You heard it here first – Croatia will win the Euros and England will get knocked out on penalties.
Well, one of those statements seems more likely than the other but at least none of the England players were abused for missing as it went to 7 all before the deciding penalty.
How do we know this? At Lambert Chapman’s Networking Breakfast this morning, we ran our very own Euro 24 competition as a dice game to see what might happen. The attendees were divided into the six groups and whilst waiting patiently to be served, rolled out their group games.
In Group A, Germany prevailed with the Scots going home as expected… In Group B Albania came top as a result of goals scored whilst Spain lost all three games. In Group C despite the involvement of a Scouse-loving Insolvency Practitioner and a Forward-thinking Chelsea season ticket holder, Lisa was allowed to provide an upside-down table with England in the wooden spoon position but as group winners with 6 points!
In Group D, France came top from Poland, Group E saw Slovakia taking the honours with 3 wins and in Group F The Czech Republic won all three and Portugal lost all their games.
Presented with the biggest challenge of then sorting the third places into the correct order and their respective knock-out matches, we then marched through the knock-out rounds with each group table representing their team as they marched to the final.
The semi-finals provided us with seven goals each, with Belgium beating Ukraine 5-2 and Croatia beating France by the same scoreline. The victorious teams then made their way to the Olympiastadion Berlin for the Euro 2024 final which saw Croatia win a nail-biting final by the narrow margin of 2 goals to 1. This marked the second tournament win for Croatia following their magnificent performance in the final of the 2018 World Cup.
And with all of this, some decent networking took place, despite the delivery of a swimming pool causing some delegates to be late and others not to be able to attend, over a lovely breakfast with the enticing view of a sunny Braintree Golf Course in the background.
We host a series of networking events throughout the year in Braintree, Maldon and Colchester, providing an opportunity for bankers, solicitors and other professionals in Mid and North Essex and Suffolk to meet and network. If you are interested in joining us, please get in touch with Katie at our Braintree office.