DORTMUND, Germany — There are nine nations that share a border with Germany. Eight of those nine qualified for Euro 2024. Six of those eight made it through to the Round of 16.
We all know about home field advantage in sports, but what about home-away-from-home advantage?
As Euro 2024 reaches its business end, it is well and truly following soccer’s tried and trusted trend, an unwritten rule which states that countries situated in close proximity to the host nation — and usually the host nation itself — will do well.
If you count Germany’s neighbors and add in Julian Nagelsmann’s young and enterprising German team, plus Turkey, which enjoys every game like it’s a home fixture due to this country’s massive Turkish community, then fully half of the Round of 16 field has some tight familiarity with their surrounds.
And it is clearly helping.
“They have lifted us,” Austria’s Marcel Sabitzertold reporters, when asked about the …