Euro 2024 Network Diagram – Only a day late

(Stuff, still happening. Everything, still late.)

So after OMG! 12 years of doing this, I know what shape I am expecting from this sort of thing. I am expecting a central tight core, surrounded by others (like the diagram below).

What I was expecting

Now sometimes, the cluster is shifted and tighter at one point rather than the centre, like at the Women’s World Cup 2023 (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2023/07/22/womens-world-cup-2023-group-stage-network-diagrams/), but what I didn’t expect is what this one looks like. I’ve made a simplified description because having 24 teams with 26* players each makes the diagram really busy. (* Except France and Belgium, because … actually does anyone know why?)

Simplified version of what the diagram actually looks like

So there’s one cluster, and the other, less connected, teams splay out like a peacock’s tail.

The same diagram, but now labelled, which only makes it busier.

It does make identifying the central team less worthwhile than usual. It is Italy. Turkey are a lot closer to the cluster centre than I expected.

One of Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur and Atletico Madrid are the club team closest to the centre.

The clubs with the most representatives are Inter Milan and Manchester City with 13. The come Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris Saint Germain with 12, the Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig with 11.

Interestingly, a lot of Barcelona and Real Madrid players are not playing for Spain and we’ve definitely moved on from the days where Spanish players played for either one or the other.

I am not even getting into the whole thing about 3 different club teams all being Red Bull teams (not least because I have a whole post about it here – https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2023/03/29/in-which-we-know-that-uefa-wont-do-anything-about-dual-ownership-but-a-girl-can-dream/).

Prediction: From the diagram, I think the 8 teams that will be eliminated will be Albania, Slovenia, Romania, Georgia, Ukraine and Scotland, then Slovakia and Hungary.

You’ll note that includes none of the group D teams, supporting the theory that it really is a group of Death!!! I suspect one of Poland and Austria will be out instead of Ukraine. Group E more like the group of cuddly if you’re Belgium.