EURO-2012: THE LOTS HAVE BEEN CAST

The football elites of more than 50 countries assembled at the Palace of Culture and Science in Poland in February.  The qualifying draw for the European Championship in 2012 was held in the grand, 235-metre-high building, built in Warsaw half a century ago.  Fifty-one countries -- with the exception of Ukraine and Poland, which qualify for the tournament finals as host nations -- took part.  After the gala opening ceremony of the draw, to the music of Chopin, famous Polish and Ukrainian footballers were introduced:  Oleg Blokhin and Andrey Shevchenko from Ukraine and Zbigniew Bonek and Andrzej Szarmach from Poland.  They were given the honour of drawing the containers with the names of the countries.  The containers were divided into six baskets according to the teams' ratings after the latest European Championship and qualifying games for the World Cup.  During the draw, according to procedure, the teams were distributed into 9 groups.  Six groups have six teams each, and three groups have 5 teams each.

During the draw, the famous international player Shevchenko picked the container with a piece of paper reading "Azerbaijan," and then almost added the Armenian team to the same group.  But the UEFA executive committee had earlier decided to put countries which have political tensions, Russia and Georgia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan, into different groups.  This decision was unprecedented:  until now, both FIFA and UEFA have insisted that games have to be played in spite of political differences.  Michel Platini noted:  We do not want political problems and rule them out from the outset.  In the preceding qualifying rounds, when I was not UEFA president, Armenia and Azerbaijan said that they simply did not want to play each other.  Imagine what would happen if history repeated itself."

The qualifying rounds for Euro-2012 will start on 3 September 2010 and end on 15 November 2011.  The teams which come first in each group and the team with the most points of those which come second in their groups, will qualify for the finals.  In addition, the eight remaining teams who come second in their groups will play each other in play-off games, and four of them will also qualify for the final tournament.

It has to be said that Azerbaijani fans know quite well the teams in Group A, in which Azerbaijan will play.  So our players will have to play new games against old acquaintances.

"I am very pleased with the result of the draw.  We will earn quite a lot of money from the game with the Germans and invest it in building new stadiums and into youth football.  We are very happy to play Germany again.  We can learn a lot, and we can play football against them.  We must make progress, and we are already are on the right track," said Berti Vogts, head coach of the Azerbaijani national team.

Be that as it may, the die is cast, as the saying goes.  The qualifying games kick off in September, and we have time to prepare.  We have to analyze the minutest details in order to be able to achieve major goals, not to win just 5 points as before.  Although the prospects of qualifying for the final tournament of the European Championship look somewhat remote, the Azerbaijani team simply must beat the Kazakhstani team in both games.  And we must at least display our strengths in the Austria and Belgium games.  Who knows, perhaps this time Berti Vogts will actually surprise even his compatriots?  For now, we offer our readers a brief review of the history of games between the Azerbaijani team and the teams in the same group.