EURO 2020 is heating up! — Here are some of the best football slots available today!
It took an extra year for EURO 2020 to get underway, but now it most certainly has.
For my native country of Finland, this was the very first time that we made our way into the tournament. While this was a monumental occasion for all the Finnish footie fans, we were still ultimately unable to get through to the playoffs. Then again, we still managed to beat Denmark in a nail-biting thriller (get well, Christian!), almost managed to tie with Russia, and even held our own against Belgium for 70 minutes or so… I think it is fair to say that the Finns showed everyone they belonged and could very well be back in one of the next instalments coming your way in 3 years or so!
Regardless of the unfortunate Finnish situation, there are still 16 countries jockeying for position to become the European champions. I like namedropping, so here are the teams that are still in the running: Wales, Denmark, Italy, Austria, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Belgium, Portugal, Croatia, Spain, France, Switzerland, England, Germany, Sweden and Ukraine. Any one of these countries could prevail, although, as of this moment, France, Belgium and England are being considered the top three contenders. It remains to be seen whether we will have any surprises on our hands in the next two weeks!
Celebrate EURO 2020 with high-quality slots
As everyone and their great grandmother know, EURO 2020 was originally supposed to take place in, well, 2020. Because of a certain pesky pandemic, however, the football fever had to be put on ice for another year. Ironically enough, some online casino game providers had already prepared for the tournament with some of their football-themed slots whose releases were, of course, set to coincide with EURO 2020. As a result, many of these slots were released a year early.
Anyway, it is now high time to quit yapping and start listing a few slots that allow you to squeeze all the juice out of the current football mania! Some of these slots might not be entirely about EURO 2020 specifically but the famed game of 90 minutes in general.
Football Champions Cup by NetEnt
Forget about football, Football Champions Cup is probably one of the best online casino slots that I have ever seen! This game was originally released in 2016 to coincide with EURO 2016 and was an instant hit with both me and probably millions of other casino players worldwide. In 2018, the game even received a minor facelift as NetEnt wanted to include the countries from the much larger FIFA World Cup 2018.
When you fire Football Champions Cup up, you first have to choose the team that you want to represent. Sadly, the current version of the game only has countries from the World Cup, which means countries like Finland are not in. This is especially sad because the free spins mode of the game actually features a phenomenal tournament format where 16 of the top countries go head-to-head in an effort to reach the finals. The way this works is that players will face other countries and goals will be scored when wilds hit the first two reels. The opponents, on the other hand, score when the wilds hit the fourth or the fifth reel.
At the end of the free spins mode, players can receive huge cash prizes if they indeed manage to win one of the three medals. It is all pretty spectacular stuff, and the separate penalty shootout bonus certainly does not disappoint either! There you have to alternate between scoring and blocking shots in order to drive up both your win and your multiplier!
The Champions by Pragmatic Play
Here is another seasonal favourite of mine. The best thing about The Champions by Pragmatic Play must be its ridiculously crisp soundtrack. Football themes are often good, but this game really takes things up a notch! If you have never tried this game, I advise you to do it even if it is only because you like great music!
The gaming mechanics for The Champions are quite stellar, too. There are essentially 15 symbols on the screen at one time, and your goal (no pun intended) as the player is to aim your crosshairs in the place where you think one of the football symbols is going to land. Then, if in fact, you are correct, you will score and get a 2x multiplier for the duration of the next 10 spins. And, if you manage to score again before the spins are up, your multiplier will rise even higher with the spin counter resetting back to 10 left. What a creative and intense way to capture the pressure of trying to score in football!
Much like the aforementioned NetEnt slot, Pragmatic Play’s The Champions also hosts a penalty shootout mode (pictured above), but it is not quite as complex or entertaining as the previous one.
Hot Shots 2 by iSoftBet
Hot Shots 2 is one of the slots that was initially meant to be released in conjunction with EURO 2020. This is a sequel to a popular iSoftBet favourite and approaches football in a more lighthearted way than the two other titles that I have already talked about.
Hot Shots 2 hosts wacky animal characters who are clearly all fans of the fine art that is football. In this game, one of the main features is the extremely lucrative football wild, which will spread left, right, above, and below, thus accounting for a total of 5 wilds. With a game such as this that has 243 ways to win, these wilds can really do some damage.
In addition to the basic game mode, Hot Shots 2 also has a free spins mode where you can increase your multiplier and your wins to new heights. By paying the so-called Ultra Bet, you can even trigger another type of free spins mode with 50 free spins and collectable stars that award extra cash prizes. Not too shabby!
Football Stars by Microgaming
Microgaming has created its fair share of sports slots over the years. One of the most notable ones, though, must be Football Stars, which was first released in 2014. The slot has since also gotten a revamp in the form of Football Stars Deluxe. Ice hockey fans, on the other hand, might be familiar with the extremely similar Breakaway slot featuring hockey players and items.
Football Stars is all about the Rolling Reels mechanic, which is basically the same as the Avalanche mechanic in Gonzo’s Quest and dozens of other slots. In essence, winning symbols are taken away from the reels and replaced with falling symbols. The especially fun thing here is the inclusion of tons of wilds, which make winning that much easier and more rewarding.
The most special thing about Football Star is its free spins mode. Here players will be able to gain extra multipliers on their win chains. The 10x multiplier is, of course, especially lucrative, although it does require quite a bit of work to get there.
Bicicleta by Yggdrasil
Bicicleta is another 2016 slot. To be perfectly honest, I never really liked this game because there were always so many other entertaining footie slots out there. To make things worse, Bicicleta functions very slowly as if Yggdrasil left a bunch of bugs in it. The ridiculously slow tempo and virtually no music definitely could have warranted a complete overhaul! Even so, Bicicleta does come with a couple of cool features.
One of the main features of Bicicleta comes in the form of a football trophy that sometimes lands on the last reel. Similarly to the games from the Vikings franchise (Vikings Go Wild, Vikings Go to Hell etc.), this random feature can give you either a coin win or access to free spins. The other way to trigger the free spins mode is, of course, to get three scatters on your screen. Again, in true Vikings fashion, some player symbols landing on the reels during free spins may turn into sticky wilds.
Conclusion
If you are going to keep watching EURO 2020, why not try one of these five slots to enhance your experience and get even further into the spirit of football?
May the best team win!
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