature much, but at 40/1, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.
Euro 2024 top scorer bets
To confirm, the following top scorer bet for Euro 2024 is being added to the two already provided:
Lois Openda @ 40/1 with bet365
