The 17th edition of the UEFA European Championship, the EURO 2024 Football tournament, kicks off on Friday evening with 24 teams vying for the title and the glory.
Played at ten stadia around Germany (Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Dortmund, Leipzig, Gelsenkirchen, Stuttgart and Dusseldorf), the tournament starts off with two weeks of group games before the knock-out phase commences. There are six group of four, with all teams playing three group games, with three points for a win and one point for a draw. The top two teams in each group will be joined by the four best 3rd-placed teams in the first know-out round, the "Last 16", the winners of which will then proceed to the quarter finals, then the semi-final and the final which will be played on Sunday 14 July, exactly one month after the opening game on Friday 14 June which sees the hosts, Germany, play Scotland in Munich, with the final being played in Berlin.
The holders, Italy, won the EURO 2020 final against England in Wembley, on penalties, in 2021 after the tournament was postponed a year due to the pandemic.
Here is a quick look at the 24 teams across the six groups:
Group A: Germany, Scotland, Hungary, Switzerland
Group B: Spain, Croatia, Italy, Albania
Group C: Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England
Group D: Netherlands, France, Poland, Austria
Group E: Ukraine, Slovakia, Belgium, Romania
Group F: Portugal, Czechia, Georgia, Turkey
Missing from this list are Sweden and Wales, neither of who qualified, and Russia who were barred from the qualifiers altogether in the aftermath of the country's invasion of Ukraine; also, having made their debut in EURO 2020, North Macedonia and Finland failed to qualify this time round.
Georgia (who defeated Luxembourg and Greece in the play-offs) is the only team making their European Championship finals debut.
Predictions
While predictions are notoriously tricky, both Germany and Switzerland look odds-on to qualify from Group A, with two out of Spain, Croatia and Italy in Group B; England should qualify from Group C, but with which other team is difficult to predict; both Netherlands and France should get through from Group D; and Belgium should qualify from Group E with the second place all to play for; in the last group, Group F, Portugal should quality but, again, with what other team is the big unknown. And then there are the four best 3rd-placed teams...
