Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Here we go, the draw for Euro 2016 is coming up.

Six groups of four, with England seeded. On paper, Austria, Hungary, and Albania looks like a good group, though the odds say we'll get one of ROI, Wales or NI.

Group A - France, Albania, Romania, Switzerland

Group B - England, Wales, Slovakia, Russia

Group C - Germany, N Ireland, Poland, Ukraine

Group D - Spain, Turkey, Czech Republic, Croatia

Group E - Belgium, ROI, Sweden, Italy (group of death?)

Group F - Portugal, Iceland, Hungary, Austria

The two Irish teams have it tough, whilst England will be reasonably happy.

We should reach the last 16 from that group and then lose to Italy, Germany or whoever in the first KO round.

Have England been knocked out yet?

If we win the group, our last 16 match will be against one of the third placed sides from groups A, C and D. So could yet be a game against N Ireland, following the group game against Wales.

Durhamfootman wrote:Have England been knocked out yet?

No but Jamie Vardy is poised to win the golden boot, you heard it here first

st_brendy wrote:If we win the group, our last 16 match will be against one of the third placed sides from groups A, C and D. So could yet be a game against N Ireland, following the group game against Wales.

Following it the whole way through, if we win the group then our path will look something like this:

R16: Romania/Albania/Poland/Ukraine/NI/Czech/Turkey
QF: Portugal/Belgium/Italy
SF: Spain
F: Germany/France

If we come second, it will look something like this:

R16: Iceland/Austria
QF: France
SF: Germany
F: Spain

If we come third (and are one of the top four 3rd place sides), then there are two possible paths:

R16: Spain
QF: Switzerland/Poland/Ukraine
SF: Portugal/Belgium/Italy
F: Germany/France

or

R16: Germany
QF: Belgium/Italy
SF: France
F: Spain

Qualification should be a formality, even for us, and it looks like it doesn't really matter if we finish first your second.

Golly.... even some third placed teams out of four can qualify?

perhaps that was one of the concessions Cameron has secured from the EU... to give us a faint hope of making the KO's?

Durhamfootman wrote:Golly.... even some third placed teams out of four can qualify?

perhaps that was one of the concessions Cameron has secured from the EU... to give us a faint hope of making the KO's?

Yup, an extra knock out round, previously it went from 16 to 8, this time it's 24 to 16.

Apparently there's also a place in the first knock out round for the nation with the least amount of non environmentally friendly emissions in 2016.

No easy groups really. I dont think England will have an easy time. Russia are a compact side, and beat Sweden and Portugal recently. Slovakia beat Spain in the group stages and won 10 matches in a row, a real banana skin they could be. Wales were recently ranked in the top 5 of the world, and beat Belgium in qualification away.

All teams in the group are capable of beating England.

budgetmeansbudget wrote:

Durhamfootman wrote:Golly.... even some third placed teams out of four can qualify?

perhaps that was one of the concessions Cameron has secured from the EU... to give us a faint hope of making the KO's?

Yup, an extra knock out round, previously it went from 16 to 8, this time it's 24 to 16.

Apparently there's also a place in the first knock out round for the nation with the least amount of non environmentally friendly emissions in 2016.

Is there a berth for the country that takes the least amount of Syrian refugees, because then we really would have a chance of making the ko rounds?

One tie break we would win would be the number of players who play in their own nations football league.

how about the international team with the most number of players who can't get a regular game for their own domestic club?