Learn More on Euro 2012 – Poland & Ukraine

Euro 2012 is the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship played by European teams sanctioned by UEFA, the Union of European Football Association. UEFA represents the national football associations of Europe as well as runs national and club competitions. One of these national competitions is the Euro 2012 whose final will be hosted by Poland and Ukraine between June 8^th and July 1^st 2012. This will be the 14^th   edition of the tournament of which is held once every four years, since 1960, in the even numbered year between the World Cup tournaments. The final of the tournament will feature 16 nations all gunning to be crowned champions of European National football. The qualifications were contested by fifty one nations between the months of August 2010 and November 2011.The two host nations were automatically drafted into the finals of the tournament. The winner of the tournament also gains automatic entry for the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup which will be hosted by Brazil.

The host cities for the Euro 2012 tournament in Poland and Ukraine will be Wroclaw, Poznan, Kiev, Gdansk, Warsaw, Lviv, Donetsk and Kharkiv.  Since its inception, the competition has been won by 9 different national teams with Germany being the most successful team. They have won it thrice and have appeared in the final six times.

The draw for the UEFA Euro 2012 took place on 7^th February 2010 in Warsaw where 51  national teams were entered to compete for the 14 remaining places in the finals with Poland and Ukraine being drafted in automatically since they were co-hosts. Of the 51 teams selected, the fourteen who qualified for Euro 2012 are Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Russia, Spain and Sweden. The 16 finalist for the tournament were seeded into four pots using UEFA’s national team coefficient ranking which were used in selecting the group members of the Euro 2012 tournament.

In pot 1, there was Ukraine (co-hosts), Poland (co-hosts), Netherlands and former 2008 champions Spain. In the 2^nd pot there was Germany, Italy, England and Russia. Pot 3 comprised of Croatia, Greece, Portugal and Sweden while pot four had Denmark, France, Czech Republic and Republic of Ireland. The final groups A-D each consisting of four teams were as follows: Group A has Poland, Greece, Russia and the Czech Republic. Group B comprises of Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Portugal. Group C members are Spain, Italy, Republic of Ireland and Croatia while Group D has Ukraine, Sweden, France and England.

The competition is divided into the group knockout phase, the quarter finals, semi-finals and lastly the finals. The slogan for Euro 2012 is “creating history together.” It represents the fact that the two host countries were once united as a single country in the past and now they strive to make the best Euro tournament in the history of the championship as two independent countries. The logo is made out of a flower design. The two mascots for the competition are Slavek (Polish) and Slavko (Ukrainian) twins.