Euro 2024: The Dirtiest Players At The Euros

Germany is about to host the 17th chapter of the European Championships in a month-long festival of football. 

England are among the favourites on the UK betting sites despite losing their final warm-up game to Iceland at Wembley on Friday night. 

The tournament offers plenty of betting markets from the opening game between hosts Germany and Scotland on Friday, to the final in Berlin on Sunday, July 14. 

Card betting remains one of the most popular markets on football betting sites.

We have highlighted the players and teams likely to attract the most attention from referees throughout the tournament.

Onana Tops The Bad Boy Table In Qualifying  

Of all the players involved in Euro 2024, Belgium's Amadou Onana enters as the most ill-disciplined player in the qualifiers, based on the cards he was shown and the number of fouls he committed.

The Everton midfielder featured in four of his country's eight qualifiers, and he managed to pick up an index score of 42. 

Onana was suspended for Belgium's final two qualifiers after his dismissal for picking up two yellow cards in his country's 3-2 win at Austria, but the Red Devils still finished top of Group F.

Onana's 35 booking points and the seven fouls he committed gave the midfielder a total of 42 points. His overall score of 10.5 leads the way and he has history of being booked in big tournaments.

Belgium flopped at the last major tournament, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Onana was booked in his country's opening two games and was suspended for their goalless draw with Croatia which eliminated them from the tournament at the group stage. 

Don't be surprised if Onana adds to his collection of cautions in Germany.

Onana is one of four Premier League stars listed in the top 10 dirtiest players in the Euro qualifiers. Bournemouth's Milos Kerkez is fifth on the list with a score of 6.43. 

He too was sent off for Hungary in their qualifying campaign that saw them finish four points clear of Serbia in Group G. The defender managed to stay on the right side of referees for the first 507 minutes of the qualifiers he played in. 

But two yellow cards in 13 minutes of Hungary's 2-2 draw at Bulgaria in their penultimate game, meant the Cherries defender was suspended for their final qualifier. 

Kerkez, who committed 10 fouls in his seven qualifiers, also saw red for Bournemouth in their 1-0 win at Wolves on April 24.

Brentford's Christian Norgaard is a key player for Denmark and is one of the reasons why the Danes finished top of Group H, pipping Slovenia to top spot on goal difference. 

Norgaard's combative nature means he is on first name terms with referees. The midfielder started Denmark's qualifying campaign with a booking in 3-1 win over Finland in Copenhagen. Norgaard finished the campaign with three yellows and seven fouls in 390 minutes of action.

Fulham's Joao Palhinha completes the Premier League bad boys at Euro 2024. The combative midfielder loves a yellow card, and he ended the 2023/24 season with a total of 12 bookings for his club.

And during Portugal's qualifiers, his name was taken twice and his 17 fouls ranked joint seventh most among all players involved in the qualifiers.

Turkey Fall Foul Of The Laws Too Often

Turkey have been handed one of the tougher groups at Euro 2024 with Portugal, the Czech Republic and Georgia all battling to reach the knockout stage.

Vincenzo Montella's side qualified as group winners ahead of Croatia and Wales in their qualifying campaign.

No team taking part in Euro 2024 racked up more yellow cards than the Turks, who picked up 27 cautions and committed 90 fouls in their eight qualifiers.

Their score of 45.0 leads all the nations taking part in this summer's tournament in Germany. 

Hungary is next on the naughty list. The Hungarians are the only nation to have had two players sent off in their qualifiers. 

Zsolt Kalmar, who hasn't been selected for Euro 2024, joined Kerkez in seeing red for Marco Rossi's side. They also had 18 yellow cards, which includes the two yellows both Kalmar and Kerkez received which led to their dismissals.

Group F promises to be a feisty affair with Georgia joining Turkey. Georgia are the third dirtiest team entering the Euros after picking up 27 yellow cards and one red in their 10 qualifiers.

Can Fair Play Help Portugal To Glory? 

A total of 54 nations set off on a journey to qualify for Euro 2024, but only 24 countries will feature. Of those 54 teams, Portugal navigated their way through their qualifiers with the minimum of fuss, winning Group J with 10 wins from 10 games.

Portugal, who are fourth favourites on betting apps, were the only team to manage a 100 per cent record and they were also the most disciplined country in qualifiers. 

Portugal picked up just 11 yellow cards in their 10 qualifiers, and they conceded just 92 fouls. Cristiano Ronaldo, who is the European Championship's all-time leading scorer with 14 goals, picked up three of his country's cautions in qualifiers.

Slovenia were the second most disciplined nation in the qualifiers, averaging just one yellow card and 11.3 fouls in their 10 games. 

Will they be on their best behaviour when they face England, Denmark and Serbia in their Group C games?

Croatia, who have never got past the quarter-finals at the Euros, complete the top three cleanest teams in qualifiers for Euro 2024.

Methodology

To determine who the dirtiest players in the Euro qualifiers, we analysed three key statistics on every player who reached our threshold ahead of Euro 2024 in Germany. 

We gathered data for the number of qualifiers they featured in, how many cards they were shown, what colour the cards were and how many fouls they committed in those qualifiers. 

To be eligible for consideration, players had to have been shown at least one card in qualifying and have appeared in at least 50 per cent of their country’s Euro qualifiers.

The three metrics used to tally index scores were yellow cards, red cards and fouls committed and they were totaled using a points system similar to that used by bookmakers on card betting markets – whereby 10 points were ‘awarded’ for each yellow card, 25 points for each red card and one point for every foul. 

Players who were sent off after receiving two yellow cards received 35 points. Each individual total was then divided by the number of games played to give an overall score.

Team scores are calculated as an average of the 24 nations participating in Euro 2024.

* As Germany is the host nation, and thus did not need to qualify for the tournament, we collected their data from their last eight friendlies against European opposition from March 2023 to March 2024.