PARIS, FRANCE – JUNE 21: Aaron Hughes of Northern Ireland after the UEFA EURO 2016 Group C match between Northern Ireland and Germany at Parc des Princes on June 21, 2016 in Paris, France. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

To say that the Euros has been a bit of a strange tournament would be a bit of an understatement. In truth, it has been a prognosticator’s nightmare. If teams had an established game plan prior to kick off only a few short weeks ago, they must have certainly been shredded in utter frustration.

Regardless, the Euros has been a mix of shock results, shock stories, and surprising trends. The question is, in such an odd and surprising tournament, which surprises are the biggest?

The strangest outcome from the group stages is that there is currently no clear favorite in the Euros. By this point in the competition, one team usually has emerged as the most likely to win the tournament. Prior to the Euros, it looked like either Germany or France would be the team to take on that mantle. Both teams were stacked for talent. For France, it’s a new, exceedingly talented group of players on their home turf. For Germany, it’s a young team that won the last World Cup. Neither team hardly set the world alight, with France only scoring four goals and Germany winning the group on goal differential alone.

So here we are, about to enter into the knockout stages and it’s near impossible to guess who is going to win the Euros. Based on the brackets, Wales might have the best shot to make it to the final, but after the group stages, you wouldn’t feel comfortable putting put money on that either. The strange thing is, even the teams that looked like favorites early in the tournament have floundered. Spain was an early front-runner with their dominance in the Czech Republic game and 3-0 victory over Turkey. They lost to Croatia, however, which placed them second in their group. Italy was in the same boat, beating their biggest rivals of the group, Belgium, as well as Sweden, but lost to Ireland. They still won their group, but were fairly poor.

LYON, FRANCE - JUNE 22: Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal reacts during the UEFA EURO 2016 Group F match between Hungary and Portugal at Stade des Lumieres on June 22, 2016 in Lyon, France.  (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
LYON, FRANCE – JUNE 22: Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal reacts during the UEFA EURO 2016 Group F match between Hungary and Portugal at Stade des Lumieres on June 22, 2016 in Lyon, France. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

A big factor in the lack of front-runners is that nearly all of the “big-name players” have struggled in this tournament. This is another big surprise. Until Portugal’s last game, Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t have a goal, despite taking more shots than eight countries. He even missed a penalty. Look at Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He has been lauded as one of the best strikers in the world, yet he failed to record even a single goal before Sweden crashed out of the Euros. Not even the Germans can boast a standout player, save for Toni Kroos in midfield, who has been doing a great job of controlling games. Instead, it is players such as Ivan Perišić, Alvaro Morata and Dimitri Payet who have been getting the headlines, and they have a combined seven goals between them. The only top player who can be argued as performing for his country is Gareth Bale and in truth, the greatest factor in their winning of the group was Wales’ performance as a team.

When you have teams underperforming and star players not showing up for the tournament, you get low-scoring games. It’s a simple equation, but it has been shocking just how few goals have been scored in the Euros. After 36 games, the competing countries have only scored 69 goals. That is an astonishingly low goals per game ratio (1.92 gpg). In fact, it is the lowest goals per game ratio since 1992, which was the lowest ever. It’s so low, in fact, that you have to look all the way back to when there were only 12 games total among just eight teams in the group stages to find that low of a ratio. The previous five tournaments all came in at above 2.25 goals per game and averaged at 2.51 goals per game, which is nearly a full extra goal per game.

On the subject of goals, one of the most prevalent talking points from the Euros has been the abundance of late goals. Of the 69 goals that were scored in the group stages, nearly 30 percent were scored in the final 15 minutes of the game. Even more surprising is that seven of those goals were scored in stoppage time. If we extend that even further, nearly 45 percent of the goals scored have been in the final 30 minutes of the game. For one team to excel in scoring late, game-clinching is nothing new, but for every team to fall into this pattern is strange, to say the least.

LENS, FRANCE - JUNE 16: Daniel Sturridge of England and Marcus Rashford of England celebrate England's second goal during the UEFA EURO 2016 Group B match between England and Wales at Stade Bollaert-Delelis on June 16, 2016 in Lens, France.  (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
LENS, FRANCE – JUNE 16: Daniel Sturridge of England and Marcus Rashford of England celebrate England’s second goal during the UEFA EURO 2016 Group B match between England and Wales at Stade Bollaert-Delelis on June 16, 2016 in Lens, France. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

With every tournament, you are always going to get surprises. It’s a part of the beautiful game that many of us love the most. Shock results are always a real possibility. Perhaps the greatest surprise of the Euros, though, is that all of the surprises above are caused by the same root issue: the expansion of the tournament to 24 teams. At the time, it sounded like a great idea. Get more teams involved, make it a more inclusive tournament. It’s called the Euros, after all. Why not get as many teams in Europe involved as possible? What this has led to, however, is a proliferation of cautious, defensive soccer.

Why is that the case, though? Well, mathematically speaking, a team could draw all three of its matches in the group stage, maintaining a zero goal differential, and advance to the knockout rounds. In fact, it happened to Portugal, who drew all three matches with a 4-4 differential. At the end of the day, three points was all you needed to advance, as long as you didn’t have a negative goal differential. Northern Ireland did the same with a win and two losses with a 2-2 differential.

This unintended consequence led to the low-scoring games, a lack of standout teams, and star players failing to perform. Many of the teams, especially the teams that we wouldn’t consider favorites to advance to the knockout rounds, went into matches willing to “park the bus” to see what happened. This has also led to the glut of late goals. Early in the match, many teams were focused on playing an organized, defensive game. But as the game wore on, players got tired and a little less focused. That’s how you get late, shock goals.

That is the biggest shock of this tournament, that an idea which seemed inclusive turned out to lead to boring, overly defensive soccer. It will be interesting to see how the teams that were set up to play like that fare. Now that we are in the knockout rounds, three draws won’t be enough to win it. We could be in for a few more surprises in Euro 2016.