EURO 2020 – what are we in for?

 Postponed from last year, EURO 2020 will now take place from 11 June to 11 July in 11 countries and 11 stadiums. While 11 as a number of players is also very important in football, these facts all come by coincidence though. Initial plans were for the tournament to be held in even more cities, but the current and past circumstances have dictated terms on this matter.

 

The opening game will take place in Rome on 11 June and will see a rejuvenated Italy facing a highly-motivated Turkey. 50 matches later, the tournament final will take at another iconic venue of European football, Wembley Stadium in London. In between 11 June and 11 July, many exciting stories will be created – and many a mile will be flown by the 24 teams involved in the competition.

Transavia Boeing 737-800 PH-HSV arriving at Basel-Mulhouse during EURO 2008, before a game between Italy and the Netherlands

 

Six groups – eleven host cities

 

Rome is one host city in Group A, with Baku being the other. They were the city pair with the furthest distance in the tournament before Bilbao was replaced as a host city with Seville. Group B is hosted by Denmark and Russia, in Copenhagen’s Parken stadium and Krestovsky Stadium in St. Petersburg, which had hosted games during the 2018 FIFA World Cup already.

 

Only one host plays in Group C, where the Netherlands have three home games in Amsterdam. The other host city is Bucharest, although Romania did not make the cut for the final tournament. Group D sees the classic confrontation of neighbours England and Scotland at Wembley, while Scotland host some more games at their own home of football, Hampden Park in Glasgow.

 

St. Petersburg has recently been upgraded to a double quota of group stage games and will also see action in Group E. This group has seen both hosting cities being changed in recent weeks, as games from Dublin have been moved to St. Petersburg, while games initially scheduled in Bilbao will now take place in Seville. The tightest groups of all, Group F, sees action in Munich’s Allianz Arena and Puskas Arena in Budapest.

Munich has hosted a Champions League Final in 2012, with many interesting visitors, such as this Virgin Atlantic Airbus A340-600 and the Thomas Cook Scandinavia Airbus A330-300 behind.

 

How will it unfold?

 

The first two teams out of the six groups of four will advance to the round of 16. They will join the four best third-placed teams there. From the round of 16, it is a knock-out tournament, where some of Europe’s football heavy-weights could face each other really early, like Italy and Spain in 2016. The nature of the 2021 tournament means that every team that advances further into the tournament will at some point need to change the venue.

 

Not too long ago, the decision was taken by UEFA to allow fans at every ground, although Budapest will most likely be the only place where we will get to see a full arena. Ticket re-allocations due to the reduced capacities and venue changes are still going on. This means that for the interested spotters, it will only be possible to gauge the amount of charter flights once the process is finished, which should happen until the end of May.

 

Reduced possibilities in air travel since 2020 and some relatively remote destinations like Glasgow or Baku will surely be at the source of some interesting aerial movements in June and July. Some scheduled carriers have made first signs of adding capacity to some key routes. More of this will be the main topic of the next post to come.