The groups for the EURO 2024 will be drawn on December 2nd in the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie. Who will Germany face at the home European Championships? Find out how the draw works here.
The draw for the groups at EURO 2024 is clearly the starting signal for the tournament. Then it will be clear who the German national soccer team will play against in the preliminary round of the home European Championship. Who do the other top nations have to compete against? Is there a “Hammer Group”? Which team is supposed to have luck? What are possible pairings in the round of 16?
All of these questions will be answered on Saturday, December 2nd. The lots will then be drawn in the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie from 6 p.m. Those in charge at UEFA and also the representatives of the participating nations will be there – the “créme de la créme” of European football. The draw can be seen live on ZDF, Magenta TV and RTL. UEFA also offers a free live stream on its website.
EM 2024: Only 21 of the 24 participants have been confirmed
Qualification for the tournament ended on November 21st. But only 21 of the 24 participants have been confirmed – which is a downer in the draw. Twelve teams will fight for the three remaining places in the playoffs after the end of the 2022/23 Nations League. There will be three groups with four teams each, which will play the group winner and therefore the European Championship participant in two semi-finals and a final. All of this will happen from March 21st to 26th, 2024. There will be three tickets marked “Qualifier” in the draw.
In addition to host Germany, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, England, the Netherlands, Scotland, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, Romania, Denmark, Albania, Austria, Italy, have already qualified for the European Championship. Serbia and Switzerland.
This is how the playoffs work
The following pairings will take place in the playoffs:
Semi-final playoff tournament A: Poland – Estonia, Wales – Finland. In the final, the winner from Wales – Finland has home advantage.
Semi-final playoff tournament B: Bosnia-Herzegovina – Ukraine, Israel – Iceland. In the final, the winner from Bosnia-Herzegovina – Ukraine has home advantage.
Semi-final playoff tournament C: Georgia – Luxembourg, Greece – Kazakhstan. In the final, the winner from Georgia – Luxembourg has home advantage.
Qualification results were crucial
But how exactly is the draw done? There will be four lottery pots. In addition to Germany, draw pot 1 contains the five nations that achieved the best points in the European Championship qualification. Pots two and three are each made up of the next six best teams.
The fourth team with the lowest points in terms of points and the three winners of the playoffs in March 2024 end up in pot four. When determining the points ranking, only the games of the first five teams in each group were counted against one another. Teams from groups of six had no advantage.
The lottery pots at a glance
This is what the lottery pots look like:
Pot 1: Germany, Portugal, France, Spain, Belgium, England
Pot 2: Netherlands, Scotland, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic
Pot 3: Hungary, Turkey, Romania, Denmark, Albania, Austria
Pot 4: Italy, Serbia, Switzerland, winner of Playoffs-A, winner of Playoffs-B, winner of Playoffs-C
Germany is threatened by strong opponents
The German team is already threatened with strong opponents in the European Championship preliminary round. A group with the Netherlands, Denmark and Italy would be theoretically possible. However, a feasible task with Albania, Slovenia and a weaker playoff participant is also conceivable. “The charm of a draw is that it’s drawn by lot. So you don’t have your luck in your own hands, there are no easy opponents anyway,” says national coach Julian Nagelsmann: “So I’m letting it happen and I’m looking forward to an exciting evening .”
Who draws the lots? That’s still a secret. All that is known so far is that ARD presenter Esther Sedlaczek and the Portuguese UEFA presenter Pedro Pinto will host the event. According to UEFA, “eleven former European champions will also be on stage.” After an hour everything should be over.
