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Griezmann odds-on for top Euro 2016 award

THE Euro 2016 winners won’t be known until Sunday but bookmakers have cried enough as far as the top tournament goalscorer is concerned and Golden Boot leader Antoine Griezmann also looks to have taken a decisive step towards being crowned player of the tournament.

Griezmann, scorer of both goals in France’s 2-0 semi-final win over Germany in Marseille on Thursday, is on six goals for the tournament, three clear of the pack with only the final to come against Portugal in St-Denis.

The Atletico Madrid hitman is only 1-100 to finish as the leading goalscorer and also just 8-15 to finish as Uefa’s player of the tournament with Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, a 4-1 shot, seen as the man most likely to break home hearts in that market.

France are 4-9 favourites to win the European Championship with Portugal at 15-8 and should the hosts be successful it would almost certainly bring home a bumper payday for punters who backed Les Bleus to win and Griezmann to be top goalscorer at 20-1 ante-post.

Usually the ante-post favourite winning the tournament would be considered a bad result for bookmakers but even Paddy Power who had been laying the market leaders at 100-30 before a ball was kicked are happy enough with the result.

“Both teams are a good result for us,” said odds-compiler Ed Quigley on the Racing Post football postcast and Coral’s Simon Clare added France would be “a great result having kept them on side all tournament.”

Bet365 are in a worse outright position with Steve Freeth explaining: “France will be costly and the same applies for the top goalscorer market assuming Griezmann wins. The France/Griezmann double touched a high of 50-1 before the Ireland game.

“Portugal have done us a number of favours in this tournament with five draws so far and then beating Wales in the semi-finals was also received but we’d like one more.”

However, bookmakers can have no overall complaints about the match results which were far from punter friendly and Clare said: “It's been a sensational tournament for turnover and in terms of results with plenty of shocks, draws and disappointing performances by England, providing a raft of bookie-friendly match outcomes over the four weeks.”

It certainly feels like a long time ago that the tournament opened up with seven of the first eight favourites winning - the one exception being Russia’s dramatic late equaliser against England.

Freeth spoke for most of the industry when he said: “We were doing fist pumps when England were pegged back in Marseille and even when we were doing our conkers at the start of the tournament - we dropped eight figures on the opening Sunday - the lack of goals and both teams scoring was a saving grace.”

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