The Euro 2024 tournament promises to be one of the most exciting football events in recent memory. To fully appreciate the upcoming matches and their significance, it’s essential to understand the intricacies of the group stage draw, a process that determines the initial matchups and sets the stage for the tournament. Here’s an in-depth explanation of how the group stage draw for Euro 2024 works.
Firstly, Euro 2024 features 24 national teams, which have successfully navigated their way through a rigorous qualification process. These teams are then divided into six groups, labeled from Group A to Group F, with each group containing four teams. The draw that assigns teams to each group is a blend of planning, rules, and a bit of chance.
The draw process begins with the seeding of teams. Seeding is designed to prevent the highest-ranked teams from facing each other too early in the tournament. Teams are divided into four different pots based on their UEFA national team coefficient rankings, recent performances in previous Euros, World Cup qualifiers, and other criteria set by UEFA. Pot 1 typically contains the strongest teams, including the host nation, while Pot 4 contains teams that just made it through the qualification process.
On the day of the draw, each