Germany

With the tactical landscape of European football taking a noticeable shift in recent seasons, it's not hard to see German national team coach Julian Nagelsmann's fingerprints on the new meta that has emerged. During his time working in the club game, Nagelsmann married together the more considered positional approach of Pep Guardiola with a more Germanic-inclined style of direct play, and that is exactly what we can expect to see from this Germany side: a hybrid philosophy of possession control layered with moments of more direct attacking.

This manifests in a positionally fluid front four who operate using the principle of minimum width: holding enough width as is necessary, but allowing closer proximity between the players. Until he got injured, it was Serge Gnabry making a lot of the deep forward runs with Kai Havertz, Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz the supporting cast. Gnabry's replacement, Lennart Karl, also withdrew injured, and so it falls to Leroy Sané to fill in for this tournament. Nagelsmann also seems to prefer a midfield pairing of Aleksandar Pavlović and Felix Nmecha. Ironically, Pavlović's club partner Leon Goretzka has fallen out of favour, is no longer a starter at Bayern Munich and is set to find a new club next season; Nmecha is better suited to help cover for Pavlović defensively.