The tournament is set to commence on the 11th of June.
It’s just a few days until the 2021 European Championship finals kick-off. Despite the absence of the Republic of Ireland from the tournament, there’s an air of excitement around the country at the prospect of summer football – particularly given the presence of fans at the games.
The first match is set to take place on the 11th of June as Italy face Turkey at the Stadio Olimpico. There will then be a handful of fixtures every day until the end of the group stages on the 23rd of June. The knockout stages then begin on the 26th of June.
With the tournament approaching quickly, here’s a reminder of the groups and the teams within them, including some of each country’s top players.
GROUP A
Italy (Marco Verratti, Ciro Immobile, Lorenzo Insigne) Switzerland (Denis Zakaria, Granit Xhaka, Haris Seferović) Turkey (Burak Yılmaz, Hakan Çalhanoğlu, Çağlar Söyüncü) Wales (Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey, Daniel James)
GROUP B
Belgium (Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Youri Tielemans) Denmark (Kasper Schmeichel, Christian Eriksen, Thomas Delaney) Finland (Glen Kamara, Teemu Pukki, Fredrik Jensen) Russia (Aleksandr Golovin, Artem Dzyuba, Mario Fernandes)
GROUP C
Austria (David Alaba, Marcel Sabitzer, Sasa Kalajdzic) Netherlands (Frenkie de Jong, Memphis Depay, Georginio Wijnaldum) North Macedonia (Ezdzan Alioski, Goran Pandev, Eljif Elmas) Ukraine (Oleksandr Zinchenko, Ruslan Malinovskyi, Viktor Tsygankov)
GROUP D
Croatia (Luka Modrić, Marcelo Brozović, Andrej Kramarić) Czech Republic (Tomáš Souček, Alex Král, Patrik Schick) England (Harry Kane, Jadon Sancho, Phil Foden) Scotland (John McGinn, Andrew Robertson, Kieran Tierney)
GROUP E
Poland (Robert Lewandowski, Wojciech Szczęsny, Piotr Zieliński) Slovakia (Marek Hamšík, Milan Škriniar, Juraj Kucka) Spain (Thiago Alcántara, Gerard Moreno, Dani Olmo) Sweden (Alexander Isak, Dejan Kulusevski, Victor Lindelöf)
GROUP F
France (Karim Benzema, Kylian Mbappé, N'Golo Kanté) Germany (Toni Kroos, Joshua Kimmich, Manuel Neuer) Hungary (Péter Gulácsi, Willi Orbán, Ádám Szalai) Portugal (Cristiano Ronaldo, Rúben Dias, Bruno Fernandes)
