If Euro 2024 was based on forestland instead of football, which country would finish on top?

That's the question put forth by Timbersource, a UK-based online hardwood and softwood merchant. So with the UEFA European Football Championship (Euro 2024) set to run June 14 through July 14, here's how Timbersource projected the brackets in a forestland showdown would break out.

Timbersource gathered data from Worldometre along with statistics from each nation and created a table showing the different groups and their respective forest sizes. The company then analyzed the potential draws, then mapping out to determine the winners of each round.

Timbersource found, "This year's ‘group of death’ was group D with big hitters including France, Austria, and Poland. France, whilst being the second biggest team in terms of forest size, only managed to get third place given the nature of the draw.

"The bracket and routes to the final were drawn from the official Uefa Euros bracket, we then cross-referenced this with the forestland data to find the eventual winner in Spain." 

Spain, with 18.49 million hectares of forestland, beats out France (17.22 million hectares), with Turkey (11.92 million hectares) coming in third. (Click here to see the full dataset.)

"Whilst Russia tops the list with over 800 million hectares but due to the current situation in the Ukraine they have been banned from participation."

Timbersource said it will update the bracket over the course of the tournament to see how well its Forestland Euros match against the actual Euros.

Benefits of forestland and forestry include helping to mitigate climate change through the significant removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release of oxygen into the air. Sustainably harvested timber is used in the manufacture of furniture, cabinetry, casegoods and other products.