Thetownend.com

Feel free to relocate this thread but I thought I'd start off by saying, how much of a drama can we make out of this group?

GROUP A: Holland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Latvia, Iceland, Kazakhstan

GROUP B: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Belgium, Israel, Wales, Cyprus, Andorra

GROUP C: Spain, Ukraine, Slovakia, Belarus, FYR Macedonia, Luxembourg

GROUP D: Germany, Republic of Ireland, Poland, Scotland, Georgia, Gibraltar

GROUP E: England, Switzerland, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, San Marino

GROUP F: Greece, Hungary, Romania, Finland, Northern Ireland, Faroe Islands

GROUP G: Russia, Sweden, Austria, Montenegro, Moldova, Liechtenstein

GROUP H: Italy, Croatia, Norway, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Malta

GROUP I: Portugal, Denmark, Serbia, Armenia, Albania

Fuck me even Wales should qualify

Where is it being held?

Although TBH I wouldn't cross the road to watch England

Everywhere apparently  :D

Belgium and Bosnia will walk that group.

Should but wont.
Porridge wogs wont get thru either.
England should walk that though can see the FA struggling to fill Wembley with some of those fixtures

Switzerland and San Marino again? Blimey. Shake the balls before you draw them...

...or bin off this stupid seeding crap.
All teams in the pot, draw them.

Cos those insidious charlatans at UEFA don't want a level playing field

Seeding isn't the issue, it's the expanding of the tournament itself which annoys me the most.

Finals are in France, then for Euro 2020 it's 'everywhere in Europe' or whatever Platini is planning!

Good draw for England, don't see any reason why they won't qualify - will probably join England fans club and get to some of those away games ahead of France 2016!

This. Just under half the teams will qualify, with the French playing 'friendlies' in Group I.

All the big nations should qualify by the half way stage, meaning there could be a lot of meaningless games.

I stand corrected then,I thought this next one was everywhere.

I reckon It'd be a nice change for a tournament to have teams playing their 'home' games actually at home. It'd be quite interesting I think.

germany/poland will  be tasty

:no:
How the hell is Israel in this competition!!!!!!!!!!?????????????
I am going to start a petition to have them thrown out - the Zionists at least

Can anyone explain how they are part of Europe?

TBF they can hardly be paired with the African or Asian teams as they would at best be boycotted and the worst doesn't bear thinking about

The expansion of the tournament is great news. Much prefer the 24 team format of Mexico 86 and Italia 90, as it makes for much more interesting football in the first round. Teams aren't do scared to lose and you always have a chance of going through to next round or being sent home after the third match of round 1.

And before anyone gets wrong idea I'm not talking from a Scotland perspective, as England in 86 and 90 were involved in very tight group stages, as we were too.

However on Scotland, I'd take a 3rd place play off spot right now, but if I were to bet on it, 4th place for us and another summer off.

Off topic but Italia '90 hardly went down in history as a stonking competition though, did it? England's post-group matches have given it a misleading gloss.

There was absolutely no need to for a 24 team competition for the Euros, in my opinion. Platini needs to use the whole of Europe to host because there's arguably only a handful of nations who could realistic afford to host such a sized tournament.

The knockout phases of Italia 90 were poor, but that's not the issue.  The first round was good and like I say loads of countries could have still qualified for the next round during their last group match.

Problem with the 32 team format (and 16 team format) is too many dead rubbers going into the 3rd match. Makes for poor viewing.

Europe has had eyes on the Holy Lands since the Crusades of the 12th Century, established Outremer, the Crusader statelets of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch....bunged in with the County of Edessa and the Christian State of Armenia, they formed a very useful European bulwark, against the hordes of Islam.  Saladin, however had other ideas and the Ottomans finished off the Armenians.

Still fail to see the point of france being in a group when already qualified

Just that french cunt Platini making it up as he goes along, tosser

But when considering the depth in Europe, surley a 24 team European Championships would be as bloated and full of dead rubbers than the 32 team World Cup is?

Sorry, but a 24 EC is too big, considering there is only 54 nations.

The thing with France getting friendlies, well it is a joke, but UEFA are making the whole tournament into a joke. This is the first time that the qualifiers are in a central TV pot, like the CL, where TV companies have got to buy the rights to UEFA instead of the relevant countries FA, but due to the fact that UEFA have had to compensate different countries, and due to the fact TV companies are not really interested in the qualifiers as a number of the games will be 'dead rubbers', UEFA have reportedly made big losses in the TV rights, which they've had to cover themselves.

I vaguely read something about the qualifiers having to be rammed into a very narrow time scale...didn't bother reading the whole article, as just took it as a given that UEFA are making a pig's ear of what used to be a decent tournament.

Why not, they are in Eurovision...  ;)

Another good thing about a 24 team tournament is it'll mean for the bigger nations they'll have more chance to experiment with team selection, but in competitive matches, as the pressure of having to finish top won't be there.

Should mean even stronger European world cup showings. Great move by Uefa.

Is anyone else not worried about the stupidly easy group that England has, considering they nearly cocked up their group in World Cup 2010?

I wouldn't mind hopping over to France 2016 and possibly watch some games. More chance of a ticket especially with the extended tournament.

Switzerland are 6th in the world apparently.

Must be all that Nazi gold, useful for bribing officials that stuff.

Your lot might even qualify ;)

Pre-qualifying draw I'd have agreed, however after I don't think it'll happen.  Anyway we're in a fantastic drinking group, so the TA will enjoy themselves.

On a serious point I like the fact the bigger teams will pretty much qualify from now on, with a selection of smaller nations joining them, think it'll make for better tournaments.  Would be dead against further expansion though.

When are Uefa going to announce the host cities for the next tournament? Interested to see if they go for the cash - Wembley, Nou Camp, San Siro, Allianz, Amsterdam Arena etc, or are they going to go for the likes of Hampden, Aviva, Millenium, Prague, Budapest, Copenhagen etc.