UEFA EURO 2016: One Week (and a day) To Go

As incredible as it was to see Leicester City of all teams win the Premier League, that’s now the past (and one we’ll look fondly on in decades to come). Right now… it’s time to upscale. Yep, we’re going International.

It’s now June, which means the UEFA EURO 2016 Tournament is a little over a week away – with some slight differences to previous tournaments.

Whereas previously the tournament consisted of just 16 teams, this year it will feature 24: eight more spots means more unusual names appearing – including debuts from Albania, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Slovakia and Wales (the latter is debated however – in 1976, Wales did get to the final 8 teams but the “Euro” Tournament itself only consisted of the Semis and Finals that year).

As a result, two new groups (E and F) have been created. All six groups still contain four teams, and the top two from each automatically qualify for the knockout stages. As that only produces twelve teams though, the four best third-ranked sides will also qualify, in order to reach 16 to be able to hold the knockouts. From there, the tournament continues as normal: winners go on to the Quarter Finals, Semi Finals and Final.

The defending champions are Spain, having won the previous two tournaments – but will be looking to vastly improve from the last major tournament, the World Cup, where they were knocked out of the group stages as defending champions.

Current World Champions Germany will also be a major threat as usual for any tournament. Joining those two teams as the top ranks were England (3) – who have never won the Euros but came desperately close to a Finals match 20 years ago, and also mark 50 years since their single World Cup winning tournament, Portugal (4) – who have never won a major tournament but are always a threat with Christiano Ronaldo in the team, and Belgium (5) – dark horses, who have quietly climbed up the ranks through recent years and have come on incredibly strong.

So will it be a top team taking the honours? A dark horse like Belgium (who have reached the finals before) or someone completely unexpected? In a season like this year’s, it shouldn’t be forgotten just a mere 12 years ago Greece shocked everyone by beating Portugal in the finals to win the title – and while it’s been all Spain since, it might be difficult seeing them take a third consecutive championship (that said, they were the first team to win back-to-back Euro titles).

One other fun tidbit to keep an eye out for: In two of the last three Euro Tournaments, the final was contested by two teams who also opened their tournament playing each other (Greece & Portugal in 2004 and Spain & Italy in 2012). Could that happen again? If so, we’re hoping Russia do rather well too…

Ashley Redman
50 Years of Hurt… and he’s not anywhere near that old, either.