What is Euro 2020, where is it? When is it? No idea how it works?
Read on to understand and know the true meaning along with all the details you need.
All you need is right here
Key Dates
On 21st February 2019 was the Qualifiers
On 22nd November 2019 will the European Qualifiers begin
On 22nd November 2019 will be the European Qualifiers play-off draw.
On 30th November 2019 will be the UEFA EURO 2020 final tournament draw which will take place in Bucharest.
On 26th February 2020, the European Qualifiers play-offs will begin.
On 1st April 2020 will the Additional final tournament draw take place only if required.
On 12th June 2020, the opening game will take place in Olimpico in Rome.
On 12th July 2020, will the final tournament take place in Wembley Stadium in London?
The hosts for the UEFA EURO 2020 are by 12 cities. It is being held across the continent for the first time in the competition, in its 60-year history.
The final and semifinals will be held in London, England in the Wembley Stadium.
There are three group games and one quarter-final.
The big question is if the hosts qualify automatically?
Of course, there will be no automatic qualifiers, all the nations with host cities will be required to earn their place at the final tournament.
Qualifying round
The first 24 UEFA European Championship that is successful will enter the final tournament and will have 24 sides that will be involved again at the UEFA EURO 2020.
The Twenty teams will have the top two in each of the ten groups; they will reach the tournament through the European Qualifiers, running from the month of March to the month November 2019.
Four more countries will qualify through the new UEFA Nations League, with the final play-offs to be held in March 2020.
The tournament formats
Now, what is the tournament format?
Here’s how it works.
The format will continue to be the same as for UEFA EURO 2016. The top two that qualify in each of the six final tournament teams that will proceed to the round of 16 plus four best third-placed as finishers.
Can the hosts participate?
All qualified host would be guaranteed two home games in the group stage, but there would be no such assurance for the knockout stage. Host nations that qualify will be definitely placed in the following groups. If both paired countries qualify, a draw will be held to determine which is at home in their direct encounter.
Group A consists of Italy (Olimpico in Rome), Azerbaijan (Olympic Stadium, Baku)
Group B consists of Russia (Saint Petersburg Stadium), Denmark (Parken Stadium, Copenhagen)
Group C consists of the Netherlands (Johan Cruijff ArenA, Amsterdam), Romania (National Arena, Bucharest)
Group D consists of England (Wembley Stadium, London), Scotland (Hampden Park, Glasgow)
Group E consists of Spain (Estadio de San Mamés, Bilbao), Republic of Ireland (Dublin Arena)
Group F consists of Germany and Hungary.
The Stadio Olimpico in Rome will be hosting the opening game.
Tickets, and how the fans can be informed about them?
Fans can already create a ticketing account or log in to the TICKET PORTAL with an already existing account. You can easily specify travel and team preferences, and can also be the first to get the latest information about tickets for the UEFA EURO 2020.
Volunteering in the running of UEFA EURO 2020
Volunteers will be crucial in the running of UEFA EURO 2020, with the application phase ready and set to open in summer 2019. The objective of this programme is to divide and gather the population across the continent of Europe, as well as creating a mark for the many host countries.
The ambassadors of EURO 2020
A host of the former EURO winners are among an incredible exclusive line-up of ambassadors.
The Mascot
Skillz is the name of the mascot; he is a larger-than-life character inspired by freestyling, street and the wonderful Panna culture.
2020 the UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2020 or only Euro 2020, is going to be on the 16th UEFA European Championship, UEFA organises this quadrennial international men’s football championship of Europe.
It is going to be held in 12 cities in the vicinity of 12 European countries from the 12th of June to the 12th of July 2020. Portugal is now the current champions, winning the previous 2016 edition. In the very first time will, the video assistant referee system will be continuously used at the UEFA European Championship.
Former UEFA President hosted in several nations is a “romantic” one-off event to celebrate the 60th “birthday” of the European Championship competition. Wembley Stadium in London is planning to host the semi-finals and the finals for the second time, having done so earlier at the 1996 tournament.
UEFA Nations League group winners are
In League A: England, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland
In League B: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Sweden, Ukraine
In League C: Finland, Norway, Scotland, Serbia
In League D: Belarus, FYR Macedonia, Georgia, Kosovo
How do the play-off’s work?
The playoffs do not take place until March 2020 which is after the commencement of the conventional European Qualifiers. The EURO play-off of any UEFA Nations League group winners who qualify through the European Qualifiers will go through to the next great ranked team in their League.
The teams are ranked 1 to 55 according to their position in a group, the points gained, their goal difference, the goals scored etc.
If the League does not have four teams to compete then, the remaining slots are allocated to sides from another League in accordance with the overall UEFA Nations League rankings.
However, group winners cannot be placed in a playoff group with teams from a higher league. Therefore, should a playoff group including at least one group winner not have enough teams from the same League, the remaining spot or the spots will have to be filled by teams from a lower League.
Conclusion
Hence, this was seen as a very disappointing group of hosts to select from, especially as the favourite for the bid Turkey favoured a bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics in the largest city Istanbul, held in the same year and seen as an obstacle to the hosting of Euro 2020. UEFA President Michel Platini who was previously reported to have promised the tournament to Turkey.
The Celtic bidding was done a bit late, and that came up after the lack of interest throughout the rest of the continent, Turkey aside.
A few people doubted the Azerbaijani-Georgian coalition due to Azerbaijan’s preference for a successful Baku bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics. On the 15th May 2012, hours after the announcement of the three-way Irish, Welsh and Scottish bid, the Georgian Sports Minister Vladimir Vardzelashvili announced his country’s intention to declare an interest in hosting Euro 2020 all alone. Nine days later, Azerbaijan notified UEFA that they planned to join forces with Georgia in a bid for Euro 2020 after Baku did not make it to the IOC’s shortlist as a player to bid for the 2020 Olympic Games.
Several other nations made a little less committed effort to the host the tournament, but they never announced a substantial effort. Among these were only Belgium, a joint Bosnia and Herzegovina–Serbia–Croatia bid, a proposal from Romania alongside either Hungary or Bulgaria and individual bids from Germany and the Netherlands.
Twelve cities will host about four matches each which are the ‘Standard Package’, it consists of three group stage matches and one round for the 16/quarter-final game.
The minimum stadium capacities should be around 70,000 for semi-finals/final, 60,000 for quarter-finals, and a massive 50,000 for the round of 16 and the next group matches. Up to two exceptions would be allowed in the stadiums of a minimum capacity of a whopping 30,000, limited to a few groups matches and a series of 16 games.
For the group stage, a maximum of only two host teams will be taken into each of the groups, with each will be the qualified host team guaranteed to play at least two home matches in the group stage. Although, there is no guarantee that a host team will perform any knockout matches at their home ground. The formulation of teams in the group stage will still be subject to seeding and draw, but the allocation of the host teams to each group will take into account of travel distances which includes flights between host cities in the same group should make sure that it does not exceed two hours.
Each of the host cities will have two airports or two separate airport terminals at a single airport. This is in order to segregate rival fans
UEFA President Michel Platini announced that his one goal is to make sure that the competition hosted at venues that have never ever hosted European Championship matches before.
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