Euro 2016 – What are Ireland’s chances?

THE 2016 UEFA European Championship (commonly referred to as Euro 2016 or simply the Euros) takes place in France from 10 June until 10 July. The tournament has taken place every four years since 1960 and this will be the 15th European championship to be held.

Euro 2016 will see an expanded 24 teams compete to lift the Henri Delaunay Trophy. France, as the host nation, gained automatic entry, so a total of 53 teams competed in the qualification process for the 23 other places that were up for grabs. They are now divided into six groups (from Group A to Group F) of four teams.

Ireland are in Group E with Sweden, Belgium and Italy.

The Six Counties are in Group C with Germany, Poland and Ukraine.

England are in Group B with Russia, Slovakia and Wales.

As the tournament has expanded from 16 teams to 24 it means that an extra knockout round has been added. So the top two teams of each group will automatically qualify for the last 16 knockout round, as will the four best third-ranked teams.

So what are Ireland’s chances of getting out of their group for the first time ever at a European Championship?

Ireland finished third in their qualification group, behind Germany and Poland, and so they missed out on automatic qualification and they faced a tricky play-off against Bosnia & Herzegovina. Thankfully, the Boys in Green overcame this obstacle over the two legs and won through to the finals.

This is only the third time that Ireland has qualified for the Euros, having previously done so in 1988 and 2012. On every occasion we have been drawn in one of the hardest groups of the tournament.

However, the optimistic among us highlight the factors in Ireland’s favour.

There’s the serious injuries Belgium are struggling with, the lack of the usual superstar names and the attacking weaknesses in the Italian squad, and Sweden (who also needed the play-off route to qualify) are overtly reliant on Zlatan Ibrahimović.

This is the ‘We Have a Chance’ brigade.

The pessimists, on the other hand, will point out that Belgium are second in the FIFA world rankings and have a huge talent and depth in their squad; that Italy topped their qualifying group without losing a game and have a concrete defence which includes Buffon, Chellini, and Bonucci; and that Sweden, well, they have Zlatan Ibrahimović.

The ‘We Haven’t a Hope, Remember Euro 2012’ brigade.

But can it really end up any worse than Euro 2012 when Ireland crashed out as the worst team in the tournament, with no points and scoring only one goal?

Outside of Ireland’s group, hosts France are favourites with most bookies to lift the trophy on home soil. World champions Germany, who are aiming to win the Euros for a record fourth time, are joint or second favourites with the bookies.

Current holders Spain will want to make up for their shocking 2014 World Cup when they got knocked out in the group stages, but it is not expected that they will make it to final to defend their trophy.

England seem to be setting up for the usual bluster and pre-tournament hype, only to collapse and get kicked out in the knockout stages. They were impressive in their qualifiers but they didn’t have to face a penalty shoot-out there.

Another team that impressed in qualifying was Gareth Bale – sorry, I mean Wales. This is their first European championship and they will be favourites to beat Slovakia in the first game and that sets up a mouth-watering tie against England in the second game. The Six Counties will play the two teams that qualified from Ireland’s group, Poland and Germany, although they will fancy their chances against Ukraine and taking third place at least.

Iceland, which has a population of only 332,529, and Albania will both be playing in their first-ever major international tournament.

I got Poland in the Sinn Féin Leinster House sweepstakes, so I suppose I’ll have to cheer them on if Ireland get knocked out before them. While they have one of the most prolific goal-scorers in Robert Lewandowski, many will be wondering if he’ll also be representing Poland at the 2016 Rio Olympics given his obvious love of diving.