UEFA Euro 2012
The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2012, is the 14th European Championship for national football teams organised by UEFA. The final tournament is being hosted by Poland and Ukraine between 8 June and 1 July 2012. It is the first time that either nation has hosted the tournament. This bid was chosen by UEFA's Executive Committee in 2007.[1]
The final tournament features 16 nations, the last European Championship to do so (from Euro 2016 onward, there will be 24 finalists). Qualification was contested by 51 nations between August 2010 and November 2011 to join the two host nations in the tournament. The winner of the tournament gains automatic entry to the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup hosted by Brazil.[2]
The tournament is played across eight venues, four in each host country, five of which were newly built for the tournament. Aside from venues, the host nations have also invested heavily in improving infrastructure, such as railways and roads, at UEFA's request.
Stadiums
A total of 31 matches will be played during Euro 2012, with Ukraine hosting 16 of them and Poland 15.Poland |
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| Warsaw | Gdańsk | Wrocław | Poznań | ||||||||
| National Stadium Built for tournament Capacity: 56,070[17] |
PGE Arena Built for tournament Capacity: 39,150[18] |
Municipal Stadium Built for tournament Capacity: 40,000[19] |
Municipal Stadium Reconstructed Capacity: 39,550[20] |
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| 3 matches in Group A (incl. opening match), 1 quarter-final and 1 semi-final |
3 matches in Group C and 1 quarter-final |
3 matches in Group A | 3 matches in Group C | ||||||||
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| Ukraine | |||||||||||
| Kiev | Donetsk | Kharkiv | Lviv | ||||||||
| Olympic Stadium Reconstructed Capacity: 64,640[21] |
Donbass Arena Built for tournament Capacity: 49,400[22] |
Metalist Stadium Reconstructed Capacity: 37,750[23] |
Arena Lviv Built for tournament Capacity: 32,990[24] |
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| 3 matches in Group D, 1 quarter-final and the final |
3 matches in Group D, 1 quarter-final and 1 semi-final |
3 matches in Group B | 3 matches in Group B | ||||||||
Final drawFurther information: UEFA Euro 2012 seedingThe draw for the final tournament took place on 2 December 2011 at the Ukraine Palace of Arts in Kiev, Ukraine.[29][30] The hour-long ceremony was hosted by Olga Freimut and Piotr Sobczyński, television presenters from the two host countries. As was the case for the 2004 and 2008 finals, the sixteen finalists were divided into four seeding pots, using the UEFA national team coefficient ranking.[31] Three teams were automatically placed in pot 1: Poland and Ukraine as hosts and Spain as defending champion. They were joined by Netherlands, the country of the rest with the highest coefficient.[32]In the draw procedure, each of the four groups had one team drawn from each pot. It also determined which place in the group teams drawn from Pots 2–4 would take (i.e. A2, A3 or A4) to create the match schedule.[32] For logistical reasons, Poland were assigned in advance to A1, and Ukraine to D1.[33] The balls were drawn by four former players who have each been part of European Championship winning teams: Horst Hrubesch, Marco van Basten, Peter Schmeichel and Zinedine Zidane.[34]
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