Are You Ready for Euro 2020 Showdown?

Euro 2020 will be played in 12 countries

To celebrate the anniversary of the UEFA, the continental competition will be played across Europe with the final four being hosted in London.

Portugal won the Euro 2016 against host country France in final. Cristiano Ronaldo and his team qualified with difficulty finishing second in the group behind Ukraine. On their last match, the Portuguese won 2-0 in Luxembourg the 99th goal for CR7 with his country, one goal shy of the century that will have to wait until 2020. 

The World Cup champions top their group having lost points only to second place Turkey [2-0; 1-1]. Both teams will look to shine next year. 

Perfect Belgium and Italy

Belgium and Italy completed the qualifying round with as many wins (10) as many games played. Both teams record a perfect form over the span of 18 months during the qualifiers and will be two of the favorites to bring the trophy home. 

Germany and Netherlands battled in the same group along side Northern Ireland to qualify. After a slow start the Dutch team rallied to finish second behind the 4-times world champions Germany. The Germans won all their games but one (loss to Netherlands).

Spain concluded their campaign with no defeat and 8 wins in 10 matches. After a rough World Cup stretch and an early elimination at the Round of 16 to Russia, the 2012 UEFA Euro champions are back into international form and would be one of the dark horses in the tournament. 

England is another country with a strong record during the qualifying phase. The Three Lions won all their games except one in Czech republic [2-1]. The Czech also qualified to Euro 2020.

England end their eight-game campaign with a total of 37 goals, a goalscoring record for England in a qualifying campaign.

England coach Southgate on the team’s path:

“We’re always looking to improve and we know there’s still a bit of work to do, but I can’t fault the players for what they’ve done in this qualifying campaign as they’ve been absolutely ruthless.

I think you have to work through any difficulties that you might have and the whole group have done that really well. We come out of this stronger than when we started it, honestly.

We’re further ahead in being more settled as a group, with players knowing our principles of play. We wanted to learn a few more things tonight, which we certainly did.”

The 2018 FIFA World Cup runners-up Croatia came from behind in the second half to dominate Slovakia 3-1 and win their group. They will be joined by Wales that validate their spot to Euro 2020 beating Hungary 2-0 on the last day of the qualifiers.