Who history tells us will win UEFA EURO 2016

After successfully predicting the eventual UEFA Champions League winner back in January, our resident mystic has set out to discover which team will win UEFA EURO 2016. Although he insisted on wearing a cloak and elaborate headwear during calculations, this is more of a statistical survival of the fittest. So ...

Top your qualifying group 
Greece were shock winners in 2004, but many forget they topped a group including Spain and Ukraine to qualify. Indeed, since the advent of the group stage in 1968, no team have qualified as runners-up or worse and gone on to lift the trophy. Denmark did finish second in qualifying for 1992 but they did not book a place in Sweden – rather the onset of civil war in Yugoslavia brought a last-minute invitation. How they made the most of it.
Bad news for: Albania, Croatia, Iceland, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Wales, Poland, Switzerland, Turkey

• Qualifying standings
  

Keep your powder dry 
No side with the best attacking record during qualification have won a EURO, barring Czechoslovakia in 1976. Nor has boasting the best individual scorer proved a happier portent: only in 1988 did the team with the leading marksman in qualifying claim the crown. Even then, John Bosman played just a bit part in the Netherlands' triumph, making a solitary appearance in West Germany as fit-again Marco van Basten lit up the finals.
Bad news for: Poland, Romania

Solid at the back 
If it helps to save a few goals for when it really matters, at the back it is never too early to get your back line watertight. No side have ever conceded more than a goal a game in qualifying and won the title. But you must not show your complete hand too soon ... none of the teams boasting the best defences over the last six tournaments have been champions either.
Bad news for: Czech Republic, England, Spain

• Which clubs do the 552 players come from?
  

Been there, done that 
Since West Germany managed it in 1972, no side have won a EURO at the first attempt. Moreover, of the ten subsequent victors only one – Greece in 2004 – landed the prize without contesting at least the past four tournaments.
Bad news for: Iceland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Albania, Austria, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Switzerland

Coaching experience 
Eight of the last nine winning coaches played international football, the sole exception being Otto Rehhagel from perennial trend-buckers Greece in 2004. However, it seems memories of those playing days should be sufficiently faded and sepia-tinged because in 14 previous tournaments only one coach under the age of 49 has won the EURO. That was in 1964, when ex-Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid boss José Villalonga led Spain to glory aged 44.
Bad news for: Albania, Switzerland, England, Russia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Hungary, France, Wales, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Italy

Avoid the pot of death
Group stage seedings were introduced for EURO '96, with the top-ranked teams based on UEFA national coefficients in Pot 1 and the lowest-ranked sides in Pot 4. As testimony to the unpredictable nature of the competition, more teams have triumphed from Pots 3 and 4 combined than from Pots 1 and 2. And no side have ever emerged from Pot 2 to prevail.
Bad news for: Italy, Russia, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Ukraine

So, according to this highly scientific survey, the team that will lift the trophy at the Stade de France on 10 July will be ... Germany.

What do you reckon?

Will Germany add the EURO trophy to their World Cup one?©AFP/Getty Images