The 2024 European Football Championship, which kicked off June 15, has reached its knockout stages with 16 of the 24 teams that started the tournament filing out in the next rounds.
It has indeed been an action packed tournament so far with a few exciting upsets here and there, the latest being the 2-0 stunning of one of the favourites Portugal by a much less fancied Georgia. Portugal qualified however despite the defeat at the top of Group F.
The countries that qualified for the knockout stage are Portugal, Turkey and Georgia (Group F) hosts, Germany, and Switzerland (Group A), Spain and Italy (Group B), England, Denmark and Slovenia (Group C), Austria, France and Netherlands (Group D), and Romania, Belgium and Slovakia (Group E).
The first two teams in the groups qualified for the Round of 16, while the best third placed teams based on points qualified to make up the number.
At the end of the Round of 16, the winners will qualify for the quarter finals, which will be followed by the semifinals and the final that will played on July 14.
So far Spain has shown superiority in the games winning all its three matches and notching up maximum points. Germany has followed with two wins and one draw.
In the goal scoring terrain, Georgia’s Georges Mikautadze is leading the chart with three goals, while Germany’s Jamal Musiala and Niclas Fullkrug; Netherlands’ Cody Gakpo and Romania’s Razvan Marin and Slovakia’s Ivan Schranz are all joint second with two goals each.
The Round of 16 pairings look like this: Switzerland vs. Italy (June 29); Germany vs. Denmark (June29); England vs. Slovakia (June 30); France vs. Belgium (July 1); Portugal vs. Slovenia (July 1): Romania vs. Netherlands (July 2); and Austria vs. Turkey (July 2).
Georgia which upset Portugal were playing in the tournament for the first time; and it is the third time that Germany is hosting the tournament, and second time and a united Germany. Germany won the hosting rights ahead of Turkey.
Italy are the defending champions after they won the 2020 edition against England on penalties. Russia, which had been regulars at the tournament since 2000, were banned from this year’s tournament on the account of its war with Ukraine. It’s the first time a national team had been banned from the tournament.
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