Uefa Euro 2020 qualifying began on Wednesday with 55 countries competing for 20 spaces at the tournament next year. The European championship will look more different to the previous version of the tournament. The 2020 edition will be played out across the Europe continent with games in 12countries.Matches will be held across Glasgow, Baku, London, Copenhagen, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Munich, Budapest, Bilbao, st Petersburg, Dublin and Rome. The opening match will be played at the Stadio olimpico in Rome.
There are 10 qualifying groups of 5 and 6 teams. The top two countries from each group automatically goes through to the next round. There will be no playoffs after these qualifying groups for third place. Although we have teams that are guaranteed of playoffs place at least if they fail to progress from group stages. This are the teams that participated in Uefa nations league.
League A:Portugal, England, Switzerland, Netherlands.
League B:Ukraine, Denmark, Bosnia Herzegovina, Sweden
League C:Finland, Norway, Scotland, Serbia
League D:Georgia, Belarus, Macedonia, Kosovo
Group A:England, Czech Republic,Bulgaria, Montenegro, Kosovo
In this group England are the top seeded having gotten a favourable draw.So they are being rooted to finish top with Czech Republic in second position. England manager, Gareth Southgate said, “the biggest issue for us in preparing for those games, will be getting the right mentality and dealing with the away atmosphere.”
GROUP B:Portugal, Ukraine, Serbia, Lithuania, Luxembourg.
Portugal are the favourites to top the group.They are really banking on 5 times Ballon d’or winner CR7,Bruno Fernande’s, Joao Felix to help them progress to the next round. The Juventus Star is still on form despite his current age and that makes Portugal coach believe he is the right man to lead them to another European championship title after uefa nations league triumph against Netherlands in the finals this year.
GROUP C:Netherlands, Germany,Northern Ireland, Estonia, Belarus
Germany came into qualifying on a low note after going out of the group stages at the world cup and getting relegated in the nations league. But coach Joachim Low believes they can finish ahead of Netherlands in this group.
GROUP H:France, Iceland, Turkey, Albania, Moldova, Andorra
World champions are not only the favourites to qualify in this group but also to win Euro 2020.With the current crop of players they have and their style of play under Didier Deschamps. Although they lost their most recent competitive game 2-0 to Netherlands in the uefa nations league.They still remain the favourites to progress as number one in this group.
According to Simon Gleave,head of sports analysis, Gracenote said.”The top eight nations in Europe;France, Belgium, Spain, England, Netherlands, Portugal, Germany and Croatia all have more than 80 percent chance of qualifying for Euro 2020.Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Russia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Poland, Serbia, Czech Republic,Wales, Turkey and Sweden are most likely to complete the 20 direct qualifiers for Euro 2020 tournament. We will keep on uprating you on the highlights and other fixtures here.
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