After all the talk of team selection, Southgate’s credentials, missed opportunities at previous tournaments, superstar names fitting into the XI and the disappointing warm-up games, England get their Euro 2024 campaign underway with a tricky task in the form of Serbia. With England going in as bookies favourites, Serbia could change all that with some dangerous attacking players who could cause England’s questionable defence some challenges.

Kicking off in Schalke’s home stadium in Gelsenkirchen, England will be determined to set out a marker after watching some impressive performances elsewhere in the tournament in just the first few days of the competition. Serbia will be cautious of England’s huge talent across the pitch, but will surely have felt boosted by the defence issues of fitness/illness that have given England a hurdle to overcome to start the tournament.

The game will be live on BBC One and iPlayer with kick-off at 8pm on Sunday 16th June, and with just under a month until the final we will be looking to continue these previews and post-match reviews following England throughout the tournament (hopefully until the 14th July in Berlin).

With lots to talk about and preview, we will look in this post about the team news on both sides, form going into the game, the odds and betting and make a prediction for how the game could play out on Sunday 8pm.

As always, if you want to let us know how you see the game playing out on Sunday evening, you can get in touch by using social media (@NextGoalWinBlog) to let us know what you’re predicting for England’s opener, or if you agree with any of our predictions made in this preview.

Team News

Starting with Serbia, their team news is limited as all of their squad has made it through the warm-up games with little/no concerns. They have all their big names fit and available, and the only question mark will be on who will lead the line, as Vlahovic and Mitrovic have separately played as a sole striker, while their win over Sweden in the most recent outing saw both playing alongside as a front 2. It will be interesting to get a sense of how they set up to play based on who starts the game, however I would think they might go for Mitrovic to start as sole striker, adding Vlahovic into proceedings in the second half depending on what’s possible for Serbia.

Serbia Predicted Line-Up: Milinkovic-Savic, Pavlovic, Veljkovic, Milenkovic, Kostic, Lukic, Milinkovic-Savic, Zivkovic, Tadic, Mitrovic, Vlahovic

For England they now look likely to be able to put out their strongest line-up bar Luke Shaw, after John Stones recovered from a knock to his ankle vs Iceland and then illness which saw him quarantined to his room for a day shortly after arriving in Germany. With Trippier filling in at left back in Shaw’s absence, it will be Guehi, Stones and Walker making up the back 4.

Midfield raises the other question for England, however after some impressive outings in the warm-up games, it now looks most likely to be a Rice-TAA-Bellingham midfield to offer balance and a creative outlet in Trent as opposed to dropping Bellingham deeper or bringing in the youth of Mainoo. Bellingham playing as the no.10 will push Foden onto the left, with Kane and Saka to make up the rest of the front line.

England Predicted Line-Up: Pickford, Trippier, Guehi, Stones, Walker, Rice, Alexander-Arnold, Bellingham, Foden, Kane, Saka

Form

Coming into Euro 2024, both sides had some ups and downs in the warm-up games. Serbia were beaten by Austria 2-1 as they rotated a few players in the opening warm-up, while they put out a more likely squad to what we expect on Sunday as they beat Sweden 3-0 with Milinkovic-Savic, Mitrovic and Tadic among the goals. In both games they were on the scoresheet, showing how difficult they will make it for England’s defenders despite England looking to control most of the game.

For England, their warm-up was disappointing, as despite beating Bosnia and Herzegovina 3-0, it took a 60th minute penalty to get things up and running before adding the second and third late on in the game. In their other warm-up, there were horrific memories of previous Euro tournaments as they were beaten by Iceland 1-0 at Wembley. Despite starting with a strong XI they couldn’t break down Iceland and the only consolation came from Southgate defending his side’s mentality that they were more protective of themselves physically than we should see against Serbia.

Whether you can read much into the warm-up games remains to be seen, but Serbia will feel confident after witnessing England’s struggles in their friendlies, while they were more free scoring.

Odds

Heading into Euro 2024, it’s been well documented that most bookmakers have England to win the whole tournament, however I have always questioned this as bookmakers often base the odds on where the money is going, and so with international tournaments more neutral fans will bet on England as they want to get involved and obviously cheer on their side, therefore the England odds are more likely to be alongside the others just behind of France and more recently Germany. They do still remain 7/2 favourites for the tournament however, whereas opponents Serbia are well down the pecking order as would be expected, at 66/1.

In the odds for topping Group C, England are again favourites at 2/5 odds on favourites, where Serbia are 3rd on 11/2 to win the group. If we were to expand that to qualifying out of the group rather than winning the group, these odds shorten massively, England 1/33 and Serbia 8/15, however it’s hard to read too much into these group odds as potentially 3/4 sides could qualify.

In the game on Sunday, England are favourites undoubtedly, with 4/9 odds on an England win, 10/3 on a draw and 6/1 on Serbia upsetting the odds with winning this opening game. Most of the goalscoring odds are as expected with a lot of England forwards being short odds, while Mitrovic is most likely for Serbia to get on the scoresheet. The both teams to score market is at evens which I think it quite surprising considering England have some questions in defence while Serbia’s quality is all in attack.

Predictions

I see this game being tougher than some would expect, as Serbia will likely need to attack as their best form of defence, with their star names being in the forward line they have to get Mitrovic involved as much as possible. Capable of causing hassle for the defence of England who will see Marc Guehi likely feature in the traditional spot of Maguire, Trippier being utilised out on the left and Stones recovering from illness just a few days prior. I see there being goals for both sides in this, likely heading in at half-time at 1-1, with England needing to continue pushing on late in the game where the final breakthrough will come, possibly with a very late 3rd to make the result look easier than it actually might have been.

Prediction: England 3-1 Serbia (Kane, Mitrovic, Bellingham, Gordon)