The qualifying draw for European Championship 2024 has reserved an affordable group for the French team, even though the duel with the Netherlands promises to be tough. The first two teams qualify for the final phase, organized in Germany.
France, the reigning world champions, inherited the Netherlands, Ireland, Greece and Gibraltar on Sunday in the qualifying group for Euro 2024, scheduled from March to November 2023, a fairly affordable draw en route to the scheduled finals in Germany.
Deprived of seeded status following its recent underperformance, the French team was drawn from the qualifying draw in Group B, along with the Netherlands of Virgil van Dijk and Memphis Depay, which the Blues faced in 2017 qualifying for the 2018 World Cup and then League of Nations in 2018.
Familiar opponents and a new one
We also find in this pool Ireland, a bad memory of the French team that barely beat Eire in 2009 en route to the 2010 World Cup with the help of Thierry Henry, and Greece, 2004 European champion Zinedine Zidane beat France in the quarter-finals.
Finally, the draw reserved an unprecedented opponent for the French team: the humble Gibraltar team, which the Blues have never met. Benefiting the Blues, their group only has five teams, freeing up international dates for possible friendlies.
>> Relive qualifying for the European Championship 2024
Finish in the top two of the group
“It is a close group. There is the Netherlands, but Ireland and Greece are good teams. It is a valuable group. We will have to win and be better than our opponents. We will get two games less, so two friendlies to plan .” My energy is focused on what awaits us in two months. The priority goal is the World Cup,” said Didier Deschamps at the microphone of La Chaîne L’Équipe a few minutes after the draw.
From March to November 2023, the teams will compete against each other in home and away matches. The winners and runners-up of each group will qualify directly for the final stage of Euro 2024. The last three tickets will be awarded via play-offs (semi-final then final) in March 2024, which will cover 12 teams that have not qualified through the play-offs and who have been designated through their results during the League of Nations. The final phase of the European Championship will be played in Germany from June 14 to July 14.
The group of death for Italy and England
England were placed in the Italy group for a repeat of the European Championship final in 2021. At Wembley, Italy won on penalties (1-1, 3 tab to 2). Ukraine, North Macedonia and Malta are also in this Group C. Absent from the World Cup (20 November – 18 December), Italy was seeded in the draw and qualified for the final in four in the League of Nations, where she faced England , with a win (1-0) and a draw (0-0).
At the European Championship, England and Italy already met twice for the final of the previous edition. Italy won in Turin at Euro 1980 (1-0) and already on penalties in the quarter-finals in 2012, in Kiev (0-0, 4 tab to 2). The top two teams in each group will qualify for the European Championship in Germany, after which the 12 countries best placed in the League of Nations general classification and not qualified will compete for play-offs for three additional qualifiers.