In this football language podcast we look ahead to the 2024 Euros and try and predict the winners. Which teams are favourites? Dark horses? Who will win the Golden Boot? Which team will be the biggest flops? You can read the transcript for this podcast below, while you can also check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.
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Learn English Through Football Podcast: Euro 2024 - Preview and Predictions
DF: You're listening to Languagecaster.com's football-language podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to the show for everyone who wants to practice their English and who loves the beautiful game of football. My name is Damian and I am one half of the Languagecaster team,  the other of course is Damon who is based in Tokyo, Japan and we'll be hearing from him a little later on in the show.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in French)
So, the domestic seasons in Europe have finished and football fans are now turning their attention to the 2024 European Championship (the Euros); and these are taking place in Germany. On this podcast we are going to look ahead to this competition and look at some of the favourites, the dark horses and the possible flops of the tournament. We'll also give a few predictions and remember that you can join our Predictions competition by simply coming along to our site and clicking on the Euro24 page.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Dutch).
Introduction
Yes, that message was in Dutch and of course the Netherlands will be taking part in this year's tournament. All of the stingers on today's show will be from countries that are participating in the Euros. Can you guess what languages they are? We are interested in getting some more languages for our stinger   collection: I wonder if we can we get languages from all of the 24 participating nations? We'd love to hear from Portuguese and Albanian speakers (and Swiss and Belgian and Croatian and Serbian and...)
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in German).
Some Numbers
This will be the 17th edition of the European Championship - the first one took place in 1960 when there were only four teams taking part. In 1980 the format changed with eight teams now taking part and this continued until 1996 in England when there were 16 teams participating. Interestingly, West Germany/Germany won in both 1980 and 1996. The tournament expanded again three years ago to 24 teams - remember that the competition was held a year later than planned due to Covid. Do you remember who were the winners from 2021? That's right, Italy beat England on penalties and so are the current holders. Italy have won the title on two occasions but they are not the most successful - do you know which team this is? Yes, Germany and Spain both have three titles, while France have two and the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Greece and Czechoslovakia all have one title each.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (Italian fan)
Favourites
Well, many pundits are suggesting that this could be one of the most difficult tournaments to predict as any one of eight or nine teams could win it. However, the two main favourites are France and Portugal who have squads full of amazing players with lots of experience. Portugal of course defeated France in the final to win the 2016 Euros ,while France won the World Cup in 2018 and were runners-up in the same competition four years later. But we also tipped these two to do well last time out (in 2021) but both of them went out in the last 16: France were defeated by Switzerland on penalties and Portugal lost 1-0 to Belgium. France don't have the easiest of groups but with three teams...