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Photo: Wikipedia |
Sweden had some luck when the drawing for the 2012 European championship was made today. The Netherlands is the toughest competitor, but looking at the rest of the teams, it could have been worse.
Except Holland, Sweden will play with Hungary (again), Finland, Moldova and San Marino. The winner of the group qualifies for the tournament. As do the best of the second placed teams in all the groups. The rest of the second placed teams will play another qualification round against eachohter.
Sweden failed to qualify for the World Cup in South Africa this summer. Thus the next time, they will play other than friendly games is this autumn when the qualification games for Euro 2012 starts.
There is a new manager for the Swedish team. Erik Hamrén has replaced Lars Lagerbäck who took his country to five successive championships before failing to qualify for this year’s World Cup. One of the biggest topics of discussion is if the brightest star in the time, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, shall continue to play for the national team or not.
Event though the draw could have been worse, both Finland and Hungary can create problems for the Swedes. Finland has done some very good results recentelly and Hungary has cretaed problems before. Most Swedes remember for example how Zlatan Ibrahimovic won the game for his team with a last second (!) goal on over time in Budapest this automn.
All the groups:
Group A: Germany, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan
Group B: Russia, Slovakia, Ireland, Macedonia, Armenia, Andorra
Group C: Italy, Serbia,Northern Ireland, Slovenia, Estonia, Faroe Islands.
Group D: France, Romania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Belarus, Albania, Luxemburg.
Group E: The Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Moldova, San Marino
Group F: Croatia, Greece, Israel, Latvia, Georgia, Malta
Group G: England, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Wales, Montenegro.
Group H: Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Cyprus, Iceland
Group I: Spain, Czech Republic, Scotland, Lithuania, Liechtenstein
The tournament will be played in Poland and Ukraine in the summer of 2012, thus these two countries are already qualified. Playing cities will be Warsaw, Gdánsk, Wroclaw and Poznán in Poland and Kiev, Lviv, Kharkiv and Donetsk in Ukraine.