Euro 2008 Qualifying

Administrator — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 02:09:27 +0000

Even though Euro 2008 doesn’t start for nearly 600 days, most teams have already played four matches in group play for qualifying. Host countries Austria and Sweden qualify automatically, and the first two teams in each group will move onto the finals. With only 7 teams in each bracket (Group A has 8 teams), each country is nearing the half way point in qualifying, as each country must play the other countries in their group twice, resulting in 12 matches for everyone but Group A, who will have 14 matches each.

So far, the surprises are Spain, with only three points from three matches, Portugal, with 4 points from 3 matches, Sweden, who has won all four matches for 12 points total, Scotland, with 9 points from 4 matches and Serbia, with 10 points from 4 matches. You have to figure that most of the European powers will advance to Euro 2008, assuming they all find their form over the next year of qualifying. I only see Group B being a problem, with World Cup finalists France and Italy, along with in form Scotland and Ukraine, two of those teams will be left home watching. In the current FIFA rankings, Italy is #2, France #3, Ukraine #13 and Scotland #25. Amazing, tougher than most of the World Cup groups in 2006. Group E is not bad either, with England (#5), Croatia (#19), Russia (#33) and Isreal (#36).

The rest of the groups have one or two good teams, with the rest pretty easy, all things considered. If you are Portugal, and you can’t beat out Serbia, Finland, Belgium and Poland, you don’t deserve to be in the tournament any ways. At least they have two extra matches to figure out what is wrong.

Group of Death » Euro 2008

Euro 2008 Qualifying