Football Club Tickets

After the last night's playoff games, the list of the 16 teams that are going to compete on next year’s European championship in Poland and Ukraine has been completed. There haven’t been much surprises and this EURO is going to be one of the strongest ever with no team having the status of an outsider. The only country that is set to make a debut on the European championship is the hosts Ukraine. Let’s take a look back at the group and see how the teams qualified to the EURO 2012.
Two countries that impressed this qualification round are Spain and Germany, two teams that faced each other in the 2008 final, with Spain going victorious at the end. The recorded the maximum amount of points with all wins. All of the other favorites did not have big problems during the last year and their qualification didn’t come into question at any time. A little surprise only came in group C, where last year’s World cup participants Serbia and Slovenia could not overpass minnows Estonia, who reached the playoff games but eventually lost to Ireland. Sweden qualified as the best second placed team ahead of Portugal. After the round-up was finished the rest of the four participants were to be decided after playoff. After 8 games the teams who progressed to the EURO were Portugal (6-2 on aggregate vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina), Republic of Ireland (5-1 vs. Estonia), Croatia (3-0 vs. Turkey) and Czech Republic (3-0 vs. Montenegro). Qualifications best goalscorer was the Dutch international Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, who scored 12 goals, four goals ahead of MiroslavKlose.
On 2 December the groups for the tournament are going to be drawn in Kiev. 16 teams are divided in 4 pots based on their current UEFA ranking. As I previously mentioned, all of the best teams qualified for the championship so when can have more than one “Group of death”. Hosts, Poland and Ukraine, are going to be placed in Pot 1 along with defending champions Spain and Netherlands. In pot 2 are also great teams in the likes of Italy, Germany England and Russia. Pot 3 features Portugal, Sweden, Croatian and Greece. Pot 4, group that supposed to feat the “weakest” teams, contains France, Ireland, Denmark and Czech Republic.
Germany holds several records for the upcoming tournament. They are the most successful team, having won the European championship 3 times and being runners-up on also 3 occasions. They also hold the record of number of times participated in this tournament. The EURO 2012 is going to be their 10th appearance.
Based on their current form, Germany and Spain are the biggest favorites to win the tournament next year. After last year’s third place finish in South Africa, The Elfhas a great team combined with young forces and experience. Led by Phillip Lahm, MiroslavKlose joined with new superstars like MesutOzil, Mario Goetze and Manuel Neuer Germany can play a big role in this summer’s competition. However, the defending champions Spain are still the first favorites for the tournament. Basically the same team that won the European championship in 2008, is still amazing the football fans around the globe. Xavi, Iniesta, CarlesPuyol, David Villa and many many other great players still have what it takes to become champions once more.
This is probably going to be the most memorable European championships ever, as already most of the tickets are sold out. All we have to do is wait to see who will face each other in Kiev on 1 July 2012.