I will have a few bets for this tournament. Not too many but enough to spark some interest. Might add another ante post bet for the winner but then will concentrate on the matches.
Last time round in the European Championships Milan Baros was top goalscorer and I know he was available at 40/1 before the tournament. I always think bookmakers are poor at pricing up this kind of market and just go for the big teams and their players, and often end up with midfielders highly featured.
I thought it would be worth doing some analysis. As there aren’t that many European Championships I will incorporate the world cup as well.
First up the top goalscorers
European Championships :: player – country – goals (finishing position)
2004 – Milan Baros –
2000 – Patrick Kluivert –
2000 – Savo Milosevic –
1996 – Alan Shearer –
*
1992 four players managed just 3 goals (need to ignore this)
1988 – Marco Van Basten – Netherlands – 5 (Won)
1984 – Michel Platini –
* The games from 1992 were one less and so I think the results are less meaningful
World Cup :: player – country – goals (finishing position)
2006 – Miroslav Klose -
2002 – Ronaldo –
1998 – Davor Suker –
1994 – Hristo Stoichkov –
1994 – Oleg Salenko –
1990 – Salvatore Schillaci –
1986 – Gary Lineker –
1982 –
What does this tell us? Firstly, it looks like there’s very little correlation between winning the tournament and being top goalscorer. You have to go back to 1992 in the Euros to find that and it was a Dane with 3 goals or back to 1982 in the World Cup to find the only player aside from Ronaldo to manage the feat.
Quite a few of these players would not have been fancied to achieve what they did so you can look past the favourites.
A quick mental note needs to be made that since Mario Kempes in 1978 Ronaldo is the only other non-European to walk away with the top goalscorer.
We are left with 13 tournaments to analyse and if we drop 2002 we are left with 12 (13 winners) but all European winners so that makes sense. It’s not a big sample size but players from countries in
I wanted to look at how players had scored in qualifying but it seemed nigh on impossible to find historical data. So what I could find, mainly thanks to Wikipedia and Eurosport, was how many goals they had scored at club level
European Championships :: player – team (country) – league goals
2004 – Milan Baros –
2000 – Patrick Kluivert –
2000 – Savo Milosevic – Real Zaragoza (
1996 – Alan Shearer –
1992 four players managed just 3 goals (need to ignore this)
1988 – Marco Van Basten – AC Milan (
1984 – Michel Platini – Juventus (
World Cup :: player – country – goals (finishing position)
2006 – Miroslav Klose – Werder
2002 – Ronaldo
1998 – Davor Suker – Real Madrid (
1994 – Hristo Stoichkov –
1994 – Oleg Salenko – Logrones (
1990 – Salvatore Schillaci – Juventus (
1986 – Gary Lineker – Everton (
1982 –
What does this tell us? Well the main thing is that 9 of the 13 winners played in
It does tell us you don’t need a fantastic season to go on and win it.
No one has done it more than once and for that reason I want to drop Klose. Looking at the players above Schillaci came in after a few games, Salenko I don’t know about, but the rest of them were the focal point for their team in terms of goals.
I had a bet last week on Pavel Pogrebniak. Although he doesn’t fit the standard profile of playing in the big league, which will be the case for more Russians now with the money they have, he appeals a lot. Top scored in the UEFA cup, bagged twice in
Nihat from
Allesandro Del Piero has had a great season in
SELECTIONS (1/2pt e/w)
Pavel Pogrenniak 50/1 :: 1/2pt e/w (1/4 odds 1st 4) – Ladbrokes/Tote/Blue Sq/Hills
Nihat 66/1 :: 1/2pt e/w (1/4 odds 1st 4) – most bookmakers including Bet365
Del Piero 66/1 :: 1/2pt e/w (1/4 odds 1st 4) – Blue Sq