““Blessed, stressed and football-obsessed””
This summer in rapid succession you will have TST, Euro 24, Copa America, and then the Olympics. I mention TST as it has grown over the year and I think it has a lot of potential. The other 3 are stalwarts and we will get to them.
TST is a 7v7 tournament with a winner take all in both women’s and men’s of 1 Million dollars(pinky to corner of lip aka Dr. Evil.) The equality in prize money is fantastic and well deserved and I think will keep this type of tourney around for quite some time. 7v7 and the TST rules are perfect for easy viewing, funny, exciting, and breathtaking moments. It is also perfect for social media(intentionally lowercase.) 7v7 with 1M on the line translates nicely as 7v7 might max out at 14 players per side and if prize money split evenly that is approximately 72K a player. Roughly speaking for a week’s worth of work that is double what the highest earner at Celtic Football Club in Scotland’s highest earner makes in a week at 37K. At current time I would like to see some age banding in TST as the older former 11v11 pros and celebs are carrying this right now and I would hate to just a bunch of 20 year “flat bellies” with a good keeper winning based on fitness.
Euro 24 in Germany. Should be exciting! Germany is a wonderful venue, the last International Tournament I went to was World Cup 06 and Germany was a fantastic host Country. Germany has above average food, excellent transportation, excellent beer, very low judgement standards on fans and is highly inclusive. While I am American I tend to settle on a number of teams to support. To be transparent I support Arsenal but I don’t rush to support England. My first real experiences was 90s footy so Serie A had a lot of Dutch, my hometown club was coached by a former Bayern Munich player, and lastly I’m an Arsenal supporter and share the same birthday as Arsene so maybe the French are exciting too. I’ll add one last caveat the second Euro video I ever watched was the 1992 version and that Danish team was so cool and wore Hummell kits which we wore.
My Euro 24 Predictions are that Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Spain, Scotland, Germany, England, Portugal, Serbia, Holland, Ukraine, Belgium, Italy, France, and Turkey all make knockout. Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, and France advance to quarters, Holland, Germany, Denmark, France make semis and Germany and France meet for finals with France taking the Cup. I don’t want to drill down too far as to why but it’s simple science + art to always figure these things out for a prediction.
Copa America and the Olympics I think will be less predictable due to time off for certain sides
The table I present is based on data that is prior to the closing of the window.