Qualification for EURO 2024 begins. Which traditional teams are far from advancing?

Qualifying for EURO 2024 in Germany gets underway today. The Czech national team was quite lucky in the draw and drew an acceptable group from which they should advance. However, the same cannot be said for the other traditional participants. Who might not qualify for the EURO?

The European Championship will be attended by 24 teams. In the qualifying round, 53 teams will fight for these places, which have been divided into ten groups. Germany, as the host, advances automatically, while Russia was eliminated due to the invasion of Ukraine.

The first two teams from the ten groups will always qualify, the other 3 teams will qualify from the Nations League play-offs. Which teams might not qualify?

Ukraine

Participant in the last three European Championships. In 2012 and 2016, the Ukrainians failed to progress from the group stage, but reached the quarter-finals at EURO 2020, where they were eliminated by England.

In recent years, they have assembled a very solid team, but the lot has been merciless to them. They were assigned to the qualifying group with Italy and England, the finalists of the last EURO. And to make matters worse, they also added North Macedonia, who made it to the last EURO and knocked out Italy in the World Cup barrier.

Group C::

Italy
England
Ukraine
North Macedonia
Malta

Slovakia

Slovakia has also participated in the last two European Championships. In 2016 they reached the eighth finals where they failed to beat Germany, at EURO 2020 they did not advance from the group.

Our neighbours weren’t entirely lucky with the draw either. Portugal is the favourite to top Group J with star Cristiano Ronaldo, while Slovakia will face Bosnia and Herzegovina for second place. And Iceland may also have its say in the progression.

Group J::

Portugal
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Slovakia
Iceland
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg

Greece

Winner of EURO 2004, but has since experienced a decline. They failed to qualify from the group at EURO 2008, four years later they crashed out in the quarter-finals and have failed to qualify for the last two championships.

They won’t have an easy time qualifying this time either. With France and the Netherlands in their group, the Greeks can probably forget about qualifying from the group.

Group B::

France
Netherlands
Greece
Ireland
Gibraltar

Austria

Our neighbours, with star captain David Alaba of Real Madrid, have only missed out on one of the last four championships. In 2008, as hosts, they stayed in the group, as they did in 2016 in France. At the last EURO, they reached the eighth round, where they were eliminated by later champions Italy.

This time, however, they will have a very difficult time advancing out of qualifying. They have Belgium and Sweden in their Group F, two very strong teams. Austria will probably have to go through the Nations League as well.

Group F::

Belgium
Sweden
Austria
Estonia
Azerbaijan

Norway

Norway are not one of the traditional football teams and have not even made it to a single EURO in their history. But now they could, because the golden generation has grown up with Erling Haaland, Martin Ødegaard and others.

Spain is the clear favourite in Group A, but Norway and Scotland will be tied for second place. The island team definitely has more experience, but Norway will bite. The big snag is that cannonballer Haaland is injured and will not be available for the opening matches against Spain and Georgia.

Group A::

Spain
Scotland
Norway
Cyprus
Georgia

Source: EURO 2024