Supercomputer predicts England's fate at Euro 2024 with Gareth Southgate at the helm

It's a rarity for England to enter any major international tournament as the outright favourites, but this year could mark the end of 58 years of disappointment and see football finally come home.

After coming tantalisingly close to European Championship glory at Wembley Stadium in 2021, only to be denied by a penalty shootout, Gareth Southgate and his squad have frequently been on the cusp of ultimate success. They've reached the semi-final and quarter-final stages of the two World Cups that sandwiched their Euros heartbreak three years ago.

The Three Lions have brought a blend of youthful talent and seasoned stars to Germany for the tournament. Southgate has chosen a number of players set to make their major tournament debuts for England.

Chelsea's Cole Palmer, Manchester United's Kobbie Mainoo, Newcastle United's Anthony Gordon and Crystal Palace midfielder Adam Wharton are all hoping to make their mark this summer.

Harry Kane will once again spearhead England's attack as captain, with Jordan Pickford, Kieran Trippier, Luke Shaw and John Stones all preparing to participate in their fourth major tournament for the national team. Notable absences from the squad include Marcus Rashford, Jack Grealish, James Maddison and Harry Maguire, with the latter ruled out due to a calf injury before the squad jetted off to Germany to commence their training camp, reports Football London.

While Maguire's absence is undoubtedly a setback for their hopes of clinching the title this summer, Opta's pre-tournament prediction model for Euro 2024 suggests that Southgate's squad are actually the favourites to hoist the Henri Delaunay trophy on July 14 in Berlin, with a 19.9% chance of winning the tournament.

To provide a more comprehensive view of who might emerge victorious, Opta's prediction model calculates the likelihood of each match outcome - win, draw or loss - by utilising betting market odds and team rankings.

These odds and rankings are derived from historical and recent team performances. The model then factors in the strength of the opposition and the difficulty of their route to the final using match outcome probabilities.

This takes into account the group composition and seedings into the knockout stages.

Despite England being tipped as favourites to win the tournament, it's a close call as Didier Deschamps' French team, who ousted them from the 2022 World Cup, were given a 19.1% chance of winning, just 0.8% less than Southgate's team. Interestingly, the Opta model predicted a semi-final showdown between the two sides in nearly 50% of all simulations, with England having a 48.2% chance of making it to the final four compared to France's 48.1%.

Germany, the hosts, are just behind with a 12.4% chance of winning the tournament on their home turf, which would be their first Euros victory since 1996. They have been given a 36.5% chance of making it to the semi-finals, slightly ahead of Portugal's 33.6% and Spain's 32.3%.

Interestingly, despite Spain having a lower probability of reaching the semi-finals than Portugal, they actually have a higher likelihood of making it to the finals and winning the tournament. The odds are 9.6% for Spain and 9.2% for Portugal.

The Netherlands and Italy both stand a 5% chance of winning the tournament. Scotland, on the other hand, were given an 8.5% chance of reaching the semi-finals and a mere 1% chance of causing the biggest international football upset since Greece in 2004.