One game might not seem like a lot, but if we convert it into Premier League time, the eventual winner of Euro 2020 has already played about five games -- or 14 percent of their full schedule. As I wrote about before the tournament, international soccer is riddled by an information problem -- we just don’t really know how good any of these teams truly are because they rarely play and rarely play each other. Each national team only contests a handful of semi-competitive games every year, and they only play truly competitive games -- ones that win you a sought-after trophy -- every two years. In that sense, each game at the Euros is an invaluable piece of information, another light to shine into the darkness that is biennial international competition.

So, now that we’ve got a game for everyone, it’s time to throw out some rankings. Here’s my top eight -- in ascending order of how good I think each team is, not how likely I think they are to win the tournament.

8. Netherlands

I considered going with Switzerland here. Yes, they tied with Wales but they produced the second-largest non-penalty expected-goal margin of any team in the first round.The team also just makes sense: it’s a bunch of competent Big Five League players, all playing in their best positions. And Breel Embolo gives them a little bit of unpredictability and dynamism up top that they haven’t had over their last few iterations. It wouldn’t shock me if they sprung an upset in the knockout rounds, or even if they played Italy tight on Wednesday.

The Dutch, though, are the anti-Swiss. Their formation and their structure in their buildup play have somehow conspired to ... cancel each other out? Guess that’s what happens when you hire a coach who was fired by Crystal Palace and Atlanta United? Who knew? Anyway, they're seemingly reliant on the likes of Memphis Depay, Gini Wijnaldum, and Frenkie De Jong to just go out there and  ... figure shit out. Honestly, it worked pretty well on Sunday. They almost blew it against Ukraine, but that near-collapse pretty much came down to one set-piece brainfart and a wonder goal from Andriy Yarmoleno.

They dominated the ball, pressed aggressively, worked possession into the Ukrainian box constantly, took 15 shots, and conceded just seven. Given how loosely structured most international teams are due to the lack of practice time, I’m starting to convince myself that great individual performances from midfielders can have a much bigger effect on the outcome of a match than they would in the club game. (Did you see Paul Pogba against Germany?) And in Wijnaldum and De Jong, the Netherlands have two of the best.

7. Germany

What to do with the Germans? On the one hand, they might have the most talented team in the tournament. Per Transfermarkt’s crowd-source player valuations, the Germans have the third-most valuable squad, behind France and England. Their starting XI against France read: Bayern Munich; Monchengladbach, Dortmund, Chelsea; Atalanta, Manchester City, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich; Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Bayern Munich. And they subbed on: Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Dortmund, and Monaco. If you try to project the outcome of the tournament based on talent -- using Transfermarkt or just the quality of the teams the players play for -- Jogi Low’s side come out as one of the top favorites:

Futbolmetrix @Futbolmetrix1

#EURO2020 predictions. A comparison of different models. A thread 🧵(1/.

June 9th 2021

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And yet! These are their results against top teams in competitive matches since the last World Cup, in chronological order:

-France, 2018: draw

-Netherlands, 2018: loss

-France, 2018: loss

-Netherlands, 2018: draw

-Netherlands, 2019: win

-Netherlands, 2019: loss

-Spain, 2020: draw

-Switzerland, 2020: draw

-Switzerland, 2020: draw

-Spain: 2020: loss (this one finished 6-0, seems worth mentioning)

-France, 2021: loss

That’s ... terrible! And it’s why they’ve fallen all the way down to 11th in the Elo rankings. Their game against France was similarly confounding: They lost, but also created enough chances to tie the match and only conceded four shots against a team with Karim Benzema, Kylian Mbappe, and Antoine Griezmann. Of course, they were also saved by two VAR calls and a handful of last-ditch tackles on French attackers. Of course, they also only conceded a goal after Mats Hummels kicked the ball into his own net. There’s a world where Germany draws this match, maybe even wins it; there’s also one where they lose 3-0. Just a weird, weird team that I still don’t trust and still wouldn’t be surprised to see win it all, and so they’re seventh for now.

6. Italy

Do I feel confident about this? Absolutely not. But I do feel confident in saying there’s a clear top six in my head; I’m just not sure what order they should go in. Italy have really been lights out since they hired Roberto Mancini. In the 24 competitive matches they’ve played since the last World Cup, they’ve conceded EIGHT goals. They’re the best defensive team in the tournament, according to the model built by the KU Leuven guys. Except, against Turkey, they weren’t your typical, more-passive Italian defense; no, they pressed high up the field. Per FBref’s Statsbomb data, they completed more pressures in the final-third than all but two teams, and that’s despite the game being a wrap with over 20 minutes to go. Their movement in possession was also fantastic, and they just smoked a Turkey team -- honey-roasted a Turkey team; maple-glazed a Turkey team; spatch-cocked a Turkey team -- that were a popular underdog pick before the tournament. The Turks took three shots; Italy hit 24. And again, the Italians weren’t even chasing the game in a way that would’ve inflated those numbers. Oh, and their best player, Marco Verratti, didn’t even play in the game! Sixth for now, but with another top performance against the Swiss, they’ll be higher soon enough.

5. England

Did England play well against Croatia? Not really. Did it matter? Not at all.

The Analyst @OptaAnalyst

England win their opening game at a European Championship tournament for the first time. #ENG #CRO #Euro2020

June 13th 2021

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How impressive you consider that performance depends on how good you think Croatia are. The KU Leuven model has them as the 16th-best team in the tournament, while the Elo ratings have them 13th -- between Wales and the Czech Republic. Toss in the fact that it was at home for the Three Lions, and the match didn’t really do much to improve my perception of the team. Kalvin Phillips was fantastic, but also: why does a team with all of this attacking talent need Kalvin Phillips to be fantastic? At the same time, Gareth Southgate rolled out a bunch of nice restart plays once again, and it seems like England will get an edge there all tournament long. I’ll be interested to see if this is a lineup that Southgate sticks with or if he’s gonna mix and match and try to have his team peaking in the knockout rounds. They moved the ball up the field more slowly than everyone other than Russia across Matchday One -- 0.68 meters per second -- and that seems like a pretty concerted choice. Maybe this match was savvy game-management, or maybe it’ll end up looking like a warning sign for a team that couldn’t quite generate enough from open-play despite a depth of world-class attacking talent. We probably won’t know the answer until the knockout rounds: If England win the group, they’re likely to play either France, Germany, or Portugal.

4. Spain

This really was not Russia 2.0. In the Round of 16 at the last World Cup, Spain dominated possession to an absurd degree but barely created any good chances en route to a shootout loss to the hosts. It felt like tiki taka gone bad -- a comical over-emphasis on possession at the expense of, you know, actually scoring goals. Against Sweden, Spain’s possession was comical. According to Stats Perform, they completed the highest number of passes (830) and the highest possession rate (85 percent) of any match in the recorded history of the tournament. And yes, it is true: they did not, in fact, score a goal. But that comes down to the difficulties of redirecting a round sphere with various ill-suited body parts, rather than an inability to create anything. Their 17 shots added up to 2.35 non-penalty xG -- most of any team through the first round of matches. Listen to Pedri, you heathens. The kids are all right:

Dermot Corrigan @dermotmcorrigan

Pedri progress continuing - he's doing Spain's press conference today. "We played well last night, created many chances, if we keep going like this we'll do well."

June 15th 2021

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Now, it’s definitely not what you might call a “good sign” that they conceded four shots worth 1.17 xG (second-highest per-shot rate of any team), but that seemed more the result of a couple of individual breakdowns, rather than a systemic issue defending counter-attacks. Bonus points, too, to Luis Enrique, for using all five subs as his team chased the game. When you’ve got the depth of talent that Spain does, it’d be a waste not to use it. Among all the teams in this top eight, Spain have the clearest identity and the best coach. I just have a really hard time seeing them get decisively outplayed against anyone.

3. Portugal

The goals didn’t come until late, but they did just about everything you could want from a heavy favorite: dominated the ball, created a bucketload of great chances, pressed like crazy, and only conceded a tiny number of low-probability shots.

They’ve got the talent to win it all -- fifth-most valuable side, per Transfermarkt -- especially on the attacking end. It’s not just Cristiano Ronaldo anymore; it’s Bruno Fernandes, and Diogo Jota, and Joao Felix, and Bernardo Silva, and Andre Silva. They’re co-fourth favorites with Italy, per the DraftKings Sportsbook, to win it all, but the only reason they’re not higher up is because they’re in the same group as France and Germany. I don’t think they have the third-best chance of winning this thing, either, but right now, I’ve got them as the third-best team. I also think they might be better-suited to playing against better teams. Fernando Santos opted to play two defensive midfielders despite the inevitability of his team dominating possession and therefore not needing two defensive midfielders. But defensive teams do tend to win these tournaments, and as we saw against Hungary, Portugal have so much attacking talent now that it can still make up for suboptimal managerial decisions. Weird thing to say about the third team on this list, but hey, that’s international soccer, baby.

2. Belgium

I like to think of these guys as the bizarro Germany; they even have the same flag colors, just in a different order. If you look at the Belgium squad, you might see a team that’s past its peak. The captain and former best player, Eden Hazard, has been injured and/or awful for Real Madrid over the past two seasons. Their backline still includes Toby Aldeweireld and Jan Vertonghen, who are a combined 66 years old. One of their backups is Thomas Vermaelen, a 35-year-old man who plays professional soccer in Japan. Dries Mertens is 34, and he started up top against Russia. The likes of Leander Dendocker and Dennis Praet -- notable for just how truly un-notable they both are -- have significant roles in this team. The average age of the squad -- 29.2 -- is the oldest in the tournament. And among the teams on this list, only the Dutch have a less valuable squad, per Transfermarkt.

Despite that, Roberto Martinez’s team has been, if you’ll allow me to indulge my own nerdery and use a technical term here, blitzing the fuck out of everyone since the World Cup ended. They’ve got 21 wins, two draws, and one loss in all competitive matches since finishing third at Russia 2018. They’ve scored 80 goals and conceded 17, which gives them a cool plus-2.9 goal differential per game. Their lineup against Russia wasn’t anything special; Hazard didn’t start and Kevin De Bruyne didn’t play at all. But they still waltzed to an easy win, in St Petersburg, on the back of another superstar performance from Romelu Lukaku, the most lovable man in sports. They’re the top-rated team in the KU Leuven model, the Elo ratings, and the official FIFA rankings (which now work off an Elo-based model, too). I see all the potential flaws with this team, but at some point, the games have to matter. And for the better part of three years, nearly every time Belgium has played a soccer game, they’ve blown the other team off the field.

1. France

They took four shots against Germany, and they basically stopped trying to do anything other than the rare counter-attack after going ahead, 1-0, in the 20th minute. As the folks at Stats Perform define it, the statistic PPDA represents “the number of opposition passes allowed outside of the pressing team’s own defensive third, divided by the number of defensive actions by the pressing team outside of their own defensive third”. The lower the number, the more aggressive your press. Portugal produced the lowest mark of the first round at 5.58. The highest? France, and it wasn’t close. They came in at a comatose  55.1, while the second highest number was 32.25 for Sweden, who, again, HAD THE SMALLEST SHARE OF RECORDED POSSESSION IN THE HISTORY OF THE EUROS. France’s lack of interest in getting the ball back didn’t resemble a game like, say, Burnley against Manchester City; no, it resembled Burnley’s entire team being suspended for match-fixing, their entire u-23 team getting the flu, and Burnley then being forced to use its u-17 team, and then multiple players on that team getting sent off in the first five minutes of the match. This just doesn’t happen in the modern game anymore.

Perhaps some of that credit should go to Germany, but, well, these are the defending World Cup champs, one of the more talented and balanced national-team rosters in the history of the sport. They scored early and then basically just dared Germany to score. It was a choice. And as was the case in Russia, it worked because the center-back depth on this squad means France’s u-21 team starts center backs who play for Liverpool and Bayern Munich, because they have two of the best defensive fullbacks in the world, because those four guys are protected by the best defensive midfielder in the world, because the other team still has to worry about Kylian Mbappe, and because they got a little lucky. They’re the only team in the tournament who could still win this tournament without ever getting out of second gear or playing anything better than their C-game. And until this approach — scoring just enough and then shutting things down -- stops working, they’re not moving out of the no. 1 spot.