The European Soccer Championships - Euro 2008

Posted on 639 January 2008 by JaMi in Soccer

The biggest soccer event of the year is without doubt the European Football Championships which will take place in both Austria and Switzerland from 7th to 29th June 2008.

A total of 16 European teams will participate in the tournament. Austria and Switzerland qualified automatically as hosts but the remaining 14 teams have made it to the finals through qualifying matches which started way back in August 2006. Austria and Poland will be competing in the tournament for the first time.

Europe will be the envy of world soccer this year as a massive global television audience is expected to tune in to watch the best players in europe compete over three weeks and 31 matches to decide which country will be crowned the champions of Europe.

A record amount of soccer betting activity is also predicted on an event that is second only to the football world cup in terms of the amount of money that is wagered on it.

The European championships was first held in 1960 as the European Nations Cup and like the world cup the tournament is held every four years.

Previous winners include Germany (1972, 1980, 1996), France (1984, 2000), Soviet Union (1960), Spain (1964), Italy (1968), Czechoslovakia (1976), Netherlands (1988), Denmark (1992) and Greece (2004).

The teams are divided into four groups with four teams in each group. The group of death as it has been labelled is Group C as it is by far the strongest containing no less than three of the tournament favourites in Holland, Italy and France.

Apart from the aforementioned teams from the group of death Germany are also expected to feature strongly.

Group A - Switzerland, Czech Republic, Portugal, Turkey
Group B - Austria, Croatia, Germany, Poland
Group C - Holland, Italy, Romania, France
Group D - Greece, Sweden, Spain, Russia

Billions of people all over the world will tune in on 29th June to watch the Euro 2008 final at Vienna’s 53,000 capacity Ernst Happel Stadium to witness the best team in Europe presented with a brand new European Football Championships trophy.

You can get all the latest Euro 2008 football news by visiting Pie And Bovril

Author: Phil Clayton

JaMi

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