Nations ready for road to Vienna

Italy barely has had time to savor the World Cup trophy when thoughts of UEFA EURO 2008 have crept into the minds of the football world.

Qualifying begins in little more than a month as, on 16 August, with three matches — including Kazakhstan's first taste of UEFA European Championship action ,when they travel to Group A rivals Belgium.

Host nations Austria and Switzerland qualify automatically, with the remaining 50 teams having been placed into seven qualifying groups after January's draw in Montreux. Eight cities — Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Salzburg and Vienna of Austria, and Basle, Berne, Geneva and Zurich in Switzerland — will stage matches. The opening match of the finals takes place in Basle on 7 June, with the final in Vienna on 29 June.

The qualifiers will be played on dates according to the international match calendar with the concluding matches falling on 21 November 2007. The seven group winners and seven runners-up will then join the hosts in the final tournament in June 2008.

Recently crowned Italy are in perhaps the toughest section as they line up in Group B with fellow finalists France and Ukraine.

There is a new trophy at stake. The second version of the Henri Delaunay trophy has retained the name and style of the original, but has been brought up to date to reflect the scale and size of Europe's most prestigious national-team competition.

The names of the winning countries that had appeared on the original plinth have now been engraved on the back of the trophy, which is made of sterling silver, weighs 8 kg and is 60 cm tall.

UEFA Chief Executive Lars-Christer Olsson told uefa.com the finals promise to be a real success, not least because of the location of the co-hosts.

"First of all, they are in central Europe, easy to reach, well-developed countries and there are plenty of opportunities for the fans coming for the football to see other things," he said. "One of the most important things [in co-hosting] is that it is possible for smaller countries to organise a final round if they get together with another country.

"I think we are also adding something to the countries, because it is an opportunity for them to show they are modern countries for new markets. Everybody coming will find a lot of hospitality and will definitely come back later."

UEFA EURO 2008 also gives UEFA the chance to cement the position of national-team football.

"The national-team competitions are the 'cream of the cream'," Olsson said. "I don't think there is any club football which can generate as much interest as a national-team competition."

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.