By The Numbers: EURO 2024 Group Stages Player Stats

EURO 2024 seems to have it all. We have seen the expected – own goals, heartbreaking last-minute goals, and breathtaking goals from Xherdan Shaqiri. There have been shocking results, unbelievable misses, and stunning comebacks. We have also seen the unexpected – Kylian Mbappe breaking his nose, Cristiano Ronaldo struggling to score, and 18 yellow cards in one game (Czechia vs Türkiye). Slovenia lost out on third place in a tie-breaker by their coach getting a yellow card. But, there have been some outstanding players at the tournament. In this By The Numbers, we look at the data behind some of the best players from the Group stages.

Attacking

Georgia surprised Portugal (and the world) by beating the Portuguese 2-0 on Wednesday night. Napoli’s star Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was primed to be Georgia’s talisman at the EUROs, but that baton has been passed on to Georges Mikautadze. The 23-year-old is the tournament’s leading goalscorer and has provided a goal or assist in each of his team’s games. With 2.26xG to his name, he is also the player to have been at the end of the best chances at the tournament. Other attackers who have impressed include Jamal Musiala, Cody Gakpo, and Slovakia’s Ivan Schranz, who have each scored two goals. (Expected Goals (xG) is a measure of the quality of shots a player takes).

Superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Romelu Lukaku, and Antoine Griezmann have yet to score. They have been the worst (and sometimes unluckiest) attackers so far, but they can still rectify this in the knockout stages. This is the first time in his career that Ronaldo has failed to score in the group stage of a major international tournament (10 previous World Cups/EUROs). But he’s had his chances.

Passing

Toni Kroos has dominated the headlines for some of his passing stats. His 324 completed passes set a new record for the most successful passes by a player in the EURO tournament group stage, beating the record of 323 set by Kroos himself at EURO2016. Altogether, his passes have traveled 5,154 meters, at least 1,000 meters more than the next-best player.

That said, Christian Eriksen has been the most creative player when it comes to chances created, making 13 opportunities for his teammates to score. In one game, against Slovenia, he made 7 chances – more than all but seven players have managed in the entire tournament. Only two other players (Kevin de Bruyne (11) and Turkiye’s Ferdi Kadioglu (10)) have reached double digits for chances created in Germany. Kroos is joint-fourth alongside his teammate Joshua Kimmich (both 9). While that speaks to the volume of chances created, none of these players are in the Top 5 for the quality of chances created.

By The Numbers: EURO 202EURO 2024 seems to have it all. We have seen the expected – own goals, heartbreaking last-minute goals, and breathtaking goals from Xherdan Shaqiri. There have been shocking results, unbelievable misses, and stunning comebacks. We have also seen the unexpected – Kylian Mbappe breaking his nose, Cristiano Ronaldo struggling to score, and 18 yellow cards in one game (Czechia vs Türkiye). Slovenia lost out on third place in a tie-breaker by their coach getting a yellow card. But, there have been some outstanding players at the tournament. In this By The Numbers, we look at the data behind some of the best players from the Group stages.

Attacking

Georgia surprised Portugal (and the world) by beating the Portuguese 2-0 on Wednesday night. Napoli’s star Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was primed to be Georgia’s talisman at the EUROs, but that baton has been passed on to Georges Mikautadze. The 23-year-old is the tournament’s leading goalscorer and has provided a goal or assist in each of his team’s games. With 2.26xG to his name, he is also the player to have been at the end of the best chances at the tournament. Other attackers who have impressed include Jamal Musiala, Cody Gakpo, and Slovakia’s Ivan Schranz, who have each scored two goals. (Expected Goals (xG) is a measure of the quality of shots a player takes).

4 Group Stages Player Stats
Expected Assists is the metric used to measure that, and Jeremy Doku (1.17) and Ivan Perisic (1.15) are the only players with a value of Over 1.

Other Interesting Player Stats (from OPTA):

38 – At the age of 38 years and 289 days, Luka Modric is the oldest player to ever score at the UEFA European Championship finals.

17 – N’Golo Kanté has made more major tournament appearances (World Cup/EUROs) without losing than any other European player, with France unbeaten in all 17 such games he’s played (W12 D5).

6 – Xherdan Shaqiri is the only player to score at all of the last three European Championships and the last three World Cups.

16 – Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal became the youngest player in Euros history at Euro 2024, featuring against Croatia aged 16 years and 338 days.

41 – Portugal defender Pepe became the oldest ever player to appear at the European Championship (41 years, 117 days) in the 3-0 win over Turkey.

*Data from OPTAAnalyst

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