Before the biggest football feast in Europe, the portal "EuroFootball" and the betting company "Tonybet" offered to participate in the "Euro 2016 Madness" game and win one million euros.
Fans were invited to guess the outcomes of the European Championship knockout matches, place 3 euros and compete for an impressive prize.
Famous football personalities helped the game participants make decisions, arranging the pairs of the knockout matches.
The insights for the semi-final were presented by the "15min" sports journalist Marius Bagdonas.
Portugal - Wales
In this championship, Portugal is not a team typical for promoting their game, as it was during the times of Luis Figo, Manuel Rui Costa, Abel Xavier, or Nuno Gomes. Now their main strength is defense. In the tournament, the Portuguese did not win a single match in regular time, and it will be quite challenging for them to play against Wales.
The changed Portuguese game and the firm hand of coach Santos can be seen from a simple fact - they are one of the most committing teams and in this indicator, they are even behind the already eliminated Italians. Defense is the main weapon of this team and it will be very interesting to see how they manage to stop a very strong individual player Gareth Bale.
Wales has already proven that they can create an opportunity to score out of nowhere. We can remember the match against England when J. Hart missed a goal from about 30 meters.
Both G. Bale and C. Ronaldo most often threatened the opponents' goals. Portugal will not lack motivation, as Ronaldo will become the first player in the history of the European Championships to play in the tournament's semi-final for the third time.
In this tournament, Santos' students have not won yet, and if I had to make a prediction, I would guess that they will not this time either. Although Wales will play without one of their leaders Aaron Ramsey, the most important task for the Portuguese coach in this match will be defense. If the match goes into a penalty shootout, I would say that the Portuguese have slightly more chances. In the European Championships, they have participated in four penalty shootouts and won three times. Wales does not have such experience, and this could be a quite important factor.
Germany - France
It is very likely that the Germans have already overcome the highest barrier and the toughest opponent in this championship. I did not believe that Joachim Low's students would beat the Italians and break this curse. They somehow managed, even after missing so many penalty shots, to advance to the semi-final. I think it might be a bit easier for them there.
However, France is a comfortable team for the Germans to face. Furthermore, the match against Iceland showed that Didier Deschamps' students have quite a few problems in defense. Although, in the match, France will be able to count on a very important defensive player Kante and the Germans will not have Sami Khedira, Mario Gomez, and Mats Hummels, I believe that the potential of the world champions is higher. A lot will depend on midfielder Toni Kroos, who is the player with the most passes in the tournament.
An interesting fact is that they will meet the team that scored the most goals and conceded the least accurate shots. If I had to choose, I would bet on the German defense. Before the championship, I predicted the presence of these teams in the semi-final and as we can see, they are both here. For the French, the Germans are the most unfavorable opponent out of all possible. In the 1982 and 1986 World Cup semi-finals, two years later the quarter-final of the World Championships took place - all of these matches ended with German victories. I believe it will be the same this time - Germany should advance to the final.
