Euro 2024 Qualifiers: How Did The 24 Teams Qualify for Germany?

Fifty-three countries began the UEFA Euro 2024 qualifiers for Germany in March 2023. Germany qualified as hosts, but the other countries fought for the final 23 spots at the prestigious event. Euro 2024 qualifying ended in March 2024. 

The year-long qualification, which took place in conjunction with the 2022/23 UEFA Nations’ League, decided which 23 countries earned a place at the seventeenth edition of the UEFA European Championships. Euro 2024 begins June 14 and ends July 14. The tournament will be played across ten German cities during the European summer.

The continent’s best teams will spend the next month battling for European supremacy. SportsBoom has put together a reminder of the teams who qualified for the 2024 UEFA European Championship, and how they got to Germany to contest the world’s second-most watched football tournament. 

How Many Teams Qualified For Euro 2024?

Twenty-four nations qualified for EUFA Euro 2024. The qualifying group stages decided 20 of the 23 countries, who would join Germany at UEFA Euro 2024. After the group-stage qualifiers, the remaining three countries were decided by one-legged play-offs, held in March 2024. Fifty-three UEFA member associations were divided into ten groups. Russia was ineligible to compete because of their invasion of Ukraine.

Seven groups contained five countries, and three groups had six. On October 9, 2022, the draw for Euro 2024 qualifying took place in Frankfurt, following the end of the league phase of the 2022/23 UEFA Nations League. The four Nations League countries were drawn into groups with five teams. This made them able to play in the Nations League Finals in June 2023. 

The Euro 2024 qualifying group stage phase was decide by a home-and-away, round-robin format on double matchdays in March, June, September, October, and November 2023. The ten group winners and runners-up qualified directly to Euro 2024.

After the qualifying group stage, twelve countries were selected based on their overall display at the UEFA Nations League. 

The countries got divided into three paths, each containing four sides, with one side from each path qualifying for Euro 2024.

The group winners of Nations Leagues A, B, and C automatically qualified for the play-off path of their league, unless they qualified for the final tournament through the Euro 2024 qualifying group stage. 

Had a group winner already qualified through the Euro 2024 qualifiers group stage, they would be replaced by the next best-ranked country in the same league. If there were not enough non-qualified countries in the same league, then the place would be given to the best-ranked group winner of League D, unless that team had already qualified for the final tournament. The remaining available places were allocated to the next best team in the Nations League ranking. The group winners of Leagues B and C could not, however, face teams from a higher league.

The three Euro 2024 qualifying play-off berths featured two one-off semi-finals, and a one-match final. In the semi-finals, the best-ranked country hosted the lowest-ranked country, and the second-ranked country hosted the third-ranked. The host of the final was drawn between the pairs of winners from the semi-finals. The three play-off route winners joined the 20 EUFA Euro qualifiers who had already booked their tickets to Germany via the group stage.

Euro 2024 Qualification: Prohibited Fixtures

Different political reasons meant fixtures between the following pairs of countries were prohibited during Euro 2024 qualifying. Russia was banned from entering any FIFA or UEFA competitions, but these sets of countries were unable to be drawn into the same group: Armenia / Azerbaijan, Belarus / Ukraine, Gibraltar / Spain, Kosovo / Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo / Serbia.

Europe is vast. Excessive travel times and distances made certain fixtures illogical for logistical reasons. This meant many countries could not be drawn against each other. UEFA deemed a maximum of one pair of teams identified with excessive travel distances in relation to other countries could not be placed in each group.

Azerbaijan could not be paired with either Gibraltar, Iceland, or Portugal. Iceland could not be drawn with Cyprus, Georgia, or Israel. (Armenia was identified with Iceland for excessive travel distance; however, both countries were placed in the same pot for the draw). 

Kazakhstan could not be drawn in the same group as Andorra, England, France, Gibraltar, Iceland, Malta, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Spain, or Wales. (The Faroe Islands were also identified with Kazakhstan for excessive travel distance; however, both countries were placed in the same pot for the draw).

Euro 2024 Group Stage: Team Breakdown

The 24 UEFA Euro 2024 qualifiers were divided into four pots before being drawn into six groups: Group A to F. Germany, the hosts, go into Group A after being seeded first in Pot 1, A1, as happens every tournament with all UEFA European Championship tournaments. At the time of the draw, the three play-off winners (Poland, Georgia, and Ukraine) had not qualified. They were placed, however, placed into Pot 4 for the Euro 2024 draw.

Pot 1: Germany (Host), qualification group winners ranked 1 to 5
Pot 2: Group winners ranked 6 to 10, group runners-up ranked 1 (6 to 11)
Pot 3: Group runners-up ranked 2 to 7 (12 to 17)
Pot 4: Group runners-up ranked 8 to 10 (18 to 20), play-off winners A - C (unknown at the time of the draw)

Euro 2024 Finals Draw

Group A: Germany, Scotland, Hungary, Switzerland
Group B: Spain, Croatia, Italy, Albania
Group C: Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England
Group D: Poland, Netherlands, Austria, France
Group E: Belgium, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine
Group F: Turkey, Georgia, Portugal, Czech Republic

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