Germany will have to cope with the pressure of being world champion in UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying. UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying has witnessed an unusually high number of surprise results so far, UEFA.com looks back at some of those that made the headlines.
The Soviet Union and Russia combined have also been involved in all 14 qualifying tournaments, as have Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic.
Their only failure was in their first participation, for the 1968 tournament. They are on a run of ten successful qualifications, broken only by EURO ’88, for which they qualified automatically as hosts.
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Of those ever-present nations, Spain have the most successful record, reaching the final tournament on nine occasions, including the 1964 event which they hosted. The most prolific qualifying country are West Germany/Germany, with ten successful attempts out of 11.
UEFA Play-offs
The play-offs will decide the last four places in the final tournament.
- October 2015 In UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying the group winners and runners-up plus the third-placed team with best record against the nations first, second, fourth and fifth in their section progress directly to join hosts France in the finals.
- The other eight third-placed sides will play off over two legs for the remaining four berths. The eight teams will be drawn into four ties with the draw procedure to be confirmed.
- Play-off match dates First legs: 12/13/14 November 2015 Second legs: 15/16/17 November 2015
Discounting host nation exemptions, France and Germany hold the record for consecutive qualifications, from 1992 to 2012. Like West Germany/Germany, the Soviet Union/Russia have enjoyed a record ten successful qualifications – but from a maximum 14 entries.
The best percentage record for a single country is shared by Germany and the Czech Republic, who both have a 100% success rate, with six and five qualifications respectively. Next best are Croatia, who have qualified four times out of five (80%), from 1996 to 2012.
There have been 14 qualifying tournaments for the UEFA European Championship with 11 countries participating in all of them: Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Spain and Turkey.
Excluding tournament hosts, 2016 organisers France among them, ten countries are on a run of multiple successful qualifications going into UEFA EURO 2016 – Germany (six), Czech Republic, Italy and Spain (five), Sweden (four), Croatia, Greece, Netherlands and Russia (three), and Portugal (two).
Henrikh Mkhitaryan said he would be glad to miss out in 12 months and targeted UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying success after being named Armenian footballer of the year for the fourth time in a row, and fifth in total, at a ceremony on Sunday.
“I would be very happy if next year someone else is named player of the year. It would be good for Armenia to have a player considered stronger than me,” said the 25-year-old midfielder, who topped the poll ahead of Dinamo Moskva goalkeeper Roman Berezovski and new Amkar Perm recruit Robert Arzumanyan. “In 2014 our national side had more setbacks than victories. I hope that next year it will be only wins.”
FC Basel 1893’s striker Breel Embolo has announced his decision to play for Switzerland in the future. The Cameroon born 17-year-old, who received the Swiss citizenship a few weeks ago, said in a statement on Basel’s homepage: “Unfortunately you cannot play for two national teams.
After thorough consideration I have decided that I will play for Switzerland, as it is the country in which I have spent most of my youth. This is not a decision against Cameroon, but it is a decision for Switzerland.”
Embolo made an appearance in all six UEFA Champions League group matches of Basel this season, providing one goal and one assist.
