Euro 2012 Qualifying, Preview: We Have To Start Somewhere

Euro 2012 qualifying has begun. Actually, the tournament’s qualifiers started under our noses last month when Estonia beat the Faroe Islands 2-1. I’m s urprised you didn’t notice.

Today, Yossi Benayoun’s hat-trick in Ramat Gan put Israel alone at the top of Group F, beating Malta 3-1. Tomorrow, the Israelis will likely be joined at the top by at least one other nation, with the rest of Group F’s six members making-up two of 22 matches, the first major day of qualifiers for Poland-Ukraine.  The matches kick-off between 11:00 a.m. and 3:45 p.m. Eastern, with 11 games featured on ESPN3.

Of course, the host nations are already in the tournament, leaving fourteen spots to be claimed. Between now and mid-November 2011, 51 nations will compete for those places. They’re divided into nine groups, each nations playing a double round-robin within their packet. The winners of those mini-tournaments qualify, as does the second place finisher that accumulates the best record against the top five teams in its group.¹ The eight remaining teams are paired-off to play-off for Euro 2012’s last four spots.

The process is not as confusing as I make it sound, though it could be utterly beguiling four years from now when the tournament expands to 24 teams. It also may be a lot easier - who knows what UEFA president Michel Platini will decide. He will probably have three separate qualifying routes: big economies, small economies, along with direct entry for the hosts, France and Italy. Or he could just have groups, I don’t know. Point is that this qualifying process, like the tournament, is going to be different next time.

For now, we have nine groups to think about before qualifying starts in earnest tomorrow:

Group A: Germany, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan

Group B: Russia, Slovakia, Republic of Ireland, Macedonia, Armenia, Andorra

Group C: Italy, Serbia, Northern Ireland, Slovania, Estonia, Faroe Islands

Group D: France, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Albania, Luxembourg

Group E: Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Moldova, San Marino

Group F: Croatia, Greece, Israel, Lativa, Georgia, Malta

Group G: England, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Wales, Montenegro

Group H: Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Cyprus, Iceland

Group I: Spain, Czech Republic, Scotland, Lithuania, Liechtenstein

Groups were drawn by dividing teams into six pots, sorted by each’s country’s UEFA coefficient so that the teams with the highest ratings were in the same pool. Each of groups A through F got a team from each pot, with groups G, H, and I not getting a nation from the smaller, sixth pot.

Between now and kick-off tomorrow, we’ll briefly walk through each group, starting later this evening with Group A.

1 - Six groups have six nations, while three have five. When comparing the records of the second place teams, results against sixth place finishers are discarded.