The 24 teams have been placed into six groups, and we’ve already begun circling matchups on our calendar (England-Wales, anyone?).
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The Ballymena man, along with the country’s footballing public, is eagerly awaiting to find out who Northern Ireland will play in their first appearance ata major tournament finals since 1986.
More than 100,000 fans from the United Kingdom and Ireland are expected to travel to France, with supporters of Wales and Northern Ireland relishing their first chance to attend a finals tournament in 58 and 30 years respectively. We’ve got it all to look forward to, and I’m very, very excited about the summer.
“We are serious about being in a position to win the World Cup in 2022 and every tournament until then – there are three with the Euros, Russia 2018 and Euro 2020 – have to be platforms for improvement”.
“It means we must be fully concentrated from the first game”, Loew said.
“One of the things we will be concerned with will be stopping Gareth Bale and limiting his chances but I would like to think we have one or two players that will occupy Welsh minds in terms of how we stop them”.
England boss Hodgson said: “As far as I’m concerned let’s bring it on now and I only hope on the night my team will perform at the level I hope they can perform at”.
“But you look around all the coaches here and you feel so honoured and proud to be here, representing Wales”. We are going there to win the tournament.
Group E: Belgium, Italy, Republic of Ireland, Sweden.
‘Naturally, you’re talking about Italy, who are effectively a Pot One team.
Coleman said: “Against anyone on our day, and we’ve proved it, we’re a good team and hard to play against”.
“We’re looking forward to the draw”.
Antonio Conte’s side will open up their campaign against Belgium on the 13th June, four days later Italy face Sweden and the Republic of Ireland on the 22nd June. “I watched Sweden in the play-off games and they were quite strong”.
Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill said: “It’s good we are playing Germany last – they were the team from the top seeds including England that I wanted to avoid”. I just think it would be a distraction.
“The opening match is a mouth-watering fixture against Poland”.
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“If we’re honest it might be a little bit early but we have (Gary) Cahill, (Ross) Barkley, (John) Stones and a very good keeper (Joe Hart)”.
