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The draw for the finals of the European Football Championship (Euro 2024) in Germany, which took place on Saturday at the Elbe Philharmonic Concert Hall in Hamburg, resulted in the home team, Germany, being in a balanced group, while the second group was very strong. It included Spain, defending champion Italy and Croatia, in addition to France and the Netherlands in one group.

The first group included Germany, Scotland, Hungary and Switzerland.

The second group included Spain, Croatia, Italy and Albania.

The third group included Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia and England.

As for the fourth group, it included the winning team from the first stage of the playoff, along with the Netherlands, Austria and France.

The Belgium national team plays in the fifth group, next to the Slovak and Romanian teams and the winning team from the second track of the playoff.

In Group Six, there will be Türkiye’s teams, the winning team from the third playoff track, Portugal, and the Czech Republic.

In the opening match, the German national team will meet its Scottish counterpart at the Allianz Arena in Munich on June 14.

The tournament will be held with the participation of 24 teams, divided into 6 groups, and their matches will be held in 10 stadiums in 10 different cities.

Germany will host the tournament from June 14 to July 14, 2024, with the opening match being held at the Allianz Arena in Munich, and the final match at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.

This edition of the European Nations Cup bears the number 17, as the tournament was launched in 1960, and all its editions were held regularly every 4 years, with the exception of the last edition, which was postponed to 2021 due to the “Corona” pandemic, and the 17th edition returns the tournament to its normal frequency to be held in 2024.

The identity of only 21 teams was revealed during the ceremony, while the identity of the last 3 teams to qualify for the tournament will be determined through the playoff in March 2024, just less than 3 months before the start of the tournament.

The German national team is competing in the tournament as the host country’s representative, while the qualifiers held over the past period resulted in the qualification of 20 teams distributed into six groups.

The European Football Association (UEFA) revealed the four levels of qualified teams, and each level includes 6 teams. During the draw, one team from each level will be selected to be placed in one of the six groups in the first round of the tournament.

The announced levels were as follows:

First level: Germany – Portugal – France – Spain – Belgium – England

The second level: Hungary – Turkey – Denmark – Albania – Romania – Austria

Third level: Netherlands – Scotland – Croatia – Slovenia – Slovakia – Czechia

Fourth level: Italy – Serbia – Switzerland – the three teams that qualified through the playoff

The teams were distributed among the four levels according to the results in the qualifiers, with the exception of the German team, representing the host country, which was placed among the first level teams for this, in addition to being placed at the head of the first group.

Each of the three teams expected to qualify are referred to as the teams that qualified from the playoff tracks (1, 2, and 3), as the first includes the teams of Poland, Wales, Finland, and Estonia, the second includes the teams of Israel, Bosnia, Iceland, and Ukraine, while the third track includes the teams of Georgia, Greece, Kazakhstan, and Luxembourg.

The competitions for each track are held in a semi-final and final round system, with one team qualifying from each track and competing directly in the finals.

During the finals, the four teams in each group compete in a single-round league system, and the first and second-place finishers qualify directly to the round of 16, and the top 4 teams in third place in their groups will join these 12 teams.

The first round matches (group stage) will be held from June 14 to 26, 2024, after which the elimination rounds will begin from June 29 until the end of the Round of 16 activities on July 2. The quarter-final matches will be held on the fifth and sixth of the same month, then the semi-final matches in The ninth and tenth of the same month, and the final will be held on July 14.

Germany is hosting the continental championship for only the second time in its history after hosting the 1988 edition, which the Netherlands won.

Germany had previously won the continental title three times in 1972, 1980 and 1996, making it the most successful team on the same level with the Spanish national team, which topped the podium in the 1964, 2008 and 2012 editions.

Both the Italian and French teams won the title twice and once