The groups for the summer 2024 European Football Championship have been drawn.
The men’s European football championships will be held in Germany from June 14 to July 14, 2024. There are 24 teams and 10 arenas.
The groups for the European Championships were drawn on Saturday evening in Hamburg, at the Elbphilharmonie concert hall. Four teams were drawn into each group, so there are six groups.
Finland still has a chance to qualify for the European Championship in March through the further qualification for the European Championship. In the further qualifying, Finland will first face away Wales. If the Huuhkajat win, Finland will face the winner of the match between Poland and Estonia on their home field. The winner of that qualifying final goes to Germany.
Based on their qualifying success, the countries were divided into four baskets, from each of which one team was selected per group.
1st basket: Germany (host), Portugal, France, Spain, Belgium, England
2nd basket: Hungary, Turkey, Romania, Denmark, Albania, Austria
3rd basket: Holland, Scotland, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic
4th basket: Italy, Serbia, Switzerland, winner of the A-path of the further qualification, winner of the B-path of the further qualification, winner of the C-path of the further qualification
The winner of the A-path of the further qualification, i.e. possibly Finland, was drawn into a really kinky group. The Netherlands, Austria and France would be coming up against it. When looking at the Fifa ranking and taking only European countries, France is number one, Holland is fourth and Austria is 13th. Finland’s ranking is 28th.
Another true group of death is Group B, when Spain (European ranking 6), reigning European champions Italy (7) and Croatia (8) were drawn in the same group. The group is completed by Albania (30), who surprised and won their own qualifying group before the Czech Republic and Poland.
The EC tournament starts on June 14 with the match between the host Germany and Scotland in the A group.
The best 16 from the 24 groups qualify for the quarterfinals. The best two from each initial group and the four best third groups from the six groups can therefore continue. Only the jumbos of the groups and the two weakest group threes remain without a playoff match.
On Saturday, more information was also given about the always interesting official race song. According to Uefa, Italian electronic music production group Meduza, US band OneRepublic and German pop icon Kim Petras join forces. The race song will be published in the spring of 2024.
The group also makes other audio tapes for the tournament, such as the music to which the players march onto the field before matches.