Draw is this Sunday. Thought this needed a thread of its own. The pots have been decided:



Teams will be put into 9 groups. Eight groups of 6, and a group of 5 (Plus France, whose games don't count). 23 teams could qualify (France already there as the host)

- For television rights reasons, England, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands shall be drawn into groups of 6 teams
- For political reasons, Azerbaijan and Armenia (due to disputed status of Nagorno-Karabakh), as well as Spain and Gibraltar (due to disputed status of Gibraltar) shall not be drawn in the same group. Unlike the previous UEFA qualifying tournament, Russia and Georgia have agreed to play each other if they are drawn together
- France (Coeff: 30,992; Rank: 11) are partnered with the five-team group, which enable the 2016 tournament hosts to play friendlies against these countries on their 'spare' dates. These friendlies do not count in the qualifying group standings.

9 group Winners and 9 Runners up qualify directly, leaving 5 spaces open for play offs. The best 3rd team also qualifies....and the remaining 8 3rd teams will do play-offs for the remaining 4 spots.

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Shame despite Iceland's great WC qualifying campaign, they couldn't make the cut to pot 4, still think some lesser nations will have a great chance of qualifying here. As for Any top seed, I guess the tough draw would be:

England, Belgium, Serbia, Armenia, Iceland, and Kazakhstan. or the easy root of: England, Ireland, Norway, Latvia, Moldova, San Marino.

Personally hoping for a good draw for Nordic teams, and Poland.

Bump

This will be shown live on all versions of EuroSport, UEFA Website, as well as Fox Soccer Plus in US on Sunday morning/Noon

Debut for Gribaltar

RealGunner wrote:Debut for Gribaltar

Imagine a group of: England, Ireland, Israel, Wales/Scotland, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar

That grit and steel in this group

just cant get my attention to it when world cup is so near

I am schocked to know Gibraltar has a national team

Well, San Marino has one, too. Not exactly the population richest places and thus not really blessed with numerous players...

Robespierre wrote:I am schocked to know Gibraltar has a national team

they'll play their home games in Faroe Islands.

0-0 draw vs. Slovakia in their first ever friendly a few months ago

I demand a Gibraltar flag on Goal Legacy

well do we have one for Faroe Islands too i heard highly about natural beauty there

I would check for you, but I wouldn't know what a Faroe Islands flag look like if it slapped me in the face.

rwo power wrote:Well, San Marino has one, too. Not exactly the population richest places and thus not really blessed with numerous players...

San Marino is the oldest republic in the world.
Gibraltar  is not indipendent state, therefore I didn't think it had a national team before of this thread tbh

Natalie Portman wrote:

Robespierre wrote:I am schocked to know Gibraltar has a national team

they'll play their home games in Faroe Islands.

0-0 draw vs. Slovakia in their first ever friendly a few months ago

Still better than last Italy of Lippi.

well countries on that side of Europe have all their flags with a cross, well after this I need to google this if my guess is right

2010 Italy, killed me inside tbh

Let's pretend 2010 never happened.

ha told you

Spoiler:

Tomwin Lannister wrote:2010 Italy, killed me inside tbh

Let's pretend 2010 never happened.

and Italy killed us

Robespierre wrote:

rwo power wrote:Well, San Marino has one, too. Not exactly the population richest places and thus not really blessed with numerous players...

San Marino is the oldest republic in the world.
Gibraltar  is not indipendent state, therefore I didn't think it had a national team before of this thread tbh

I wasn't slating San Marino - I was more bemoaning that they, just like some other smaller countries / autonomous regions, don't really have a big enough player base so that they have difficulties picking a team of sufficient top players to be really competitive.

Can someone explain to me how Ukraine is ranked higher than France... i'd appreciate it.

sportsczy wrote:Can someone explain to me how Ukraine is ranked higher than France...  i'd appreciate it.

I haven't figured out how they determined the coefficient used for the Euro pots in the first place.

Here's the current UEFA country coefficient:
http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/

For some reason I don't really know how they got the numbers that were shown in Sepi's list. According to the UEFA coefficient, France is definitely ranked higher than Ukraine.

#TeamGibraltar

Bosnia ahead of Croatia.

Bump ahead of tomorrow. Draw is in 10 hrs.

Need Denmark to get a fairly easy group.

No one watching the draw

No Croatia pls no Croatia pls
the only National team who prefers the Germany to Croatia
Never won against them