Every single country in the whole world plays soccer. Every single country has a national team that tries extremely hard to be among the teams to take part in the World Cup, which is the largest and most televised global sporting event in the world. This is the most popular game on the planet, and every single tournament is attended by huge numbers of fans. One of the top tournaments in the football, or soccer, calendar is the European championships.
The 2016 edition of the UEFA European championships, commonly known as Euro 2016, is the fifteenth time this tournament has taken place. It takes place every four years, and takes place always in a European country, and is organised by UEFA. The next edition will take place in France, in June and July, 2016. Spain is the winner of the last two tournaments.
For the first time, there will be twenty four teams taking part, the format having been expanded from the sixteen team format that has been used since 1996. Under this new format, the finalists will contest a group stage of six groups of four teams, followed by the knockout stage and the final. Nineteen teams will play in the Euro 2016 France, with the hosts France, who automatically qualify as host nation.
The last four spots will be decided by a play off to take place in November 2015.
France was chosen as the host five years ago, after a bidding process in which they beat Italy and Turkey for the right to host the 2016 finals. The matches will be played in ten different French cities. It will be the third time that France hosts the championships, after the inaugural tournament in 1960, and the 1984 finals. The French team have won the European championship twice, in 1984 and 2000. The winners will earn the right to participate in the 2017 edition of the FIFA Confederations Cup, to be hosted by Russia.
The draw for Euro 2016
The draw for the finals will take place in Paris in December 2015. France as the host, will automatically be the A1 team, and Spain, as the title holders will be in the first group. The remaining 22 teams will be seeded according to UEFA, after the completion of the qualifying group stages
A child superhero, Super Victor, is the mascot chosen for the games. Marketing of the event will be a mammoth undertaking, both extremely expensive and comprehensive, and will involve every country which will be taking part in the football (soccer) Euro 2016 France tournament, and even those who are not.
Opportunities for Online Betting on the Beautiful Game
There are so many football or soccer tournaments being played globally that there are innumerable chances at soccer betting sites for punters to wager on the outcome, and for placing those bets. The situation can almost be called a punter’s dream, there are so many opportunities for a sizeable win. The games are so popular that this is probably the ideal sport for betting on.
Any of the online betting sites will offer a huge array of possible bets with exciting odds. Betting on soccer can be very lucrative, and it will help the punter to acquaint himself with the history of each team, statistics, the form of the players, the identity of the manager and many other variables.
