Euro 2016 Qualifiers

[reza]

For the first time 24 teams qualify for the tournament itself in France 10 June 10 to July 10 2016. 24 teams is way too many in my opinion.

Because of 24 team format the group winners, runners up, and the best third placed team get in directly. The eight remaining third placed teams will have play offs. 9 groups of 6 or 5 teams.



The qualifiers start today with:
Georgia ? - ? Ireland
Germany ? - ? Scotland
Gibraltar ? - ? Poland
Hungary ? - ? N.Ireland
Faroe Islands ? - ? Finland
Greece ? - ? Romania
Denmark ? - ? Armenia
Portugal ? - ? Albania

[Mystik]

How exactly will a 24 team tournament work? How many teams qualify to the knockout stages..and what prompted this change anyway?

[xudong]

24 could work. The WC used to have 24 teams, remember?

Everyone is invited to the party! Now 24, next it will be 32. And 64! Each country/association will be allowed to have three teams enter. Imagine Italy 1 fighting off Italy 2 for qualification.

[reza]

The format of the final itself

To accommodate the expansion from a 16 team finals tournament to 24 teams, the format will be changed from that used in 2012 with the addition of two extra groups in the group stage, and an extra round in the knockout stages. The six groups (A to F) would still contain four teams each, with the top two from each group still going through to the knockout stage. In the new format however, the four best third-ranked sides would also progress, leaving 16 teams going into the new round of 16 knockout stage, ahead of the usual quarter-finals, semi-finals and final, and only 8 teams going out at the group stage

[xudong]

It is exactly the same as the WC format then when there were 24 teams.

A more exciting alternative would have been only group winners and two best runners-up qualify into QF.

[reza]

[xudong]

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/29604464

[reza]

Greece 0 - 1 Faroe Islands FT

No further comment

[scommetix]

Netherlands vs Latvia - over 2.5 goals
Czech Republic vs Iceland - both to score

Regards.

[reza]

San Marino got a point, Lichtenstein won, Faroe Island won ... interesting