Home nations discover fate with Euro 2024 qualifying draw made

The home nations England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland discover their fate with the Euro 2024 qualifying draw made.

There will be 53 teams drawn into 10 groups: seven groups of five teams (Groups A-G) and three groups of six teams (Groups H-J) with six seeding pots already confirmed following the UEFA Nations League phase.

Teams play each other home and away in a round-robin system. The qualifiers will take place from March to November 2023, with the top two in each of the 10 groups progressing to the finals in June and July 2024.

Meanwhile, the three remaining spots will be completed with the teams that qualify through the play-offs in March 2024.

Germany are the EURO 2024 hosts, so they qualify automatically for the final tournament and are therefore not taking part in the qualifying draw.

UEFA Nations League pot (4): Netherlands*, Croatia*, Italy*, Spain*

Pot 1 (6): Denmark, Portugal, Belgium, Hungary, Switzerland, Poland

Pot 2 (10): France, Austria, Czech Republic, England, Wales, Israel*, Bosnia and Herzegovina*, Serbia*, Scotland*, Finland.

Pot 3 (10): Ukraine, Iceland, Norway, Slovenia, Republic of Ireland, Albania, Montenegro, Romania, Sweden, Armenia

Pot 4 (10): Georgia*, Greece*, Turkey*, Kazakhstan*, Luxembourg, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Faroe Islands, North Macedonia

Pot 5 (10): Slovakia, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Belarus, Lithuania, Gibraltar, Estonia*, Latvia*, Moldova, Malta

Pot 6 (3): Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino

*indicates team who have already secured Euro 2024 play-off spot at least

THE EURO 2024 QUALIFYING DRAW:

Group A: Spain, Scotland, Norway, Georgia, Cyprus
Group B: Netherlands, France, Republic of Ireland, Greece, Gibraltar
Group C: Italy, England, Ukraine, North Macedonia, Malta
Group D: Croatia, Wales, Armenia, Turkey, Latvia
Group E: Poland, Czech Republic, Albania, Faroe Islands, Moldova
Group F: Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Azerbaijan, Estonia
Group G: Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Lithuania
Group H: Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Northern Ireland, San Marino
Group I: Switzerland, Israel, Romania, Kosovo, Belarus, Andorra
Group J: Portugal, Bosnia, Iceland, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Liechtenstein

When are the UEFA EURO 2024 qualifying matches?

23-25/03/2023 Matchday 1
26-28/03/2023 Matchday 2
16-17/06/2023 Matchday 3
19-20/06/2023 Matchday 4
07-09/09/2023 Matchday 5
10-12/09/2023 Matchday 6
12-14/10/2023 Matchday 7
15-17/10/2023 Matchday 8
16-18/11/2023 Matchday 9
19-21/11/2023 Matchday 10

Each country that won their Nations League group make it automatically into the play-offs, unless they progress to the tournament itself by finishing in the top two of their qualifying group.

In that situation, the next best nation in the respective league will take their play-off place, with this decided by the following criteria: position in the group, points and goal difference.

The draw for the play-offs takes place in November 2023, with the play-off semi-finals and finals being played between March 21 and 26, 2024.

The final tournament draw will take place in December 2023 at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

The teams will be seeded in accordance with the overall European Qualifiers rankings. Germany will be automatically seeded into pot 1 as hosts, and placed in position A1.

The three play-off winners will not be known at the time of the draw but will be placed into pot 4 for the draw.

The opening game of Euro 2024 is June 14, 2024 with the final taking place on July 14, 2024 at the Olympiastadion, Berlin.

England captain Harry Kane praised the Three Lions’ spirit as they fought back to earn a 3-3 draw with Germany in their final game before the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

“We’ve all been under pressure a little bit with the recent results and we came out with a point to prove,” said Kane, whose penalty put England 3-2 up, after fighting back from being 2-0 down in the second half.

“We have lessons to learn and things to improve but we’ve scored three goals and this will put us in a positive mood going into the World Cup.

“We are playing Germany at Wembley, that’s always a big game regardless of the competition. It’s a shame we couldn’t go on and get the win but I’m proud of the boys.

“We’ll have to be ready come the tournament,” added the Spurs striker.

“Major tournament football is completely different to anything else we play as England players. Pressure is high, concentration needs to be high at all times. I think we respond well to that, we have upped our game in the last two tournaments and picked up as we’ve gone along.

“We’ll dust ourselves down, we know we have to improve and there’s not much time before that first game. We have to go back to our clubs, stay fit and strong and be ready to come back in November.”

ENGLAND’S WORLD CUP FIXTURES:

Monday 21 November 2022
13:00
England v Iran – World Cup 2022

Friday 25 November 2022
19:00
England v USA – World Cup 2022

Tuesday 29 November 2022
19:00
Wales v England – World Cup 2022