Euro 2024 top scorer: How important is major tournament experience?

As we’ve entered the month of June, the 2024 renewal of the European Championships is now right around the corner.

In less than two weeks, the best national football teams that the continent of Europe has to offer will compete for the ultimate prize, and I for one, am terribly excited for things to get underway in Germany.

A big tournament such as Euro 2024 is always a fantastic time for football fans, but it’s also a great time for those who like a bet.

Just as we did when writing about Euro 2024 top scorer bets, we’re looking at the top scorer market once more, but this time, we’re delving into the historical data to see if there’s a correlation between top scoring at the tournament and previous major tournament experience.

How important is major tournament experience?

So, how important is major tournament experience when it comes to securing the prestigious individual accolade of top scorer? Have previous winners of the golden boot at the European Championships played at big tournaments previously? Have they thrived from a goal-scoring point of view?

As you’ll see below, while some recent top scorers have done the business following previous success, major tournament experience isn’t necessarily all that important when it comes to thriving in front of goal at the European Championships.

A big fan of the game, especially big tournaments, I can vividly remember each of the last five top scorers at the Euros, while I somewhat half remember Patrick Kluivert scoring at Euro 2000, though without looking it up, I wouldn’t have been able to say for sure that he scored three goals, and I certainly wouldn’t remember who those goals came against (I was eight), so I’ve had to do some digging.

Frankly, after diving in, I was a little surprised to learn that several of the last ten golden boot winners at the Euros had zero previous major tournament experience at international level.

In 1984, Michel Platini, generally accepted as one of the best players of his generation, before going on to be widely recognised as a prat thanks to some poor behaviour during his stint as president of UEFA, scored a staggering nine goals having scored three goals in total at two previous tournaments.

Following Platini, the 1988 and 1992 Euro golden boot winners were both playing in their first ever major international tournaments, while the same can be said for Milan Baros, who top scored at Euro 2004.

Baros was in fact the last Euro top scorer to secure the golden boot having not played in a major tournament before, with recent winners David Villa, Fernando Torres and Cristiano Ronaldo all playing (and scoring) in at least one big international competition before top scoring.

Previous golden boot winners at the Euros

The table below shows each of the last ten winners of the golden boot at the European Championships, how many goals they scored to land the prize, how many major tournaments they’d been involved in previously, and how they fared at those tournaments.

The table above shows that a handful of the last ten top scorers at the Euros have entered the tournament having both played and done relatively well at previous major tournaments.

However, it also shows that very few tore it up on the biggest stage prior to top scoring, so we probably shouldn’t be too surprised if the top scorer of Euro 2024 doesn’t go into the competition with bags of previous tournament goals to their name.

Of the last ten top scorers at the Euros, only the incredibly experienced and highly decorated Cristiano Ronaldo, who top scored at Euro 2020 (played 2021) and Fernando Torres, who also had stacks of big tournament experience prior to Euro 2012, have entered the competition which they top scored in with more than three previous major tournament goals to their name.

Top scorer candidates at Euro 2024 with major tournament experience

Now that we know how previous Euro top scorers have fared before scooping the golden boot, let’s take a look at the leading top scorer candidates with major tournament experience at Euro 2024.

As far as the top scorer betting goes ahead of Euro 2024, there is not a single player in the first ten without major tournament experience, even if the likes of Bellingham, Foden and Saka are relatively inexperienced compared to the other favourites.