England and Southgate will blush at the five toughest ever routes to a European Championship final

Four of the five pre-tournament favourites for Euro 2024 have landed in the same knockouts bracket, with England the exception as France, Germany, Portugal and Spain try to plot their routes out.

It would have been a remarkable achievement regardless but Greece truly did have to work for their European crown in 2004. Every team they faced had a better ranking, including a Portugal side that slipped to within a couple of places of Saudi Arabia as their hosting duties limited the potential to pick up more points – although failure at the 2002 World Cup suggests they might have struggled anyway.

Greece had never won an international tournament knockout game before Euro 2004, nor have they since. That is a very funny bit and fair play to them.When Euro 2012 began, Spain were laughably clear as the best team in the world and even more comfortably recognised as the leading nation of Europe. Uruguay were ranked second with Germany in third and Netherlands in fourth. Vicente del Bosque managed to avoid both continental rivals to complete a hat-trick of successive major tournament wins.

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