Ironically, in Saturday's rehearsal for the draws, the ROI did actually draw France!!! So it's going to be interesting to see what the results of the real draw will be. I am writing this as the draw is taking place live in Warsaw...
GROUP A:
Azerbaijan
Kazakhstan
Belgium
Austria
Turkey
Germany
GROUP B:
Andorra
Armenia
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
Slovakia
Russia
GROUP C:
Faroe Islands
Estonia
Slovenia
NORTHERN IRELAND
Serbia
Italy
GROUP D:
Luxembourg
Albania
Belarus
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Romania
France
GROUP E:
San Marino
Moldova
Hungary
Finland
Sweden
The Netherlands
GROUP F:
Malta
Georgia
Latvia
Israel
Greece
Croatia
GROUP G:
Montenegro
WALES
Bulgaria
Switzerland
ENGLAND
GROUP H:
Iceland
Cyprus
Norway
Denmark
Portugal
GROUP I:
Lichtenstein
Lithuania
SCOTLAND
Czech Republic
Spain
Well that's the end of the draws for qualifying.
In Group A, Germany will play their neighbours Austria and seem to be the favourites to win their group.
The ROI will face challenging opponents in Russia, even though they did not qualify for this year's World Cup, but will be gutted not to have been given the opportunity for revenge against France.
Northern Ireland have been handed a very tough group against Serbia, Slovenia and World Cup winners Italy in Group C - possibly the Group of Death?
In Group D, France can think themselves lucky after having drawn a favourable group, so they should be able to qualify a lot more smoothly than they did this year.
The Netherlands will be firm favourites to finish top off Group E after a flawless qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup, however Sweden will be looking to challenge in order to secure a place at the 2012 tournament, after narrowly missing out on this year's finals.
Surprising victors of Euro 2004, Greece, will be facing tricky games against Croatia and currently, manager-less Israel.
In Group G, England will indeed play Wales and are lucky because they won't have to do as much travelling after being drawn into one of the three, 5-team groups. England look like the favourites to qualify top in that group.
Group H takes on a distinctive Scandinavian feel with Iceland, Norway and Denmark all competing against each other. Denmark have been improving markedly and will come up against Portugal once again in the group stage, after beating them to the top spot in their qualifying group for South Africa.
Finally, Scotland will face a stern test against the Czech Republic and the current European champions Spain in what appears to be yet another tough group.
NB: Here's yet another example of politics and its unwanted involvement in football. Both Georgia and Russia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan were forcibly kept apart in these draws which is why when Armenia was drawn into Group A, the draw was changed so that it could be placed into Group B. This was all decided before the draw took place after consultation with the appropriate national bodies as concerns were raised about security. The well-documented South Ossetia war in 2008 between Georgia and Russia meant the two countries refused to offer security for the opposition. The situation was much the same for Azerbaijan and Armenia who have been engaged in an undeclared war for quite sometime. UEFA released a statement declaring that the whole purpose of, what is essentially manipulating, the draw was to prevent politics from entering into the realm of football, but surely by reacting to the political situations and changing the draw so that the teams cannot face each other brings politics into the footballing arena anyway? If they are trying to prove that politics and football should not mix, then they are surely going about it the wrong way as it is having the opposite effect. By not allowing the teams to face each other they are allowing politics to dominate football. This has some obvious resonance with the Angola article I blogged earlier. In my opinion, it is setting a bad precedent and there are better solutions that UEFA can employ to ensure that politics is excluded from football, for example by playing at a neutral venue or playing behind closed doors. The theme for the Euro 2012 tournament is "Making History Together", however, one can be forgiven for being slightly sceptical of that motto.
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