EURO 2024 in Germany: European Championship qualification – the teams, the mode, the dates

24 teams are taking part in the EURO 2024 in Germany. Only a part qualified through the groups.

Which teams are there

What is important in the groups

UEFA consists of 55 member countries. 53 of them play in the qualifiers – Germany is already qualified, Russia’s team is excluded.

There are therefore seven groups of five teams each and three groups of six teams each. In each group, all teams play each other in a home and away game. The ten group winners and the ten runners-up advance to the final round of the European Championship.

How the playoffs work

There are three play-off tournaments with four teams each. The three tournament winners reach the last three places in the final round. The decisive factor for participation in the play-offs is the performance in the group phase of the Nations League 2022/23. Currently, the following teams have a place in the playoffs secured:

However, many of these teams will qualify through their respective groups and will not need a place in the playoffs. A team from Nations League league A is promoted to a vacant place in play-off path A.

If there are not enough teams for the four places in a league, a special feature applies: In this case, one of the two group winners from league D, who otherwise would not have access to the play-offs, moves up. The two group winners were Latvia and Estonia.

What the German team is doing during this time

The qualification takes place without the German national team. For both the qualifiers for Euro 2016 and the World Cup 2022, UEFA allowed the host associations from France and Qatar to play in a group as a guest team out of competition. However, national coach Hansi Flick and the then sports director Oliver Bierhoff decided against such an approach in October 2022.

“This gives us the greatest possible flexibility when designing the international match phases next year and we can optimally prepare for the EM 2024 against several strong friendly opponents.”said Bierhoff, who no longer works for the DFB, as justification.

So far, the opponents are Peru in Mainz (March 25th, 2023) and Belgium in Cologne (March 28th, 2023) – both games will be broadcast in the audio live stream. According to information from the sports show, games against Ukraine in Bremen, Poland in Warsaw and Uruguay in Gelsenkirchen are to follow in June, but these games have not yet been officially confirmed.

When are tickets available?

The organizers of UEFA and DFB have published neither the ticket prices nor a date for the start of advance sales. At the EM 2021, the cheapest tickets for the group games in Munich cost 50 euros.

*The prices in brackets apply to Baku, Budapest and Bucharest in 2021.

Only tickets for the VIP seats are already on sale, tickets for several thousand euros are available there. For example, if you want to watch all six games in the Berlin Olympic Stadium from the best seats, you have to pay 19,967.00 euros including VAT. According to current plans, however, there will be no standing room; UEFA has allowed standing room in the European Cup this season for the first time since 1998 on a test basis.

How to deal with Russia and Belarus

Russia’s team has been banned by UEFA. Regarding the EURO qualifiers, UEFA only stated that “Russia does not take part in the draw“So UEFA kept the option open to react to an improvement in the situation. This has not happened so far. The Court of Arbitration for Sport CAS confirmed the suspension of all Russian teams in February, and the qualification will begin without Russia.

Belarus have remained eligible to play in UEFA competitions since the beginning of the war, despite repeated calls from European politicians to exclude the team, like the Russian team. However, the Belarusian team always has to play their home games on neutral ground without fans.

When to play

In the groups, the kick-off time will always be 8.45 p.m., in exceptional cases 6 p.m. According to UEFA, games at the weekend should also take place at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. as standard.