After Qulifying

On November 22, 2007, the final qualifying round of the Euro 2008 football matches was solidified and the final sixteen teams were set. The teams include Austria and Switzerland, who are hosting this international football event, Greece, Italy, Germany, France, Croatia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Russia, Spain, Turkey, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands. Members of these teams are practicing and gearing up for the final events which take place June 7 - 29, 2008.

It was announced by the Swiss Football Association Ralph Zloczower that the final four groups would be determined by lots, the final draw taking place on December 2, 2007. The motto for the 2008 tournament is 'Expect emotions', and one can only hope that the competing teams live up that and give the world a wild ride to the end. It is believed that Euro 2008 will be one of the biggest football festivals in the world, not only in Austria and Switzerland, where the matches will be played, but also across the world where many of the matches will be televised.

This year, the qualifying format was changed. The winners and the runner-ups of each original group automatically qualified to move on into the championship round, leaving all the other teams without a chance to even get in through a play-off spot. Because Austria and Switzerland automatically qualified as hosts of Euro 2008, only fourteen other teams were picked.

As a point of interest, 307 qualifying matches had been played since August 16, 2006 over the course of 19 days. They totaled 27,540 minutes of football play with 838 goals scored over all the teams. The team from Northern Ireland had the most goals with on scorer at thirteen, and the Dutch team made only 15 with a total of seventy-nine attempts. This was more than any other team in the competition. Twenty-one of the 307 matches had no score outcomes. Spain committed the fewest fouls during the entire qualifying rounds.

Some interesting notes about Euro 2008's tournaments are these: the winner's trophy is an all new design, and the amount of prize money being awarded over sixteen teams is ?184 million. The championships mascots? Flix and Trix, although what they are exactly is still unknown.

The final four groups for Euro 2008 are as follows:

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G