France - the country where the Euro 2016 will be held

France - this is exactly the country of the Old World, where the Euro 2016 will take place. Thus, we can say that after eighteen years, the birthplace of Platini and Zidane will again host the participants of the football feast. The charm of the approaching European Championship is its new concept, based on which to play the title of the best team of the Old World will be able to immediately twenty-four teams instead of the twelve, which were the previous times.

Qualification period for Euro 2016

The list of nine qualifying groups was announced on the twenty third of February 2014, and the first matches began in September. As for the groups themselves, they turned out to be fairly equal in strength, because they were made based on the rating of the national team in the list of FIFA. The Russian national football team is in Group G, where it will compete for entering the main stage of the competition with the teams of Sweden, Austria, Liechtenstein, Moldova and Montenegro. In this group, Russia and Sweden are favorites. An unpleasant surprise for the fans of the Russian national team can be presented by the Austrian team. Ukraine and Belarus are in the same group C, where they will also compete with Spain, Slovakia, Luxembourg and Macedonia. If the national team of Ukraine does not interfere a little to get out of the group, Belarus needs to try hard to occupy at least the third place. In October 2015, the names of all teams will be known, which will fall on the Euro 2016, where the next holiday will be held for football fans.

Favorites of their qualification groups

In total 53 teams of Europe, playing football, take part in the qualification. Euro 2016, whose groups will be increased to eight, will be able to accept only 24 teams. Each of the nine qualifying groups has favorites. In group A, they are the teams of Holland and the Czech Republic. The first two places in Group B are likely to be played by the teams of Bosnia and Belgium. The clear leader of group C is Spain, and Ukraine will compete for the second place with Slovakia. Germany, Ireland and Poland are the favorites of Group D. In Group E, the main contenders for entering the main stage of the Euro 2016 are England and Switzerland. Perhaps the weakest remains group F, where the leaders are Greece and Hungary. If we talked about group G above, then in groups H and I the favorites are the tandems Italy-Croatia and Portugal-Denmark, respectively.

Cities where the Euro 2016 will be held

France is rich in interesting cities that have good stadiums for hosting such an important competition. At Euro 2016 teams will have the opportunity to play in different cities at various stadiums. Among the cities that will host the matches of the main soccer competition of Europe in 2016, you can distinguish Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Marseille, Saint-Denis and, of course, Paris. In Lyon matches will be held at the stadium "Stade de Lumiere" with a capacity of 58 thousand people. One of the most beautiful stadiums of the country is the home arena of the Marseille "Olympique", the capacity of which is 67 thousand people will be the biggest on Euro 2016. Where the final match is still unknown, but most likely it will be accepted by the fifty thousandth Park de Prens, located in Paris.

Briefly about the possible triumphs of the European Championship 2016

From time immemorial, sixteen teams took part in the drawing of the title of the best team in Europe. In the approaching European Championship will compete already 24. But despite such a large number of applicants, it is possible to fight for the title of the champion for about seven or eight teams. The clear favorites of the football festivals in France, where the Euro 2016 will be, are Spain and Germany, who are the European Champion 2012 and the world champion of 2014 respectively. Also among the contenders for the championship can be identified Italy, Holland, England, Belgium and, of course, the hostess of the competitions.

A bit about the winners of past years

The greatest number of victories in European football championships are held by two countries: Germany and Spain. They can boast of three main titles. But if the Germans won their last title in the distant 1996, Spain won at the last two championships. The first team, which managed to become the champion of Europe, was the USSR team, which in 1960 broke the resistance of the national team of Yugoslavia. The country where the Euro 2016, France, will be held, has become the European champion twice. The first time she managed to do it in 1984, and in 2000 she added to the title of the best team in the world in 1998 and the title of the best team in Europe, having defeated Italy in the final match with a score of 2-1.

The concept of the upcoming European Football Championship

The current idea of the Euro 2016 differs from that of previous championships. If earlier in the qualifying round only 16 teams were selected, then at this European Championship will compete for the title of the best team of the Old World will be able to 24 teams. All teams will be divided into six groups, each of which will have four teams. From each group in the next stage there are certainly two first. The remaining 4 places are occupied by those teams that scored the most points among the third places. You can see that at the stage of the playoffs there will not be 8 teams, as before, but 16, which adds a 1/8 stage. In addition, the concept of qualifying matches has changed somewhat. If previously the host country had played friendly games with various teams, now the national team of the country where the Euro 2016 will be held will play friendly matches with the team of the final group that does not hold an official match in its group.