Bundesliga
Our tournament explainer has all the information you need before UEFA Euro 2024 comes to Germany this summer.
bundesliga.com guides you through everything you need to know about the tournament in Germany…
What is Euro 2024?
European football organising body UEFA holds a European Championship contested by national teams every four years. The next edition will be held in Germany in summer 2024, and is called Euro 2024.
The competition takes a similar format to the World Cup – six groups of four teams will be contested on a round-robin basis, with the top two in each group and four best third-placed teams progressing to a knockout phase.
Things then get very tense, with the 16 remaining teams playing a series of elimination rounds, with extra-time and penalty shoot-outs required if scores are level. The final two teams will contest a final, with the winners to be crowned European champions – and sure to become heroes of their own nation.
Watch: Berlin’s Olympiastadion will host the final
Which countries are competing?
While Germany qualified as hosts, a remaining 53 teams competed throughout the year-long qualification process to determine the remaining 23 spots at the tournament. The final 24 qualified nations were drawn into six groups of four as follows:
Group A
Germany, Scotland, Hungary, Switzerland
Group B
Spain, Croatia, Italy, Albania
Group C
Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England
Group D
Netherlands, Austria, France, Poland
Group E
Belgium, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine
Group F
Türkiye, Portugal, Czech Republic, Georgia
When is Euro 2024?
The tournament will be played out over a month from 14 June to 14 July 2024 – with a total of 51 matches being contested to find which team succeeds Italy as European champions.
Where will Euro 2024 be played?
As host country, all the matches are to be played in Germany.
A total of 10 stadiums are to be used – those of current Bundesliga clubs Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, VfB Stuttgart, Eintracht Frankfurt, RB Leipzig and Cologne, plus the homes of Bundesliga 2 clubs Hertha Berlin, Schalke, Hamburg and Fortuna Düsseldorf.
The opening match will be played in Munich on 14 June, and the final is to be contested at Berlin’s Olympiastadion on 14 July.
>>> Find out more about the 10 venues here
Watch: Fly through the Allianz Arena, the venue of the opening game
What will it be like to be in Germany during Euro 2024?
In one word – incredible!
If you are lucky enough to get a ticket – with sales starting in October 2023 – then you can get set for some keenly contested encounters as the continent’s biggest stars battle it out for glory.
Many people in Germany will be rekindling memories of 2006, when the country last hosted a major international tournament, the World Cup. That saw the birth of a popular new way of watching football – of fans gathering together in huge numbers to watch matches on giant screens in public spaces.
The phenomenon of ‘public viewing’ (to use the English phrase that has entered the German language) will be back in force up and down the country again during Euro 2024.
Berlin, for instance, has developed a tradition of hosting a ‘fan mile’ in the heart of the city. For Euro 2024 it is planning “the mother of all fan miles” in front of the iconic Brandenburg Gate, which will be turned into “the biggest goal in the world”.
Euro 2024 has already broken new ground by being the first European Championship to make sustainability a key component of its scheduling. The group stage has been arranged with three regional clusters to ensure fans can easily travel from venue to venue by public transport, and that they and teams are not unnecessarily crisscrossing the country.
Expect sunshine, face paint, fun and loads of football!
When were the Euros last held in Germany?
The newest generation of football fans in Germany got a taste of hosting a major tournament in 2021 when four games of the pan-Europe Euro 2020 were played at the Allianz Arena in Munich, including a quarter-final.
The only previous time Germany hosted the Euros was in 1988. However, the political partition at the time meant games were only played in West Germany. Those were in Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Hanover and Hamburg. There were no matches in Berlin. Germany made it to the semi-finals that year.
They had previously won the first international football tournament hosted on German soil, lifting the World Cup in 1974.
The 2005 Confederations Cup was the first tournament in reunified Germany as a warm-up to the 2006 World Cup.
Who is the Germany coach?
Julian Nagelsmann is set to become only the 12th person to lead Germany’s men into a major tournament after he succeeded Hansi Flick in September 2023, and only the fourth to do so on home soil.
The 36-year-old is attempting to follow in the footsteps of Sepp Herberger (1954 World Cup), Helmut Schön (Euro 1972 and 1974 World Cup), Jupp Derwall (Euro 1980), Franz Beckenbauer (1990 World Cup), Berti Vogts (Euro 1996) and Joachim Löw (2014 World Cup) as a title-winning Germany coach.
>>> Find out how Germany may line up come the Euros
Vote: Which players will make Nagelsmann’s squad?
Who will win Euro 2024?
We’ll just have to wait and see which team gets to lift the trophy as European champions in Berlin in July 2024, but you can expect plenty of twists and turns along the way.
>>> Find out more about the trophy here
Italy were gelled into an impressive team by coach Roberto Mancini in the last Euros, held in 2021 instead of 2020 as planned due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
England, runners-up last time, will be eager to win their first major tournament since 1966 – non more so than their captain and all-time record goalscorer, Harry Kane, now of Bayern.
Watch: Kane settling into German life at Bayern
France will be confident of going far in the tournament after narrowly missing out on lifting the 2022 World Cup, despite a Kylian Mbappé hat-trick in the final.
Spain, featuring Leipzig’s Dani Olmo, have a strong recent record in the tournament.
Level with Spain as the most successful side in European Championship history with three tournament wins are Germany. They will be hoping to give their country something to cheer, with massive young talents like Bayern’s Jamal Musiala and Bayer Leverkusen‘s Florian Wirtz poised to light up the event.
Whatever happens, Europe is all set for a feast of football in summer 2024 with Germany the place to be!
European Championship records
Most titles (team)
3 – Germany (1972, 1980, 1996) and Spain (1964, 2008, 2012)
Most titles (player)
2 – 13 players, including Rainer Bonhof for Germany in 1972 and 1980, and 12 of Spain’s consecutive winners in 2008 and 2012
Most appearances (team)
53 – Germany across 13 tournaments (also a record) – W27, D13, L13 (matches decided on penalties count as a draw)
Most appearances (player)
25 – Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)
Most goals scored
14 – Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)
Most goals scored in a single finals tournament
9 – Michel Platini (France, 1984)
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